"Hell-Fire" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by American writer Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

, originally published in the May 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe

Fantastic Universe

Fantastic Universe was a U.S. science fiction magazine which began publishing in the 1950s. It ran for 69 issues, from June 1953 to March 1960, under two different publishers. It was part of the explosion of science fiction magazine publishing in the 1950s in the United States, and was moderately...

and reprinted in the 1957 collection Earth Is Room Enough

Earth Is Room Enough

Earth Is Room Enough is a collection of fifteen short science fiction and fantasy stories and two pieces of comic verse published by Isaac Asimov in 1957. In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, Asimov wrote, "I was still thinking of the remarks of reviewers such as George O. Smith . . ....

. It is one of a number of stories, such as "Darwinian Pool Room

Darwinian Pool Room

"Darwinian Pool Room" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1950 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, edited by Horace L Gold, and reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories...

" and "Silly Asses

Silly Asses

Silly Asses is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was published in the February 1958 issue of Future Science Fiction, after having been twice rejected by other outlets. It was subsequently included in the collections Have You Seen These? in 1974 and Buy Jupiter and Other Stories in...

", in which Asimov worries about the nuclear arms race

Nuclear arms race

The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War...

 of the 1950s.

Plot summary

"Hell-Fire" is an extremely short story, and deals with a journalist, Alvin Horner, who speaks with Joseph Vincenzo, a scientist at Los Alamos

Los Alamos, New Mexico

Los Alamos is a townsite and census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, built upon four mesas of the Pajarito Plateau and the adjoining White Rock Canyon. The population of the CDP was 12,019 at the 2010 Census. The townsite or "the hill" is one part of town while...

, at the first exhibition of a film with super-slow-motion footage of a nuclear explosion. Vincenzo is sure that nuclear bombs are hell-fire, and tells the journalist they shall ultimately destroy mankind.

After the scientist's observations, the film starts. For a brief moment, before initiating the full reaction into the infamous nuclear toadstool, the atomic blast resembles a specific shape: the face of the Devil

Devil

The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

.