Nerves

Old Doc Ferrell can’t even spend a day off with his wife and son. The National Atomics nuclear facility in Kimberly, Missouri is scheduled to undergo a government inspection and the plant manager, Allan Palmer, needs his chief physician present to handle the suits.

Worse, inspections make the men nervous and nervous men make mistakes.

There was already a bill under review in Congress to move the entire facility to a remote location, away from the dense civilian population that is currently enjoying the inexpensive power generated as a by-product of the plant’s operations. Palmer wants nothing more than to prove the safety of nuclear power. As such, he wants his best people present.

Giving up his day off, Ferrell enters the plant to show more find minor injuries already in progress, adroitly handled by the nursing staff. However, during the inspection, an accident occurs that leaves one man badly burned.

To make matters worse, a routine testing of one of the converter chambers by chief scientist Mal Jorgenson uncovers the presence of highly volatile and deadly “Isotope R”, otherwise known as Mahler’s Isotope. Jorgenson sounds the alarm, but not before becoming trapped inside the converter chamber, his armored Tomlin suit his only protection against the fatal radiation.

Palmer orders a rescue mission to retrieve Jorgenson, the only man in the plant who knows the best method to stop Mahler’s Isotope from destroying not only everything in a fifty-mile radius, but perhaps the entire eastern United States!

After a massive and dangerous effort by several of the plant’s crew (aka “atomjacks”), Jorgenson is pulled from the wreckage of the converter chamber and brought to the Infirmary where a heart massage is the only way to keep him from certain death, but when his heart fails to respond, Doc Ferrell and his team must turn to an unorthodox—and untested—solution.

Stories from the golden and transitional ages of speculative and science fiction have always been my absolute favorites. Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Ellison, Heinlein, Niven, the list goes on. Over the past two years or more, I’ve made a deliberate effort to expand my knowledge by including such writers as Philip José Farmer, Joe Haldeman, and Lester Del Rey, founder of Del Rey Publishing.

While I enjoyed The Best of Lester Del Rey anthology, I think it’s fair to say that NERVES is not one of his best works. Fortunately, it’s a short novel at only 153 pages. Sentence structure was occasionally awkward, character development non-existent, and I’m not entirely confident that Del Rey had a full grasp of the true nature of radiation exposure and its effects on the human body, although I will give him credit for an engaging description of the rescue and cleanup work after the accidents. I was a bit perplexed that there was only one expert on Mahler's Isotope in the entire facility. I suppose having another would have invalidated the entire plot.

Overall, I’d recommend skipping this one, but I will absolutely read more from Lester Del Rey. show less

Even though I couldn't sleep and I didn't have any other book handy, I got out of bed about 1/3 through this and pored through my shelves looking for something worth my time. This was boring, but not soporific, ime.

A catastrophic industrial accident occurs at a nuclear power plant. After a reactor malfunction, a plant doctor and crew fight to prevent a continental disaster.

A Congressional committee visits the National Atomics Products facility, increasing stress, leading to a reactor disaster involving I-713, a dangerous isotope. Technician Jorgenson is trapped inside the failing reactor, and his knowledge is needed to prevent a massive meltdown.

Het verhaal gaat over de kerncentrale van Kimberly, een plaatsje nabij St. Louis County. Ze is al in opspraak geweest vanwege een incident, dat eigenlijk nauwelijks schade opleverde. In een onderzoek naar het wonderisotoop R dat zou kunnen leiden naar het barstensvol energie zittende Mahlerisotoop gaat het mis in een van de zes centrales. In eerste instantie zag het er niet naar uit dat het mis kon gaan, zodat al het reservepersoneel naar huis werd gestuurd. Als het dan toch misgaat moet al het personeel alsnog opgetrommeld worden. Er wordt vervolgens geprobeerd deze ramp in de doofpot te stoppen, uit vrees dat alle kerncentrales in de Verenigde Staten worden verbannen naar onbewoonde gebieden. In de roman zijn wondermiddelen show more beschikbaar om stralingseffecten tegen te gaan etc. Het verhaal wordt verteld uit het oogpunt van de medicus Doc Ferrel, die moet zien te redden wat er te redden valt show less

En la gran planta atómica de Kimberly, un comité del Congreso realiza una inspección sorpresa que eleva el nivel de tensión de los hombres aún más de lo que había sido. A mediodía ya ha habido accidentes menores, pero en los gigantescos convertidores nucleares que son el corazón del proyecto, el trabajo continua a una velocidad desesperada.
Hasta que el convertidor número cuatro falla estrepitosamente. Jorgenson, el supervisor del equipo técnico y su tripulación, habían estado atravesando un isótopo nuevo e inestable cuando las paredes del reactor cedieron. El proceso de fusión está repentinamente fuera de control... y la mitad de un continente en un desastre de tiempo de paz que no solo sacrificará millones de vidas show more sino que destruirá la posibilidad de una energía nuclear controlada para siempre. show less