The Oppenheimer Alternative
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———. The Flying Trapeze: Three Crises for Physicists. Harper & Row, New York, 1969.
———. The Open Mind. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1955.
———. Science and the Common Understanding. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1953.
———. Uncommon Sense. Birkhauser, Boston, 1984.
Ottaviani, Jim, and Janine Johnston, Steve Lieber, Vince Locke, Bernie Mireault, and Jeff Parker. Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb. G.T. Labs, Ann Arbor MI, 2001.
Pais, Abraham, with Robert P. Crease. J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life. Oxford University Press, New York, 2006.
Polenberg, Richard, ed. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Security Clearance Hearing. Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY, 2002.
Royal, Denise. The Story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1969.
Schweber, Silvan S. Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2008.
———. In the Shadow of the Bomb: Bethe, Oppenheimer and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2000.
Smith, Alice Kimball, and Charles Weiner, eds. Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, 1980.
Stern, Philip M., with Harold P. Green. The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial. Harper & Row, New York, 1969.
Thorpe, Charles. Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006.
United States Atomic Energy Commission. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Security Board and Texts of Principal Documents and Letters. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1954.
Wolverton, Mark. A Life in Twilight: The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2008.
Wernher von Braun
Biddle, Wayne. Dark Side of the Moon: Wernher von Braun, the Third Reich, and the Space Race. W.W. Norton, New York, 2009.
Bower, Tom. The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Battle For the Spoils and Secrets of Nazi Germany. Michael Joseph, London, 1987.
Goudsmit, Samuel A. Alsos. Henry Schuman, New York, 1947.
Huzel, Dieter K. From Peenemünde to Canaveral. Englewood Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1962.
Jacobsen, Annie. Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America. Little Brown, New York, 2014.
Longmate, Norman. Hitler’s Rockets: The Story of the V-2s. Skyhorse, New York, 2009.
Neufeld, Michael J. Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007.
von Braun, Wernher. The Mars Project. University of Illinois Press, Urbana IL, 1991.
von Braun, Wernher. Project Mars: A Technical Tale. Apogee, Burlington ON, 2006 [von Braun’s novel, at last seeing print in English].
Other Historical Figures
Bodanis, David. Einstein’s Greatest Mistake: A Biography. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2016.
Clark, Ronald W. Einstein: The Life and Times. World Publishing Company, New York, 1971.
Fermi, Laura. Atoms in the Family. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1954 [Enrico Fermi].
Feynman, Richard P. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. Perseus Publishing, New York, 1999.
———. “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” W.W. Norton, New York, 1985.
———. What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character. W.W. Norton, New York, 1988.
Gleick, James. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. Vintage, New York, 1992.
Goodchild, Peter. Edward Teller: The Real Dr Strangelove. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2004.
Hargittai, Istvan. Judging Edward Teller: A Closer Look at One of the Most Influential Scientists of the Twentieth Century. Prometheus, New York, 2010.
———. The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, London, 2006 [Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Theodore Von Karman, John von Neumann, Eugene Wigner].
Herken, Gregg. Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller. Henry Holt, New York, 2002.
Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007.
Krauss, Lawrence M. Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science. W.W. Norton, New York, 2011.
Lanouette, William, with Bela Silard. Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1992.
Marton, Kati. The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2006 [Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann].
Orear, Jay, et. al. Enrico Fermi—The Master Scientist. The Internet-First University Press, Ithaca NY, 2004.
Pfau, Richard. No Sacrifice Too Great: The Life of Lewis L. Strauss. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, 1984.
Rigden, John S. Rabi: Scientist and Citizen. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1987.
Rolls, Jem. The Inventor of All Things. One-man play about Leo Szilard performed at fringe-theater festivals worldwide since 2015.
Schwartz, David N. The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age. Basic Books, New York, 2017.
Segrè, Gino, and Bettina Hoerlin. The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age. Henry Holt, New York, 2016.
Smith, P.D. Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon. Penguin, London, 2007 [Edward Teller].
Strauss, Lewis L. Men and Decisions. Doubleday, Garden City NY, 1962 [Strauss’s autobiography].
Streshinsky, Shirley, and Patricia Klaus. An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer’s Life. Turner, Nashville TN, 2013 [Kitty Oppenheimer, Jean Tatlock].
Teller, Edward, with Judith Shoolery. Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge MA, 2001.
VanDeMark, Brian. Pandora’s Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb. Back Bay Books, New York, 2009 [Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Arthur Holly Compton, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer, I.I. Rabi, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller].
Weart, Spencer R., and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, eds. Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1978.
York, Herbert. The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, 1976.
