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Shambling Towards Hiroshima (2009)

por James Morrow

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Fiction. Science Fiction. Historical Fiction. HTML: Theodore Sturgeon Award winner Nebula and Hugo Award nominee It is the early summer of 1945, and war reigns in the Pacific Rim with no end in sight. Back in the States, Hollywood B-movie star Syms Thorley lives in a very different world, starring as the Frankenstein-like Corpuscula and Kha-Ton-Ra, the living mummy. But the U.S. Navy has a new role waiting for Thorley, the role of a lifetime that he could never have imagined. The top secret Knickerbocker Project is putting the finishing touches on the ultimate biological weapon: a breed of gigantic, fire-breathing, mutant iguanas engineered to stomp and burn cities on the Japanese mainland. The Navy calls upon Thorley to don a rubber suit and become the merciless Gorgantis and to star in a live drama that simulates the destruction of a miniature Japanese metropolis. If the demonstration succeeds, the Japanese will surrender, and many thousands of lives will be spared; if it fails, the horrible mutant lizards will be unleashed. One thing is certain: Syms Thorley must now give the most terrifyingly convincing performance of his life. In the dual traditions of Godzilla as a playful monster and a symbol of the dawn of the nuclear era, Shambling Towards Hiroshima unexpectedly blends the destruction of World War II with the halcyon pleasure of monster movies. .… (más)

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No Morrow book is going to be lightweight, but this one is pretty breezy for most of its running time (this being a book immersed in movies). Just to manage expectations, the story is framed inside a very long suicide note. That kicks off a bit of alternate history bordering on secret history. It turns out the US had three plans to end the war with Japan: the bomb, a biological weapon, and giant fire-breathing lizards. This is about that last idea. The behemoths exist but the government hopes to avoid killing of innocent civilians by giving the Japanese a live demo, using a dwarf behemoth (!) rampaging through a scale model city. When that falls through, they decide to go the rubber suit approach, engaging our protagonist, a wise-cracking star of popular monster B movies of the 1940s. Most of the book is his story of this operation. Things move along quickly with tons of references to real movies and people of the time. Things become serious at the end, in very Morrow fashion, though not what I was predicting. As usual, there's a great deal of sympathy for many of the characters, which I always appreciate.

Definitely recommended. (

)

ChrisRiesbeck | Apr 24, 2023 |

One of James Morrow's lighter works, Shambling Towards Hiroshima could also have been aptly titled Theater of War, as the monster movie machine of Hollywood meets the war machine of the Pentagon. An epistolary tale in the form of a lengthy suicide note written by screenwriter and rubber-monster-suit actor Syms Thorley, in which he laments his involvement in a failed attempt to use the threat of military-controlled giant monsters to end World War 2.

There is much in Morrow's novel about monsters of war both real and imagined, but this morose contemplation on horror as entertainment in the Hiroshima shadows of truly monstrous acts is playfully wrapped up in a Hollywood satire. In fact, Morrow does such a good job of blending real film history with the films and filmmakers of his alternate universe that it can be hard separating truth from fiction, and considering the backdrop of propaganda-driven fictions attempting to manipulate the real world, this is probably meant to enhance/enforce the novel's overall metaphor.

This isn't Morrow's first book to tangle with the dark realities of nuclear war, but it is far less morose than This Is the Way the World Ends, and possibly even a tad more hopeful. (

)

smichaelwilson | Mar 5, 2019 |

Framed as an extended suicide note, the fictionalized memoir stylings of this James Morrow satire reminded me more than a little of the delightful novels of Lee Siegel. Topically, however, it was a fit with my recent read of Kim Stanley Robinson's Lucky Strike, as science fictional reflections on human agency in the atrocity of the deployment of the atomic bomb.

The narrator of Shambling Towards Hiroshima is Syms Thorley, an emeritus monster actor of B-movie fame. While sometimes adverting to his 1980s circumstance in the wake of a fan convention at a Baltimore hotel, the book is mostly trained on his past involvement in a secret WWII military project intended to provoke Japanese military capitulation in the face of actual fire-breathing leviathans bred from iguanas.

