He did a lot with the information he had on hand-that is to say, not much-and this book has a fascinating time capsule feel to it, and is prophetic to some degree. Much of the science didn't turn out like del Rey envisioned-the reactors are for making "super-heavy isotopes" for medicinal uses, with power as a secondary output, and the main way to remove "radioactives" from injured workers is curare treatment.īut it's interesting to see what he got right-such as a Chernobyl-style cleanup attempt, and several aspects of how the nuclear plant operates-as del Rey first wrote this three years before Hiroshima, and then revised it the year the first civilian nuclear power plant entered operation (1956). Interesting Golden Age science fiction tale of a meltdown at a nuclear reactor.
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