Chernobyl

by Frederik Pohl

This novel adds a human dimension to the familiar story of Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear accident that sent a wave of fear through Europe, forced the evacuation of 135,000 Soviet citizens and left an undetermined number with potentially life-shortening doses of radiation.

The story is told through fictitious characters—primarily officials and workers at the ill-fated plant—but closely traces events as documented in the Soviet press and Moscow's unusually candid report to the International Atomic Energy Agency in September, 1986.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller, Ukraine, Russia, Speculative Fiction

357 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1987

About the author

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine IF winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well-researched historical novel about the disaster of 1986 at the Russian nuclear plant. It was a popular science fiction scenario of recent history (Nerves by Lester del Rey is a notable example), but the events that transpired in Chernobyl were all too real. It's interesting and ironic that Pohl, known almost exclusively for his work within the field of science fiction, wrote an account of real-world events which was printed by a science fiction publisher. He does an excellent job of blending fact, speculation, and fictional characters in this engaging story. It's not a fictional novel, so readers searching for a neatly tied-up resolution will be disappointed, but it's a very good look at an important piece of modern history.

[Denis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederik Pohl, primarily a SF author and editor, writes a timely dramatization of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl with excellent skill.

Though based on immediate history (the book was published only a year after the disaster) and is not a science fiction story but due to the subject matter and the general knowledge of such things, it might as well be.

After reading this novel, I am in no way a nuclear physicist but I certainly do understand better how these facilities function based on their primary components. Once the 2011 earthquake/tsunami off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku caused a number of nuclear accidents: primarily a level 7 meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex, I better understood the gravity of the situation. I also understood the whole initial tendency for governments to initially deny the severity of the incident until it is absolutely necessary to do so, and the measures that must be taken to control such a situation as quickly as possible for all foreign lands in relative geographical proximity can or will eventually be affected. I can't imagine any government wanting to be held accountable for such an atrocity. The political hot-potato this Chernobyl disaster turned out to be (it occurred during the height of the cold war) in this novel was well acknowledged and described.

The sequence of events that lead to the Chernobyl disaster and how it was managed was clearly developed via good characterization. We are reminded that there were real human beings involved who had families, jobs, responsibilities and so on.

This novel is a real eye opener as far as describing what kind of fire we are playing with for the sake of so-called "cheap power."

A very good and informative read.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have any interest in the Chernobyl disaster of 1980s USSR, and, like me, want a novel full of detail, this is the book for you. It is worth the trouble you will go through to find a copy! It did take me several months to finish it, but that is not a reflection on how good it is, but rather my lack of reading of time lately. Thoroughly enjoyable! I have 2 non-fictions about Chernobyl/Pripyat lined up to read when time allows.

[Wendy Bousfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pohl’s fictionalized version of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was published in September 1987, the year after the event. In an “Afterword,” Pohl explains that Gorbachev ’s policy of glasnost facilitated his research. With the assistance of the Union of Soviet Writers, Pohl interviewed “scores of people with direct knowledge of the Chernobyl accident, journalists, eyewitnesses, firemen who fought to control the damage, nuclear experts who were on the scene and many others” (355). Pohl’s characters are ordinary citizens, who make almost unimaginable personal sacrifices to save lives and to mitigate the disaster. While Pohl’s characters are fictional, the novel is a tribute to the heroes among the first responders.

The two major characters in CHERNOBYL are intensely sympathetic, even heroic: Simyon Smin, Deputy Director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, and Leonid Sheranchuk, an engineer and Smin’s closest friend. Unable to stop an ill-advised experiment that shuts down safety devices, both Smin and Sheranchuk risk radiation poisoning in their untiring efforts to mitigate the disaster. A specialist in hydraulics, Sheranchuk dives into the radioactive water in the flooded corridors to open drainage valves, thereby preventing a far worse explosion than the first. (Pohl’s afterword explains that the heroic dive really occurred.) Another hero is Sergei Konov, a conscripted soldier determined to do as little work as possible until he devotes himself to rescuing Chernobyl’s victims.

CHERNOBYL’s forty chapters are dated chronologically, beginning Friday, April 25, 1986 (the day before the disaster), and ending Friday, May 23rd. Each chapter begins with an explanation either of scientific fact of some aspect of Soviet society (e.g., size and furnishings of Soviet apartments, conditions of compulsory military service, Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, KGB surveillance, the importance of the May Day holiday). Best known as a science fiction writer, Pohl is at his best when demystifying science, explaining the physics, chemistry and engineering of nuclear power. Even drastically abridged, the following passage gives an example of Pohl’s abilities as a science writer:


“There was no ‘core meltdown’ at the Chernobyl Power Station. At least, that particular disaster was impossible, for uranium dioxide does not melt until it reaches a temperature of 7.000 degrees Fahrenheit. . . . Although it was a real nuclear explosion that started the disaster, the nuclear reaction blew itself out in the first fraction of a second after the initial blast. So there is no longer any real danger of that famous nuclear nightmare, a core meltdown, but another danger is most ominously present. In a way it has become even worse.

