Fission
*** Winner of the 2011 Reader Views Literary Award for Historical Fiction ***
First they tried to deny her.
Then they tried to destroy her.
But she survived to discover nuclear fission
and spark the race for the atomic bomb.
Imagine if you would, a story of greed and betrayal, intrigue and danger, war and destruction, the slaughter of the innocents on a biblical scale and the collapse of empire.
And imagine at the center of it all one little woman, brilliant but shy, victimized but resolute, and ultimately vindicated. What a story that would make!
Well, you don't have to imagine it, because that is the Lise Meitner story. And I didn't have to invent any of it - it's all true.
Praise for Fission
"Tom Weston's 'Fission' is an unforgettable book, and one that kept surprising me. He took a fantastic enough true story and transformed it into a quest for truth and recognition. His writing was fresh and fluid . . ."
"The author presents a vivid, inspiring portrait of scientific research at Imperial University in Vienna and Germany's University of Berlin. Readers who possess even scant knowledge about physics will be intrigued by Lise's close relationships with scientific luminaries such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. More thought- provoking is Lise's battle to establish herself as a physicist in a male-dominated profession . . ."
"I am indebted to the author for bringing forward this story of an incredible science heroine . . ."