
Dennis Meredith—The Czar Bomb
Dennis Meredith
Glyphus, LLC, September 3, 2025
Paperback $16.95, eBook, $4.99, Audio Book, $4.99
Paperback ISBN: 9781939118325
eBook ISBN: 9781939118318
Audio book ASIN: B0FL1HDFRK
Meredith reports:
The idea for The Czar Bomb began with my science writer’s curiosity, but real-life historical events gave me the plot. I had become fascinated by a stunning detonation in 1961 by the Soviets of a 50-megaton thermonuclear bomb—the largest human-made explosion in history. The Czar Bomb—its common nickname—was meant as a technological feat, but it also had profound political consequences—shocking the Soviets and Americans into arms negotiations.
The bomb could have been even larger. The Soviets purposefully dialed back its yield from 100 megatons, worried that a bomber wouldn’t be able to escape the blast. Envisioning a novel, I pondered how terrorists might use such a bomb, even though the chances of their obtaining one seemed zero.Then history gave me a path to a plot: In 1963, Nikita Khrushchev boasted that the Soviets had, indeed, built a 100-megaton bomb and, weirdly, hidden it in East Germany. So, such a bomb might exist! But who would want to use it? And how could they manage the huge project of finding and restoring it?
Again, history gave me a terrorist’s motives. The U.S. has killed civilians in errant drone strikes in Iraq, and the Iraq war produced huge civilian casualties. The terrorist character became an Iraqi oligarch bent on revenge for the death of his family in an American drone strike and for the Iraqi war casualties.
My protagonist became an American military historian who stumbled across documents hinting at the bomb’s existence. He is driven to try to exact his own revenge for the murder of his pregnant wife by a thief sent by the oligarch to steal the documents. He joins a CIA team seeking to capture the oligarch and the bomb.
I also needed a plausible way to smuggle that massive bomb to its target, Washington, D.C. Real life gave me the solution: The Russians have developed a stealth drone torpedo designed to carry a nuclear warhead long distances undetected.
Finally, real physics provided a way to contain a 100-megaton thermonuclear explosion, but revealing how that could occur would give away the ending!
The ebook of The Czar Bomb will be available free on Amazon from Wednesday, Sept. 3, to Friday, Sept. 5. To obtain the ebook, purchase it for $0.00. There will be no subscription obligation.
Contact info:
- Dennis Meredith, 760-451-6845, dennis@glyphus.com
- Meredith’s website: Dennis Meredith
- Blog: Research Explainer
- Book: The Czar Bomb
- Publicist: Glyphus, LLC, 760 451-6845, editor@glyphus.com
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