As the carbon in the graphite reacts with the oxygen in the air in that fire, the smoke rises. . . . Even if a nuclear reactor could start with pure, and nearly harmless materials, its purity would not last. Its own radiation corrupts it. . . . Elements which do not exist in nature—the “transuranic’ ones—are created. Many of the new elements are fiercely radioactive” (119-20).


I highly recommend CHERNOBYL to anyone wishing to understand the social context in which the disaster occurred, but most of all the science underlying a nuclear disaster. As a reader with a humanities background, I was unable to make sense of the other technological explanations of Chernobyl nuclear power that I read. In contrast, I found Pohl’s science lessons—e.g., the atmospheric circulation that carried Chernobyl’s poisons around the globe, the hideous progress of radiation sickness, the difference between nuclear reactions in a power plant and a bomb—exceptional clear, even lyrical. CHERNOBYL contains popular science writing at its very best.

[Repix Pix · Rating 2 out of 5]

Muchos clichés, sin climax, aguado y falto de drama.

[Pedro Enguita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un buen libro que narra con bastante precisión lo sucedido durante el accidente de Chernobyl, sin caer en el catastrofismo ni minimizar lo ocurrido. Está narrado de forma sencilla pero bastante efectiva, muy al estilo de Pohl.

[Javier Iglesias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frederick Pohl escribe este libro en meses, poco después de la catástrofe de Chernobyl, él mismo reconoce que aunque los hechos de base son "verídicos", los personajes, así como ciertos pasajes, son pura ficción. La Novela, de hecho, abarca exclusivamente el mes posterior a la explosión.

Leído hoy día, más de 30 años después del desastre, sabiendo cuanto sabemos ya sobre todo aquello, hay grandes bloques del libro que caen por su propio peso, mientras que otros en cambio se mantienen incólumes, adheridos a la verdad como la radiación se hace una con las células.

Otra cosa es que tenga sentido. por ejemplo, leer el libro de Pohl cuando ya has leído el sobrecogedor "Voces de Chernobyl" de Svetlana Alexiévich. o visto hasta tres veces la magnífica miniserie de televisión de John Renck. Probablemente no tenga mucho sentido práctico. Más bien sólo una utilidad emotiva. U obsesiva...

Cuando Chernóbyl cambió el mundo, nuevamente a peor, yo tenía 8 años. Podía ver, día tra día, en los noticiarios, cómo la nube radiactiva se extendía por Europa, como una metástasis de silencio. Fue mi bautizo a la posibilidad del fin del mundo, no sólo posible, sino más que probable. No hacía falta mirar debajo de la cama para temer pesadillas y monstruos deformes; sólo había que encender el televisor.

Este libro tiene a la vez el mérito y el démerito de escribirse al calor morboso de una desgracia de la que aún hoy no hemos visto más que la punta del hielo devastador. Este libro tiene a la vez el mérito y el demérito de estar escrito por un norteamericano. Aunque hoy pueda parecer obsoleto, anacrónico y en algún punto hasta ingenuo, forma una pequeña parte de la siniestra ruta turística de nuestro despiadado siglo XX: el siglo del Desengaño.

[Mateo Toledo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lectura ágil y entretenida.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been fascinated by the Chernobyl disaster since I was a kid. I remember seeing the news alert when the news finally broke, and since it was in the middle of the Cold War, it was big, frightening news. Since then, I've read up on it here and there, getting a clearer picture of the disaster and its tragedy. When I saw that there was a novelization of the event, I thought it would be worth reading.

The story of the Chernobyl disaster, like the one of the sinking of the Titanic, is a natural human drama. It involves arrogance and folly, tragedy and bravery, and has a flow of events that feels like a narrative. Overlooking the real human tragedy of the events, one can find the story to be engaging and intriguing. It makes sense that Pohl would take the events of the disaster and make them into a novel.

