The Jesus Factor

by Edwin Corley

What If The Atomic Bomb Doesn’t Work?The Strategic Air Command’s nuclear bombers are airborne. Six hundred Minutemen missile sites are switched on, prepared for attack. The U.S. nuclear submarine fleet is submerged and operating under sealed orders.Across the North Pole, Russia’s missile countdown is holding at two hours from zero. And Red China has mobilized and gone to Condition Yellow.Then, with the world only hours away from nuclear destruction, U.S. Senator Hugh McGavin What if the atomic bomb doesn’t work?What if it never worked?This startling new novel asks these questions – and more. It dramatizes the futile treadmill of the arms race; probes the collective guilt of the men who decided to drop the first atomic bomb against Japan; and leads again and again to theHow do you know the atomic bomb works? Did you ever see one go off? Or have you merely seen newsreels that could have been faked?The Jesus Factor moves from Washington to Hiroshima, from Moscow to a tiny island named Tinian in the South Pacific, where the young Hugh McGavin flew the first atomic bombing mission in 1945. Now he puts the pieces of a fantastic puzzle together andWhy is the Jesus Factor the best kept secret in human history?

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

aka Patrick Buchanan, David Harper

Edwin Ray Corley was born on October 22nd, 1931, in Bayonne, New Jersey, and passed away on November 7th, 1981, in Gulfport, Mississippi. During the intervening 50 years, his career varied from that of an underage Air Force staff sergeant to a carnival fire-eater to a vice-president of a leading advertising agency.

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somewhat ironically for a book that posits that nuclear bombs don't work when dropped from aeroplanes or launched in missiles, this is a book that builds up hugely to a major damp squib. There isn't really much to this book apart from the suggestion that nukes don't work, a notion trailed prominently on the front and back covers, incidentally, yet Corley's story builds up to this huge secret over the course of 150-200 pages. Then it's quickly explained how the trick was done, and everything is swiftly wrapped up in a non-dramatic fashion. Overall, this wasn't exciting or particularly enjoyable, hanging on for the sole reason that the details of some second-rate conspiracy theory nonsense might be revealed. Bah!

[Fizzixmeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

STILL great after 30 years!!

I read this years(!) ago and got a hankering to read it again, just to see...
After all these years the writing, the imagination and the possibilities still hold up solidly! Thanks, Edwin!

[Jeanenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although a heavy topic... this story is original and explores the nuclear bomb in a whole new concept. Short, easy paperback that can be read in a day. If you want something completely different... give this a shot.

[Donald Bradham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thought-provoking.

[Dean S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was a great book! Nothing we were told about history is true. So this is a very thought provoking book!
Your government would never lie to you, right?

[Geoff Field · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story, clearly showing a depth of research and good pacing.
Because the book was falling apart, I've just put it in the paper recycling.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in my early teens - pretty much before I knew that Counterfactual Historical Fiction and Alternate History were any kind of Thing. It does read like yr average Airport Novel (if you know what I mean and I think you do...), but plays some interesting games with the past and the novel's present (which from the perspective of the 21st Century is now its own kind of alternate history). As a WWII buff, I found it to be clever and really enjoyable - it still holds up. Bonus phun fact - published in 1970, the novel anticipates the still unacknowledged-in-public fact of the Israeli nuclear arsenal.

[Britton Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining fiction book. It seems to have very real descriptions of what it would have been like to be in the group that learned/trained/dropped the first atom bombs. It is somewhat disturbing ending though. It did catch me off guard a bit, but I like that in a book.

[Rob Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if the bomb did not work?

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the cover of the book hadn't given away the whole thing, this pleasant little Cold War conspiracy book would have been pleasanter.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend sent me this book and it was really different. It seems truthful but it is fiction about the atomic bomb and the secrets of our elected officials.

[Canavan · Rating 2 out of 5]

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