The Prometheus Crisis by Thomas M Scortia and Frank M Robinson (1976)
I was recently checking my pile of books inherited in 1991 from my late mother to see if she had a copy of A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. What I found instead was a 1977 Pan edition of the book The Prometheus Crisis, written by Thomas M Scortia and Frank M Robinson. I read it years ago but remembered it as such a good read that I had to read it again. It took all of 2 days (alas, 2 days spent without doing much else!) and it was still a fantastic read.
A brief synopsis:
Prometheus is the biggest and, at $5 billion, costliest nuclear power plant ever built, situated nicely upwind of LA, scheduled to open long before all the bugs have been ironed out, and under fierce political pressure to-go onstream two weeks ahead of schedule. So not everything is perfect, the Western Gas & Electric execs tell themselves, but what are all the computerized safety systems for?
All about greed, terrorism, shortcuts and nuclear power and the damage those things together can do. Starts a tad slow, but before long you are racing to a gripping and scary conclusion. And to jump to a real life mirror, read Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich.
I perused my library for other books with an Atomic bent.Titles include
Danger and Survival: Choices about the bomb in the first fifty years by McGeorge Bundy (1988)
Day of Trinity by Lansing Lamont (1966)
Brighter than a Thousand Suns by Robert Jungk (1965 edition)
The Energy Question by Gerald Foley with Charlotte Nassim (1978 edition)
I was recently checking my pile of books inherited in 1991 from my late mother to see if she had a copy of A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. What I found instead was a 1977 Pan edition of the book The Prometheus Crisis, written by Thomas M Scortia and Frank M Robinson. I read it years ago but remembered it as such a good read that I had to read it again. It took all of 2 days (alas, 2 days spent without doing much else!) and it was still a fantastic read.
A brief synopsis:
Prometheus is the biggest and, at $5 billion, costliest nuclear power plant ever built, situated nicely upwind of LA, scheduled to open long before all the bugs have been ironed out, and under fierce political pressure to-go onstream two weeks ahead of schedule. So not everything is perfect, the Western Gas & Electric execs tell themselves, but what are all the computerized safety systems for?
I perused my library for other books with an Atomic bent.Titles include
Danger and Survival: Choices about the bomb in the first fifty years by McGeorge Bundy (1988)
Day of Trinity by Lansing Lamont (1966)
Brighter than a Thousand Suns by Robert Jungk (1965 edition)
The Energy Question by Gerald Foley with Charlotte Nassim (1978 edition)
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