Inspired by J Hamel and S Mosher

 Like Henry, J Hamel was much too eager to step in - when she was needed.

S Mosher was an eloquent spokeswoman for the very small while this work was being written.

Those are the dedications, the elevator pitch, in one sentence, is this :

"AGAPE'S MANHATTAN PROJECT" is about us, all ten billion of us, who have indirectly benefited from a selfless act of Agape -- a dying Manhattan doctor's project to put the saving of ten of his fellow beings above saving his own life....

What "The smallest Manhattan Project" is about

This book is about us. Ten billion of us, here today or years dead, whose lives have been changed by the advent of antibiotics.

It almost didn't happen ; we almost lost Penicillin, the only-begetter of this wonderful revolution.

"The smallest Manhattan Project" is the true story of a dying doctor who fought off his own body - and his own wartime government - just long enough to help Penicillin get its moral groove back, winning us cheap, abundant, natural Penicillin for all.

Above all it is a reminder that when it comes to having the moral courage to change our whole world for the better, size doesn't begin to matter ....

The elevator pitch for "By stubborn, Stars we steer"

Some people call it the takeaway sentence while others call it the elevator pitch : that line that tags a movie's every radio/TV spot and poster, the same line that got the movie green-lighted (financed) in the first place.

Ten seconds long ; one longish sentence .

My takeaway line , as you leave the elevator where you have been helplessly trapped with me as as I relentlessly tell you about Henry Dawson's own personal Manhattan Project :

"Its a parable about Jesus and the Devil arm-wrestling over the soul of a pedestrian 'everyman' called John L Smith, who also happens to be the real life wartime head of  Pfizer Drugs......"