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Chernobyl: The Ongoing Story of the World's Deadliest Nuclear Disaster
The 1986 explosion at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl was a human as well as environmental catastrophe, and this thorough account of the accident examines its causes, the response of the Soviet government, and the tragic aftermath of a horror that still lives on.
Library Binding
First published October 31, 1994
About the author
Glenn Alan Cheney
92 books64 followersGlenn Alan Cheney is a writer and journalist. He is the author of more than 20 books of fiction and nnfiction and hundreds of articles, op-ed essays, translations, short stories, and poems.
Among his most recent and well known books are "Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America," "Journey on the Estrada Real: Encounters in he Mountains of Brazil," and "Journey to Chernobyl: Encounters in a Radioactive Zone."
Cheney is editor and translator of "Ex Cathedra: Stories by Machado de Assis -- Bilingual Edition."
Cheney's nonfiction uses a strong human element and touches of humor to bring life into subjects that might otherwise be dull or technical.
Cheney has a B.A. in Philosophy, an MA in Communication, an MA in English, and an MFA in Creative Writing.
See cheneybooks.com for free excerpts and discounts on Cheney titles.
Among his most recent and well known books are "Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims' First Year in America," "Journey on the Estrada Real: Encounters in he Mountains of Brazil," and "Journey to Chernobyl: Encounters in a Radioactive Zone."
Cheney is editor and translator of "Ex Cathedra: Stories by Machado de Assis -- Bilingual Edition."
Cheney's nonfiction uses a strong human element and touches of humor to bring life into subjects that might otherwise be dull or technical.
Cheney has a B.A. in Philosophy, an MA in Communication, an MA in English, and an MFA in Creative Writing.
See cheneybooks.com for free excerpts and discounts on Cheney titles.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 4, 2026
Chernobyl: The Ongoing Story of the World's Deadliest Nuclear Disaster
:Glenn Alan Cheney
Book Review
"What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all."- HBO miniseries Chernobyl. 1:23:45, April 26, 1968, reactor number four of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded in what is now the deadliest nuclear accident known to man. Written by Glenn Alan Cheney, the nonfictional story of Chernobyl: The Ongoing Story of the World's Deadliest Nuclear Disaster covers the domino effect leading up to the disaster, and the hidden truth obscured by the Soviet government, as well as how it is still ongoing. This book, despite its grim topic, is a very good book to read, as it highlights a very crucial and influential message of a domino effect.
On the early morning of April 26, 1968, approximately 1:23:45, reactor number four at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded and caught on fire. Prior to this, the power plant was executing a safety test, experimenting to see how long the reactor could last on emergency power, as they assumed the turbines would continue spinning generating power. However, through a series of operator errors, and a flawed reactor design, this would not go to plan. This series of unfortunate events is splendidly explained in great detail by this book, covering the fatal flaw of the RBMK reactor design, human error during the test, as well as following many perspectives through interviews of survivors.
This book is a very good read for people who want to learn about the entirety of the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster, however it does come with some flaws. One such good point that I saw throughout the book was the lengths it took to include many perspectives it took in describing the survivors' accounts. A perspective that I found the most interesting that backs up my claim, is from the perspective of Valentina Patushina, whose husband, Sergei, was a nuclear physicist that was one of the many still scheduled to work at the plant after the evacuations. I believe that this point of view from someone unaware at the time is a good reason for reading this book, as it utilizes dramatic irony. This use of dramatic irony is most prominent in the characters of the story, brushing away the explosion at first as a minor fire, followed by innocence of still sending their children to school, wading through the heavy duty dust suppressant known as bourda. This inconceivable idea spread to even the higher ups at the power plant, afterwards believing that the reactor could not have exploded since it never happened before. Along with this, due to the higher reading equipment for measuring radioactivity was inaccessible, the readings on the equipment were unable to measure the total, as it was beyond the maximum readings.
