Ablaze: The Story of the Heroes and Victims of Chernobyl

Fascinating. The human story of what caused Chernobyl and what happened afterward was engrossing, understandable, and frightening. The book was a little hard to follow in places, though, because it bounced around in time.

If you didn't know it really happened, you would think this was a fictional thriller. Describes how a string of human errors resulted in the largest nuclear catastrophe the world has ever seen. But the strength of the book is when it describes the government's response and how many heroes stepped up to help protect others. It has great lessons for professionals engaged in consequence management and disaster planning. Surprising to me was the role that the Soviet Union's Chemical Defense Forces played in the survey of contaminated areas and the clean up. The scale of the disaster and the clean up effort almost defies the imagination. Less interesting, at least to me, are the portions of the book which deal with the Soviet Union's search for those individuals to be held accountable and the government's reluctance to release information to the outside world. Becoming harder to find and this is a pity, for this book is a must read for those engaged in the business of planning and responding to nuclear accidents and incidents.

This book covers the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melt down that took place back in the early 80's in the USSR. The first third of the book covers what happened to cause the accident - an amazingly small human error for such a major problem. The next third of the book covers the fighting of the fires, evacuation of the town and the closure of that part of the facility. The last third of the book covers the political fallout for the incident.Overall he details are very interesting and the author has done a very good job in pulling all the facts together. You really can tell that this is a very well researched book. The writing is not bad and the book follows a well-constructed path. My only complaint would be that the last third of the book tends to drag a little due to the in depth coverage of the political aspects, due to it being USSR it is not always the most interesting for an American. All in all, this is a good book that does a great job in describing the accident and the clean up. The one thing you will take away from the book is that it is a wonder that this type of incident has not happened again.

If you enjoy true documentary type history and politics, well written, and especially if you are one of the thousands who enjoyed this author's "Alive" - about the survivors of an airplane crash - then you will devour "Ablaze". Mind you, among the page-turning excitement there is also a lot of breathtaking incompetence and cover-up. You'll remember: the Chernobyl reactor blew up, the Soviets covered up, Europe was contaminated, thousands of Soviet citizens were (and still are) made tragically ill. This book gives a journalistic factual account of the emergency and all its aftermath. The physics is well explained for the non-scientist. Worth ordering!

The Devil himself was manifested in the hellish heat and fire of the exposed core of reactor number four at the V.I. Lenin PowerStation in Pripyat, outside of Chernobyl, in the USSR. Soundsgrotesque, but intriguing, right? Piers Paul Read's novel, Ablaze, presents the horror "story of the heroes and victims of [the] Chernobyl [nuclear accident]." in a daunting, yet scientifically credible way. In the introduction of the book, Piers Paul Read, presents the information regarding the disaster in Pripyat. Read writes in a straight forward manner that promotes a trust between the reader and author. During his introduction, Read clearly outlines his thesis and how he is going to present information. He tells you from that beginning that he does not know extensively about nuclear physics, reactor construction, or about the operation of a nuclear power plant. His lack of experience paired with the average reader's same lack, makes a perfect match. For the information that the average reader doesn't know, the author provides what could be called a mini-lesson on the basics of nuclear power as well as a bit of nuclear physics. I think that the author does this to promote a feeling of trust between the author and the reader. When reading the introduction where the author spoke of not knowing extensively about the world of nuclear power, I got the impression that the author was learning along with me during the mini-lessons. This instilled a feeling of companionship and trust in me toward the author. I believe that trust is a vital part of the relationship between an author and his/her audience. While the mini-lessons alleviated much of the lacking of background information, the reader still needed to know some of the general history of Russia and the USSR to completely comprehend the work. The knowledge required amassed mostly to the structure of the Soviet government and the structure and the power of "the party" otherwise known as the Communist Party of the country. Although this information is not obscure or arduous to find, it still required some research on the part of this reader. After a brief mini-lesson on nuclear physics, Read went on to explain events leading up to the disaster. He provided a total explanation of the history behind atomic weaponry development and how it led to the development of nuclear reactors in the USSR. Read focused mainly on the RBMK reactor development and the Soviet drive to harness the vast amounts of energy that can be created by a nuclear reactor. While the explanation of this "nuclear race" was quite education, it seemed too name and oriented for me to follow with full cognition. In fact, to this reader, the whole book appeared to be overflowing with names. While it can be understood that names and specific facts are imperative to a non-fiction historical book, they can be overused, as they appear to have been in Ablaze. To this reader, the overuse of names and other facts avert the reader fro