The thing is, this novel was written and published in 1987, one year after the disaster occurred. Pohl did a lot of research and spoke with people who had close knowledge of the event, and he took the facts and structured them into a story with fictional characters to humanize the tragedy, like James Cameron did with Titanic. Reading it in 1987, I might have found this book to be even better, since at that time we didn't know everything about the disaster. I've been pretty fascinated by the story around the disaster since I was a kid and first learned about it on the news, so I've done a lot of reading on the disaster, what caused it, what its consequences were, etc, so a lot of what I read in the book was stuff I already knew. It was kind of like reading the novelization of a movie I had already seen.

With that in mind, I started focusing on how well Pohl created his characters. The two main characters are Smin, the Deputy Director, and Sheranchuk, the lead hydraulics engineer of the plant. Both men are members of the Party, loyal to their country and their ideals, but after reactor number 4 explodes, they both risk their lives in order to protect not just the people working at the plant, but also the people who live outside of and around the plant. They're honorable characters, and easy to sympathize with.

Pohl had to create some enemies for his story, though, and they feel a little trite. At one point early in the story, Smin thinks poorly of the Director, because his position is more political. The Director is the one who initiates the test that ultimately cause the explosion, and of course he's away from the plant when the disaster occurs, and doesn't return when it happens. The Director is never fleshed out outside of these points, and there wasn't a real-life counterpart to the character. Without someone to blame for the human folly, though, it reduces the effect of the drama.

Some of the characters felt superfluous. There's a couple from the US who are touring the USSR, who don't serve any purpose to the story that I could tell, neither do they relate to any real people who were involved with the event. Pohl created other tertiary characters -- soldiers, ambassadors, and other governmental figures -- to illustrate the human impact of the accident and the response by the government, but the couple was just stuck in there.

Additionally, less attention is paid to the aftermath than I expected, though that could be due to the publication of the book so closely after the events happened. Much more has been learned since then, and the aftereffects of the accident are better understood, which are some of the most interesting parts of the real story. Again, I can see this being a timely, informative book at the time of its publication, but in 2016, more can be learned about the event from reading Wikipedia.

Because the actual story of the Chernobyl disaster is a story all of its own, I don't understand the need to fictionalize what happened. I would have more of a response to the tragedy if I read about the actual people than reading about people who are only barely based on them. Pohl and his publishers seemed to be under the idea that the details of the event would be more interesting than the people involved, but the impact of their sacrifice and courage is lost when you see them portrayed through fictional characters. It was engaging, and accurate, but less impactful than I would have expected. In the end, the book just made me want to read a nonfiction book about the event.

[irene ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

¿Qué le dice un padre a su hijita cuando la lleva a cierta colina? Dice: «No tengas miedo, palomita. Bajo esta colina hay enterrada una vieja central nuclear, pero es perfectamente segura.» Y entonces, cuando la asustada niñita no quiere subir a la loma, ¿qué le dice? Le dice: «Vamos, si no pasa nada. Mira, si estás asustada, dame la mano. Muy bien, ahora dame la otra. ¿Ves como no pasa nada? Ahora dame la tercera.»

[Joseph Carrabis · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought while reading Chernobyl was "Is this really fiction?" I read it before I became heavily involved in business and took Simyon Smin's "The effectiveness of any meeting is in inverse ratio to the number of people sitting around the table. Over five people and you might as well sleep through the proceedings." as a plaque on my office wall.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this is a work of historical fiction, much of the details are taken from the public record about the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Much of the story rings true. The novel only covers about 27 days, so the book, published in timely fashion in 1987, cannot pretend to provide a full perspective on the accident, nor a consideration of the full tally of death and disease that were caused by the accident, over the years and decades following the release of radiation. Indeed, Pohl's point is that there will be significant latency in the cancers caused by the accident.

The design flaws of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are evident in the narrative. I was prepared for some of the technical details in the book, having recently viewed the BBC special on “Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster ” on British television (originally broadcast on the 8th October 2007, now available on demand via YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElotW9...). The BBC program explains the kind of accident that both the Windscale nuclear power plant (plutonium factory) and the similarly graphite-moderated Chernobyl NPP experienced. In both cases, the radioactive core ignited spontaneously and uncontrollably in parts, or as Pohl puts it, for the Chernobyl disaster: “the terrible combustion that was going on in the graphite core of the destroyed reactor.” (p.125)

It was disconcerting to learn from the book, however, that some dozen other similar nuclear plants in the former USSR (in use or formerly in use) exist, all of them with the same faulty reactor model as Chernobyl, the RBMK. There are, in the year 2010, apparently still 11 of these that are operational, including 4 in Leningrad/St.Petersburg (the others at Kursk and Smolensk), all of them in present-day Russia. There is apparently some degree of international pressure to have these other graphite-controlled reactors decommissioned. (Lithuania agreed to close its plant with a two-unit RBMK-1500 as part of its accession agreement to the European Union, and this was decommissioned last year, in 2009.) But is there no domestic pressure inside Russia yet? Is there no grassroots opposition to these antiquated and dangerous behemoths?

