Chernobyl

For Simyon Smin, Deputy Director, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station was a source of great pride. For Leonid Sheranchuk, engineer, it was a place where he could put his vast skills to the best use. For Tamara Sheranchuk, doctor, it was a place where she longed to work in order to be closer to her husband.But on April 26, 1986, Chernobyl forever became someplace very different for these three and for everyone around the world.The explosion at Chernobyl created an international wave of fear, political paralysis in the Soviet government—and a cloud of radiation that drifted across most of Europe. How could it have happened? What will be its long-term effects? And what was it really like to be there, then, in the hell that was Chernobyl…?No one is better suited to speculate about what really happened during this dramatic and horrifying crisis than Frederik Pohl. A renowned author, scholar and lecturer in future studies, Pohl has visited the Soviet Union frequently and enjoys that country's respect and interest in this book. Now, he has created a novel of stunning dimensions, based on carefully researched facts, data and eyewitness notes.With vivid realism, Pohl takes us into the lives, homes and heartbeats of the people who were there. We see through their eyes the staggering reality of the disaster itself, the heroic efforts of rescue workers, the desperate struggles of the aftermath, the human stories of how it happened and why. Through people irrevocably tied to this catastrophe, Pohl reveals the heart-wrenching day-to-day impact on personal lives, the unknown future toll on the world and the effect it has already had on Russian political policies.Chernobyl is a moving, sympathetic documentation of ineptitude, terror, courage and love. It is a work as sweeping, sobering and as important to us all as John Hersey's Hiroshima and John Bradley's No Place to Hide. Here is Chernobyl before and Chernobyl after. Here is the world before and the world after. And here is human drama at its tragic apex—people suddenly locked in a fierce battle for survival now… and survival in the future.