Pushbutton War

Martino, Joseph Paul, 1931-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 43K words
Chapters: 5

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Pushbutton War by Joseph Paul MartinoAuthor: Martino, Joseph Paul, 1931-,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 2, 2008

Editor's review

Pushbutton War is an English-language novel by Joseph Paul Martino, available in the Gutenberg Project and classified under American and Canadian literature. Judging from the title and the author's twentieth-century technological context, the work carries an imaginative quality about technologized warfare and automated decision-making, and readers may regard it as a sample of early science-fiction sensibilities. The Gutenberg edition is a public-domain e-book with a low barrier to access, making it light material for reading in the original English. Its value lies not in grand narrative but in offering a window onto how mid-twentieth-century American popular literature responded to technological anxiety. When reading, it is advisable to treat it as a period text rather than a contemporary military forecast, focusing on the characters' situation under the pushbutton-war premise and on the author's language style. It suits readers interested in early science fiction, American popular fiction, and public-domain e-books who want to read in spare moments, and it also works as short material for English reading practice.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in mid-twentieth-century American popular fiction and early science fiction
English learners who want light reading practice with public-domain English e-books
Literature enthusiasts studying technological imagination and war narratives
Readers accustomed to reading short fiction on electronic devices

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting contemporary hard science fiction or rigorous military speculation
Beginners who need a Chinese translation or detailed annotations
Readers of deep novels who prefer long, complex character arcs

Reading tips

First read through to grasp the plot, then go back to the author's descriptions of the technological premise.
Place the work in its mid-twentieth-century technological context to understand the source of its anxiety.
Mark unfamiliar words first and look them up together afterward, so as not to interrupt the reading rhythm.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?

The original is in English and is a public-domain e-book released by the Gutenberg Project. The materials do not indicate a Chinese translation, so reading it requires some English proficiency.

What literary category does it belong to?

The materials classify it under American and Canadian literature. Given the title and the author's background, it can be regarded as popular fiction with a technological-imagination dimension; the specific plot should be based on the original text.

Is it suitable for learning English?

It can serve as light English reading material, though length and difficulty vary by e-book edition. It is advisable to sample the first few pages to confirm that the vocabulary and sentence patterns suit your level before deciding whether to read it through.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Martino, Joseph Paul, 1931- Author

Joseph Paul Martino (1931– ) is an author about whom limited public information is available; our database holds only one work by him. His representative work is Pushbutton War, a title that suggests a focus on war and technological imagination, and on the relationship between technological means and military conflict. Since the database provides no information on his nationality, life, education, or professional background, and no Chinese-language materials on him are available, a full assessment of his work is difficult. This single title can nonetheless be read as a sample of mid-twentieth-century writing on technology, and the image of "pushbutton war" echoes contemporary discussions of automation, remote strikes, and changing forms of warfare, giving the book a topical and period character.