The Hugo and Nebula award-winning author presents a "gripping and vivid" fictional account of the worst nuclear disaster in human history (Kirkus). Chernobyl: The very name conjures the terror of nuclear catastrophe. On April 26, 1986, a power surge caused an explosion that spewed radioactive steam into the air. More than four thousand people died, as many as a half-million had potentially cancer-causing exposure, and the surrounding city became a toxic wasteland in which nothing could live. When the Chernobyl plant was destroyed, the scenario many had feared became a sudden and terrifying reality. Frederik Pohl's novel about this disaster was written months after the tragic events. He had the cooperation of many people inside the USSR with access to technical information and first-person accounts of the events. This fictional account vividly brings to life the most tragic nuclear event in human history, only one of two level-7 nuclear accidents, along with the Fukushima disaster of 2011.