However, like many other great books, it still has its flaws, primarily in the case of not explaining the true scope of the story, in covering not just the liquidators, but also the unsung heroes that helped prevent this disaster from infecting the world. An example of where this book lacked, was in the mentioning of significant figures like Valery Legasov who headed the commission that investigated the accident as well as spoke the truth about the incident at a presentation in Vienna. Along with this, the book failed to acknowledge the countless others who put their lives on the lines to contain this catastrophic disaster such as Boris Scherbina who was the head of the crisis management of the Chernobyl disaster, the hundred of scientists that assisted Valery Legasov in his findings, or the coal miners that were brought in to dig a tunnel to prevent the contamination of the groundwater by building a cooling heat exchanger. Therefore, this in itself is a major unfavorable aspect of the book that I found most unenjoyable.
In conclusion, this book despite its shortcomings, is an amazing and concise non-fictional narrative on the events that conspired to cause, effect, and continue during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In the end, I would still encourage people to read this book, with this book's primary audience being those who want to learn more about the disaster as a whole and its negative health effects in a short book. Or those who have finished the wonderful HBO Mini-series Chernobyl. I would give this book, written by Glenn Alan Cheney, a positive score of 4.3 out of 5 stars.
:Glenn Alan Cheney
Book Review
"What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all."- HBO miniseries Chernobyl. 1:23:45, April 26, 1968, reactor number four of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded in what is now the deadliest nuclear accident known to man. Written by Glenn Alan Cheney, the nonfictional story of Chernobyl: The Ongoing Story of the World's Deadliest Nuclear Disaster covers the domino effect leading up to the disaster, and the hidden truth obscured by the Soviet government, as well as how it is still ongoing. This book, despite its grim topic, is a very good book to read, as it highlights a very crucial and influential message of a domino effect.
On the early morning of April 26, 1968, approximately 1:23:45, reactor number four at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded and caught on fire. Prior to this, the power plant was executing a safety test, experimenting to see how long the reactor could last on emergency power, as they assumed the turbines would continue spinning generating power. However, through a series of operator errors, and a flawed reactor design, this would not go to plan. This series of unfortunate events is splendidly explained in great detail by this book, covering the fatal flaw of the RBMK reactor design, human error during the test, as well as following many perspectives through interviews of survivors.
This book is a very good read for people who want to learn about the entirety of the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster, however it does come with some flaws. One such good point that I saw throughout the book was the lengths it took to include many perspectives it took in describing the survivors' accounts. A perspective that I found the most interesting that backs up my claim, is from the perspective of Valentina Patushina, whose husband, Sergei, was a nuclear physicist that was one of the many still scheduled to work at the plant after the evacuations. I believe that this point of view from someone unaware at the time is a good reason for reading this book, as it utilizes dramatic irony. This use of dramatic irony is most prominent in the characters of the story, brushing away the explosion at first as a minor fire, followed by innocence of still sending their children to school, wading through the heavy duty dust suppressant known as bourda. This inconceivable idea spread to even the higher ups at the power plant, afterwards believing that the reactor could not have exploded since it never happened before. Along with this, due to the higher reading equipment for measuring radioactivity was inaccessible, the readings on the equipment were unable to measure the total, as it was beyond the maximum readings.
However, like many other great books, it still has its flaws, primarily in the case of not explaining the true scope of the story, in covering not just the liquidators, but also the unsung heroes that helped prevent this disaster from infecting the world. An example of where this book lacked, was in the mentioning of significant figures like Valery Legasov who headed the commission that investigated the accident as well as spoke the truth about the incident at a presentation in Vienna. Along with this, the book failed to acknowledge the countless others who put their lives on the lines to contain this catastrophic disaster such as Boris Scherbina who was the head of the crisis management of the Chernobyl disaster, the hundred of scientists that assisted Valery Legasov in his findings, or the coal miners that were brought in to dig a tunnel to prevent the contamination of the groundwater by building a cooling heat exchanger. Therefore, this in itself is a major unfavorable aspect of the book that I found most unenjoyable.
