In Martha Bartter’s article “Nuclear Holocaust as Urban Renewal” (1986), she explores the deep ambivalence within tales of future atomic war. Authors, and their characters, yearn to “build, a new infinitely better world out of the old” (148), and what better way than to destroy all that was. Narratives often betray a sinister destructive urge. … Continue reading Short Story Reviews: Richard Matheson’s “Pattern for Survival” (1955) and Margaret St. Clair’s “Quis Custodiet…?” (1948)