The Institute for Advanced Study
Arntzenius, Linda G. Institute for Advanced Study: Images of America. Arcadia, Charleston SC, 2011.
Batterson, Steve. Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study. AK Peters, Wellesley MA, 2006.
Dyson, George. Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe. Pantheon, New York, 2012 [John von Neumann].
Feldman, Burton. Einstein’s Genius Club: The True Story of a Group of Scientists Who Changed the World. Arcade, New York, 2011.
Flexner, Abraham, with Robbert Dijkgraaf. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2017.
Levy, Serge J-F. A Community of Scholars: Impressions of the Institute for Advanced Study. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2012.
Nasar, Sylvia. A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998.
Regis, Ed. Who Got Einstein’s Office? Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study. Addison-Wesley, Reading MA, 1987.
The Nature of Time and Space
Davies, Paul. How to Build a Time Machine. Penguin, New York, 2001.
Falk, Dan. In Search of Time: Journeys
Along a Curious Dimension. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 2008.
Gleick, James. Time Travel: A History. Pantheon, New York, 2016.
Gott, J. Richard. Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time. Houghton Mifflin, New York, 2001.
Halpern, Paul. The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality. Basic Books, New York, 2017.
Mallett, Ronald L., with Bruce Henderson. Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. Basic Books, New York, 2007.
Muller, Richard A. Now: The Physics of Time. W.W. Norton, New York, 2016.
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and Robert Serber. “On the Stability of Stellar Neutron Cores,” Physical Review, volume 54 (1938), page 608.
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and Hartland Snyder. “On Continued Gravitational Contraction,” Physical Review, volume 56 (1939), page 455.
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, and George Volkoff. “On Massive Neutron Cores,” Physical Review, volume 54 (1939), page 540.
Rovelli, Carlo. The Order of Time. Riverhead, New York, 2018.
Smolin, Lee, and Roberto Mangabeira Unger. The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 2015.
Thorne, Kip S. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. W.W Norton, New York, 1994.
Yourgrau, Palle. A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein. Basic Books, Cambridge MA, 2006.
Mars and Project Orion
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David, Leonard. Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet. National Geographic, Washington DC, 2016.
de Vaucouleurs, Gérard. Physics of the Planet Mars: An Introduction to Areophysics (translated by Patrick Moore). Faber and Faber, London, 1954.
Dyson, George. Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957-1965. Allen Lane, London, 2002.
Godwin, Robert, ed. Mars: The NASA Mission Reports, Volume One. Apogee, Burlington ON, 2000 [including Mariner IV].
Mallove, Eugene, and Gregory Matloff. The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer’s Guide to Interstellar Travel. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1989.
Morton, Oliver. Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World. Picador, New York, 2002.
Sheehan, William. The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1996.
Zubrin, Robert. The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996, 2011.
About the Author
ROBERT J. SAWYER is a Member of the Order of Canada, the highest honor bestowed by the Canadian government, as well as the Order of Ontario, the highest honor given by his home province. He was also one of the initial inductees into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, the first-ever recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississauga Arts Council, and the first-ever recipient of Humanist Canada’s Humanism in the Arts Award.
Rob is one of only eight writers ever to win all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo (which he won in 2003 for Hominids), the Nebula (which he won in 1996 for The Terminal Experiment), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (which he won in 2006 for Mindscan).
He’s also won the Robert A. Heinlein Award, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, and the Hal Clement Memorial Award; the top SF awards in China, Japan, France, and Spain; and a record-setting sixteen Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”). In addition, he’s received the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story of the Year.
Rob’s novel FlashForward was the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, and he was a scriptwriter for that program. He also scripted the two-part finale for the popular web series Star Trek Continues.
A twenty-year resident of Mississauga, Ontario, his website and blog are at sfwriter.com, and on Facebook, Patreon, and Twitter he’s RobertJSawyer.
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Novels by Robert J. Sawyer
Golden Fleece
End of an Era
The Terminal Experiment
Starplex
Frameshift
Illegal Alien
Factoring Humanity
FlashForward
Calculating God
Mindscan
Rollback
Triggers
Red Planet Blues
Quantum Night
The Oppenheimer Alternative
The Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy
Far-Seer
Fossil Hunter
Foreigner
The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy
Hominids
Humans
Hybrids
The WWW Trilogy
Wake
Watch
Wonder
For book-club discussion guides, visit sfwriter.com
Visit Robert J. Sawyer’s website for bonus features including:
notes on what’s fact and fiction in this novel
a book-club discussion guide
commentary on the chapter-head epigraphs
and a list of fun “Easter eggs” hidden in the text.