The novel “The Oppenheimer Alternative” by Robert J. Sawyer was published for the first time in 2020.

The Manhattan Project was started to create an atomic bomb that was originally intended to be used to strike the Nazi regime. The defeat of the Third Reich shifts the American effort to the Pacific, where the Japanese continue to fight. Only after two atomic bombs hit Japan, the Emperor agrees to surrender.

The use of atomic bombs leads to ethical and moral arguments that are no longer theoretical. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project, still finds himself making choices when the next step could be the development of a thermonuclear weapon. The stakes rise enormously when the analysis of solar activity readings indicates that the Sun will eject one of its layers which will hit the Earth and turn it into barren land.