In conclusion, this book despite its shortcomings, is an amazing and concise non-fictional narrative on the events that conspired to cause, effect, and continue during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In the end, I would still encourage people to read this book, with this book's primary audience being those who want to learn more about the disaster as a whole and its negative health effects in a short book. Or those who have finished the wonderful HBO Mini-series Chernobyl. I would give this book, written by Glenn Alan Cheney, a positive score of 4.3 out of 5 stars.
April 17, 2019
Book 26 of Nuclear Studies:
A lot of the books I have and have read so far about nuclear things are very old books. I’m not sure if my readings are an accurate sampling of the availability of the literature or not but these older reads are some of my favorites. This is because of the time capsule that each of these older books are. I certainly don’t know what it was like to live in the world less than a decade after the Chernobyl accident, so to have that perspective is certainly something I desire.
That being said, these older books can be difficult. I am more skeptical of the information they tout as fact, keeping my trust phone nearby to fact check. This can lead to some interesting rabbit trails (one 1980s book I previously read had some interesting conspiracy theories in it that were quickly debunked) but it can also reveal the gaps in knowledge. Such flaws make these books valuable primarily for their windows into the past rather than being good reference points.
This book is a short, easy read. The author breaks down the accident and how the RBMK reactors work in an easy to understand style. He also expands his viewpoint with each chapter, demonstrating the effects of the accident on increasingly wider scales, which I found incredibly effective. However, there are portions that are outdated due to knowledge holes from the time it was written. Two things bothered me most. The author likened nuclear power plants to being potential atomic bombs. This is a real pet peeve of mine that I keep running into in my studies. Such assertions only serve to confuse rather than educate and they are often found in books that have an anti-nuclear bent. The second thing that bothered me was that the author delved just slightly into a link between nuclear leakage and Lyme disease. I’d never heard anything so bizarre and a quick google search only turned up one real hit on a website devoted to fighting cancer the natural way (not a site that I’d necessarily trust).
Anyways, in conclusion, this one is a relic of the past. Read it as if it’s 1994.
A lot of the books I have and have read so far about nuclear things are very old books. I’m not sure if my readings are an accurate sampling of the availability of the literature or not but these older reads are some of my favorites. This is because of the time capsule that each of these older books are. I certainly don’t know what it was like to live in the world less than a decade after the Chernobyl accident, so to have that perspective is certainly something I desire.
That being said, these older books can be difficult. I am more skeptical of the information they tout as fact, keeping my trust phone nearby to fact check. This can lead to some interesting rabbit trails (one 1980s book I previously read had some interesting conspiracy theories in it that were quickly debunked) but it can also reveal the gaps in knowledge. Such flaws make these books valuable primarily for their windows into the past rather than being good reference points.
This book is a short, easy read. The author breaks down the accident and how the RBMK reactors work in an easy to understand style. He also expands his viewpoint with each chapter, demonstrating the effects of the accident on increasingly wider scales, which I found incredibly effective. However, there are portions that are outdated due to knowledge holes from the time it was written. Two things bothered me most. The author likened nuclear power plants to being potential atomic bombs. This is a real pet peeve of mine that I keep running into in my studies. Such assertions only serve to confuse rather than educate and they are often found in books that have an anti-nuclear bent. The second thing that bothered me was that the author delved just slightly into a link between nuclear leakage and Lyme disease. I’d never heard anything so bizarre and a quick google search only turned up one real hit on a website devoted to fighting cancer the natural way (not a site that I’d necessarily trust).
Anyways, in conclusion, this one is a relic of the past. Read it as if it’s 1994.
January 16, 2019
Interesting. I had no idea that this was a preventable accident. Even though it is an older book, the information was very good. We live with this event still today.
October 6, 2012
It's a little all over the place in terms of the timeline - easy to get confused. But an interesting take on the disaster only seven years afterward.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews