5. What does the phrase "Lucifer is fallen" signify?

[John]

5. What does the phrase "Lucifer is fallen" signify in this novel?

[Manuel]

These words, used at the beginning of the third part, mean that the second atomic war is about to start. They make reference to the fall of the devil from heaven to Earth, as in Isaiah 14:12-17, specially at the end:

16 Those who see you stare at you,
they ponder your fate:
“Is this the man who shook the earth
and made kingdoms tremble,
17 the man who made the world a wilderness,
who overthrew its cities
and would not let his captives go home?

[Jill]

All the references to nuclear war are terrifying. Striking that there was an article in the newspaper this week about a company doing a booming business in fallout shelters, probably in response to Trump and Kim Jong In. Is anyone else old enough to remember drills where we got under our desks, as if they would provide protection from nuclear fallout?! It hadn't occurred to me before that unleashing nuclear war is a close parallel to the Old Testament sinners immolating their own children in sacrifice to false gods.

[Fonch]

Jill wrote: "All the references to nuclear war are terrifying. Striking that there was an article in the newspaper this week about a company doing a booming business in fallout shelters, probably in response to..."

I think that in my opinion we read this novel in the best moment :-).

[Jill]

They use this phrase to refer to the mushroom cloud over the whole earth. "Sic transit mundus." I wonder how the spaceship could have escaped in time.

[Fonch]

Jill wrote: "They use this phrase to refer to the mushroom cloud over the whole earth. "Sic transit mundus." I wonder how the spaceship could have escaped in time."
I suppose that they took off before that they threw the atomic bomb over Saint Leobowitz Abbey.

[Jill]

But as they're still boarding the spaceship, they see mushroom clouds.

[Manuel]

Jill wrote: "But as they're still boarding the spaceship, they see mushroom clouds."

Well, yes, they ran the risk that an atom bomb would have fallen at short distance from the place where the spaceship was, but on the other hand this place would have been chosen in a desert, while bombs would be falling on cities.

Anyway, whatever the intensity of the war, the whole Earth would not have been affected immediately, that would come later, with the atomic winter and the climate change as a result of the war.

At the time this novel was written, the possible effects of a global atomic war were well studied. In 1963, Poul Anderson (another well-know author of sci-fi) published a popular science book titled "Thermonuclear warfare" explaining the main effects and consequences of a nuclear war. The effects would be similar to these of the impact of a large asteroid against the Earth, such as the one that put an end to dinosaurs and many other species at the end of the Cretacic period.

[Fonch]

Manuel wrote: "Jill wrote: "But as they're still boarding the spaceship, they see mushroom clouds."

Well, yes, they ran the risk that an atom bomb would have fallen at short distance from the place where the spa..."
The ending of the novel explored the posibility that animals survive to the Atomic War.

[John]

I am almost finished, but am finally going to tackle a few questions that have already come up in my reading.

When used in the headlines, I think it refers to the actual use of nuclear weapons in war.

[Manuel]

John wrote: "When used in the headlines, I think it refers to the actual use of nuclear weapons in war."

Right.