Although the RMBK design was partially to blame, the thesis of the book appears to be that “the technology is not so bad on these things, you know. It's the people who make the decisions.” (chapter 29, p.263, as spoken by one of the American characters in the novel, presumably as a stand-in for the author's own view.) This is a variation on the thesis put forward by Graham Leman (real person?), according to Pohl. As Pohl paraphrases Leman: “What Leman is saying is that technological decisions aren't made just on the basis of technological considerations.” This in turn seems to be a correlate of the Peter Principle, which stipulates that incompetent individuals will, eventually, given enough promotions, necessarily be given the command or control of complicated hierarchies, enabling massive mistakes to happen.

No matter how many devotees of the nuclear religion there are, and no matter how brainwashed the nuclear priesthood worshiping at the altar of the atom, with the concomitant cult cities built up around them (like the ill-fated city of Pripyat: pop'l 50,000 in 1986, population zero since 1986 disaster) there is a very humbling reality about nuclear power. Humans will be at the controls. As in the film “Metropolis” (Fritz Lang, 1927), these humans will make mistakes, and the machinery they tend to will necessarily break down when those mistakes are sufficiently egregious. You cannot make a NPP 100% safe. Rather, the experts in the field, doing the risk analysis, explain that you can expect a nuclear accident of the scale of Chernobyl (containment breach leading to wide dispersal of radioactive isotopes across the country and the globe) or Three Mile Island (a partial meltdown of the core, if not a complete meltdown, again leading to dispersal into the atmosphere of dangerous cancer-causing actinides), about once every 20 years. In the words of NRC Commissioner James Asselstine, speaking in 1996: "Given the present level of safety being achieved by the operating nuclear power plants in this country [the USA], we can expect a meltdown within the next 20 years, and it is possible that such an accident could result in off-site releases of radiation which are as large as, or larger than the released estimates to have occurred at Chernobyl." But putting aside calamitous accidents such as the Chernobyl explosion or the Windscale fire, there are also the chronic ongoing environmental disasters related to civilian nuclear power production, such as Sellafield (again, in the U.K.), that particular plant having been described as “worse than Chernobyl.”

For haunting images of the abandoned city of Pripyat, the setting of much of Pohl's novel, you can see the remembrance site: http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

Although Pohl's book came out in 1987, while the cloud of radioactive gases was still swirling in the atmosphere, he was prescient about the “latency periods” involved in adjudging the public health risk from the fallout of an accident like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. One takeaway that I cannot get out of my head since reading the novel: Every breath that you or I breathe (at least, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere) contains some of the the radioactive particles released accidentally at Chernobyl, due to the global or at least hemispheric circulation of the air around the globe, and the impossibility of precipitating out those radioactive gases and/or particulates that were dispersed or suspended in the atmosphere as a result of Chernobyl: iodine-131, xenon-133, krypton-85, cesium-137, tellurium-132, strontium-90, etc.

“The first stops of the wandering witches' brew from Chernobyl were Poland and Scandinavia... Before long, the winds took Chernobyl's gases south and east, to blanket most of the European continent. ...Every one of us now has in our lungs a certain number of Chernobyl molecules, and this is not only true for all Americans and Russians and Chinese and French and Italians, but for every African, Australian, and Cambodian... We breathe in some of Chernobyl's last breath every day, and will go on doing so all our lives.” (chapter 25, p.211; chapter 40, pp.347-8)

[Juan Gallardo Ivanovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chernobyl á la Pohl

Frederik Pohl, uno de los grandes escritores de Ciencia Ficción, nos sorprende con una novela que transmite lo sucedido en una de las tragedias nucleares más mediáticas y cuyas consecuencias duran hasta nuestros días.
Pohl usará a diversos personajes para contarnos sobre la tragedia y cómo la burocracia soviética la trató. Es así como veremos la trama a través de Simyom Smin, el director técnico de la planta, como principal responsable de la operación del complejo nuclear. También compartirán el protagonismo, el ingeniero hidraúlico Leonid Sheranchuk y el operador Kalychenko, además de otros secundarios y familiares de los mencionados.
El autor además no se olvidará de ir dejando pequeñas explicaciones bien didácticas de los temas nucleares sin resultar pesado y en ocasiones nos develará parte de la historia discreta de Rusia a través de los secundarios.
Un libro sólido de un escritor galardonado, que deja el confort de la ciencia ficción, para entregarnos una historia que recorre la catástrofe en forma de crónica, pero que para nada se queda corta en evidenciar las dimensiones y pérdidas humanas y que pone como principal enemigo a la burocracia.
Tiene un buen balance entre temas técnicos, ficción y personajes, aunque no logra destacar en ninguno de los tres por separado (4/5).

