title: Atomic Dreams and the Nuclear Nightmare: The Making of Godzilla (1954)
author:  Peter H. Brothers 
description: I was seven years old when I first saw "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" and never quite got over the experience. The film fascinated me like no other and over the years became an obsession: I have seen the U.S. and Japanese version hundreds of time and have lectured on the film and its director Ishiro Honda at various conventions, clubs and libraries.<div>Just as I had waited 30 years for someone to write a book on Mr. Honda before writing one myself, I was amazed no one had devoted an entire book to the making of his greatest film and one of the perennial films of the 20th Century. To give you an idea of the volume of material in "Atomic Dreams," my book on Mr. Honda and his 25 fabulous fantasy films, "Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men," clocks-in at 464 pages, whereas my book on "Godzilla" is 348 pages on that one film!</div><div>The book took me a year and a-half to write and was made possible due to sales on "Mushroom Clouds" which made it possible for me to pay to have translations made on the Japanese material.</div><div>So now I have paid my modest tributes to Mr. Honda and Godzilla; who - or what - is next? </div>
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  **IS IT THUNDER—  
  
  
  OR FOOTSTEPS?**
  
  
  
  
  
  Ships are disappearing—the ocean boils and churns—seismograph measurements are
  jumping off the scale. A mysterious wave of destruction is making its way,
  step by step, from a remote Pacific atoll to the tiny concrete island known as
  Manhattan!
  
  
  
  
  
  As the towering terror methodically dismantles the Big Apple, skyscraper by
  skyscraper, nuclear scientist Nick Tatopolous is called in to do what the
  combined forces of the U.S. Army and Air Force can’t—  
  
  
  Stop GODZILLA!
  
  
  
  
  
  The authorized _GODZILLA_ novelization!  
  
  
  All the thrills of the NEW spectacular film from the creators of the smash hit
  _Independence Day._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ![](../Images/titlepage.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ![](../Images/harper.jpg) **HarperPrism**  
  
  
  _A Division of_ HarperCollins _Publishers_  
  
  
  10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 1998 by TriStar Pictures, Inc.  
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  GODZILLA, B