Books with author Philip Wylie

A chilling what if? tale of nuclear apocalypse in the American heartland Philip Wylie’s gripping parable Tomorrow! describes a time in America when doomsday threatens to dawn at any moment. A nation’s worst nightmare is made palpably real, seen through the eyes of a diverse group of ordinary citizens in two adjacent Great Plains metropolises. Wylie brings this holocaust to life with blood-chilling detail in his extraordinary science fiction classic whose power to shock and terrify is as strong as ever more than fifty years after its original release. An unthinkable tomorrow is on the horizon. For the citizens of the neighboring Midwest cities of Green Prairie and River City, today marks the end of everything. Some are prepared to face the unthinkable; some refuse to believe it could ever happen. As the winter holidays approach, two young lovers share their dreams for the future, a corrupt bank officer fears the exposure of his crimes, and a wealthy matron, concerned only with status and prestige, wonders how she can ensure a marriage between her daughter and the scion of one of the city’s most important families. But on Christmas Day, when a terrible fire lights up the sky, all these petty human concerns become meaningless. And the destruction and horror wrought on that awful morning will only be the beginning of the end.

This book may change your life. It may save it. It is one of the most important—and most shocking—books ever written. Tomorrow! is a story of average, nice Americans living in the neighboring cities of Green Prairie and River City in Middle America. It is—until the sudden blitz—the story of the girl next door and her boyfriend; of the accountant who saw what was coming, and the rich old lady who didn’t; of engaging young kids, babies, “hoods,” a bank official who “borrowed” from a customer’s account. Then, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Condition Red is sounded, and this down-to-earth story of America’s Main Street becomes a shattering, vivid experience of the nightmare that human beings have cooked up for themselves. Tomorrow! can be read as a novel of pure suspense—if you dare. It is a thriller in which the apocalyptic technology of today is superimposed on the future. But the novel is also designed to show Philip Wylie’s conclusions about America’s dangerous vulnerability to dread, hysteria, and panic, as well as his recommendations about what must be done.

Gladiator concerns a scientist who invents an "alkaline free-radical" serum to "improve" humankind by granting the proportionate strength of an ant and the leaping ability of the grasshopper. The scientist injects his pregnant wife with the serum and his son Hugo Danner is born with superhuman strength, speed, and bulletproof skin. Hugo spends much of the novel hiding his powers, rarely getting a chance to openly use them. The novel is widely assumed to have been an inspiration for Superman, though no confirmation exists that Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were influenced by it.

This book may change your life. It may save it. It is one of the most important - and most shocking - books ever written. Tomorrow! Is a story of average, nice Americans living in the neighboring cities of Green Prairie and River City in Middle America. It is - until the sudden blitz - the story of the girl next door and her boyfriend; of the accountant who saw what was coming, and the rich old lady who didn't; of engaging young kids, babies, "hoods," a bank official who "borrowed" from a customer's account. Then, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Condition Red is sounded, and this down-to-earth story of America's Main Street becomes a shattering, vivid experience of the nightmare that human beings have cooked up for themselves. Tomorrow! can be read as a novel of pure suspense - if you dare. It is a thriller in which the apocalyptic technology of today is superimposed on the future. But the novel is also designed to show Philip Wylie's conclusions about America's dangerous vulnerability to dread, hysteria, and panic, as well as his recommendations about what must be done.