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This came up on Kindle deal this month, and with the anniversary and the new HBO miniseries gearing up, I decided to bite.

This is an interesting fictionalization of the Chernobyl accident, written about a year after it happened, but it's still a fairly accurate account, given some of the tight lipped ways the USSR was being still at the time. For the most part, the timeline of events is accurate.

All of the characters are fictitious of course, but they're still pretty compelling, except for perhaps the American tourists that feel like they were just randomly dropped in.

I really enjoyed this to remind me generally what happened at the time, and also a reminder of how things were really different, even though glasnost and perestroika were becoming more of a thing.

[Keren Verna · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pero había tantos gases en Chernobyl que cada uno de nosotros tiene ahora en los pulmones un cierto número de sus moléculas, y esto es válido no sólo para todos los americanos, rusos, chinos, franceses e italianos, sino también para cada africano, australiano y campucheo, e incluso para los elefantes de Kenya y los pingüinos antárticos. Inhalamos parte del último aliento de Chernobyl cada día, y lo seguiremos haciendo el resto de nuestras vidas”.

[stormhawk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why, but I kept expecting more of this story than I got. Excellent writer, fascinating subject, cloaked in mystery, even. This is a heavily fictionalozed account of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. There are true stories told here, but names and details are changed. The book covers the incident from a few days before the accident to less than a month afterward. It doesn't read with the excitement of the factual accounts.

[Steve R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting 1987 novelization of the catastrophic 1986 disaster: the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Pohl uses fictional characters, but also a lot of extensive research of the actual events of the accident to sketch out a gripping story of how it affected the plant officials, bureaucrats, crewpeople, soldiers, doctors and emergency workers. Smin, the Deputy Director, Shernachuk the engineer and his wife, a doctor, are the main characters in this highly engaging read.

[Ember Crooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book for the human story that it wrapped around the historical elements. I had no idea that Chernobyl remained in operation so long after the disaster, and that people still work there today on decommissioning the remaining reactors.

Not a typical Frederik Pohl novel, but fascinating.

[Wes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. It is not a 'factual' representation of what may have happened, but an epic story that draws you in and makes you care about the fates of the characters. There is a lot of information that is presented and this seems like a realistic telling. The updated Afterword is interesting, so I recommend getting an edition with that.

[Veronica M. Vega · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humanity Brought to Disaster

The portrayal of all the characters is fantastic. Even minor characters are more explored than you would usually see. I would have liked to see more about the miners, but completely understand that the points of view explored were limited. Overall an excellent book about one of the greatest man-made disasters in history.

[Ktbird · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gripping read about a devastating nuclear disaster. A reminder of how closely linked we all are on this planet. A caution for safety in the future.

[anna b · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never knew much about Chernobyl other than the brief mention in my secondary school history books. Reading it as a story humanises the people involved.

[Merica StJohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very gripping novel.

[Carlo Milan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro muy entretenido. Que toma de forma seria los hechos ocurridos en la central nuclear adosándolos en una novela cautivante de principio a fin.

Muy recomendable

[Lisa C. Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an interesting read, though sometimes a bit slow. I enjoyed learning more about this disaster, but I wanted more human stories and less scientific explanations.

[Magda Filipe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eu tinha grandes expectativas para este livro por ser uma história que não passa ao lado de ninguém, penso eu. A história em si é fictícia só que usa os factos conhecidos para a fundamentar.

Foi muito difícil entrar nesta história de início, foi feita uma introdução onde ficamos a conhecer como funciona uma central nuclear e como era esta central em especifico.

A história das personagens em si acaba por não ser muito cativante comparada com os factos reais que são apresentados. A parte que mais me interessou foi ver o que a radiação provocou nas pessoas e em tudo o que alcançou.

No entanto, continuo a achar que devem dar uma oportunidade porque gostos são gostos e podem gostar mais do que eu.

[Brian Gaston · Rating 5 out of 5]

My high rating for this book is partly due to the release date close to the actual disaster. It was a chilling account based on hard science.

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this awhile back. Very well written.

[Matt Hawkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow. Very slow.

[Cerys Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could, I'd give this book about 25 stars!