The book is a quick read, with vivid, often hilarious episodes and an ultimately sobering message.

paradoxosalpha | Mar 4, 2019 |

This has a little bit of the Vonnegut flair (and I mean that in a very good way) in that it travels with a quirky character across absurd circumstances but by the end drops one unceremoniously back into reality viewed from a deeply moral (not to mention outraged) perspective, but Morrow is his own author with his own style. Yes, this was not his best work; I felt a little bogged down somewhere in the middle, wishing I were more of a monster movie enthusiast. That said, I read anything (and will continue to read anything) that is published by Morrow. His God trilogy is definitely worth the time. Oh, and I love this title! (

)

bibleblaster | Jan 23, 2016 |

Can you satirise B movies? Shambling has a damm good go at it, but I'm really not sure that choosing the US Governments plans to atomic bomb Hiroshima was the best backdrop that could have been chosen. It does come across as very insensitive.

The 'plot' such as it is, is that rather than bomb the Japanese people the US navy had a second better plan which was to develop GM style Godzillas that could do the job instead. And in order to not have to actually release their Behemoths' they would stage a show for the ambassadors to terrify them into surrendering. Our 'hero' is the actor chosen to play the monster instead of the scaled down version which didn't live long enough.

It might have been funnier if I'd watched more B movies and had more idea about the history f some of the films and concepts but mostly it is just silly. (

)

reading_fox | Jul 1, 2014 |

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In the end, reading this book felt like listening to an oldies station. And to the extent that Morrow fails to grapple with this disconnect, the book remains a charming and nostalgic romp and not the powerful political satire that Morrow is capable of delivering.

añadido por Shortride | editarFantasy & Science Fiction, Chris Moriarty (Jan 1, 2010)

The latest book by famed satirist Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima might be the silliest book I've read in ages, which is saying a lot considering how silly some of the others have been. And yet you sort of take its demented scenario half-seriously despite yourself, because the narrator's bitchy stream of observations feel so true-to-catty-life.

añadido por PhoenixTerran | editario9, Charlie Jane Anders (Dec 18, 2008)

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Premios

Hugo Award (Nominado – Novela corta – 2010)

Locus Award (Finalista – Novela corta – 2010)

Nebula Award (Nominado – Novela corta – 2009)

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award (Ganador – 2010)

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2009

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Baltimore, Maryland, USA

California, USA

China Lake Naval Ordnance Test Station, Mojave Desert, California, USA

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Los Angeles, California, USA

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Acontecimientos importantes

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Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)

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"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine."
—The Tempest V, i

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to
Vincent Singleton
my Tennessee Taoist

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Whether this memoir will turn out to be the world's longest suicide note, or instead the means by which I might elude the abyss, only time can tell: a precise interval of time, in fact, the twenty-five hours that stretch between the present moment, Sunday, October 8, 1984, 11:06 A.M., and my presumed departure tomorrow on the noon shuttle to the airport.

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"There's never been an arsenal like this. We can thank our lucky stars that Hitler never got the lizard."

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Fiction. Science Fiction. Historical Fiction. HTML:

Theodore Sturgeon Award winner
Nebula and Hugo Award nominee
It is the early summer of 1945, and war reigns in the Pacific Rim with no end in sight. Back in the States, Hollywood B-movie star Syms Thorley lives in a very different world, starring as the Frankenstein-like Corpuscula and Kha-Ton-Ra, the living mummy. But the U.S. Navy has a new role waiting for Thorley, the role of a lifetime that he could never have imagined.
The top secret Knickerbocker Project is putting the finishing touches on the ultimate biological weapon: a breed of gigantic, fire-breathing, mutant iguanas engineered to stomp and burn cities on the Japanese mainland. The Navy calls upon Thorley to don a rubber suit and become the merciless Gorgantis and to star in a live drama that simulates the destruction of a miniature Japanese metropolis. If the demonstration succeeds, the Japanese will surrender, and many thousands of lives will be spared; if it fails, the horrible mutant lizards will be unleashed. One thing is certain: Syms Thorley must now give the most terrifyingly convincing performance of his life.
In the dual traditions of Godzilla as a playful monster and a symbol of the dawn of the nuclear era, Shambling Towards Hiroshima unexpectedly blends the destruction of World War II with the halcyon pleasure of monster movies.

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