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The Atomics
You cannot run away from what haunts you... Midsummer, 1968. When Frank Banner and his wife Gail move to the Suffolk coast to work at a newly built nuclear power station, they are hoping to leave violence and pain behind them. Gail wants a baby but Frank is only concerned with spending time in the gleaming reactor core of the Seton One power station. Their new neighbors are also ‘Atomics’—part of the power station community. But Frank takes a dislike to the boorish, predatory Maynard. And when the other man begins to pursue a young woman who works in the power station’s medical center, Frank decides to intervene. As the sun beats relentlessly upon this bleak landscape, his demons return. A vicious and merciless voice tells him he has an obligation to protect the young woman and Frank knows just how to do it. Radiation will make him stronger, radiation will turn him into a hero... The Atomics is a Gothic story of madness, revenge, and Uranium-235.
- GenresScience Fiction
256 pages, Paperback
Published May 10, 2021
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 7, 2022
A dark and fascinating look at masculinity. 100% recommended!
May 17, 2021
This psychodrama had two great selling points that immediately made me keen to read it. Firstly its timeline is the late 1960s, and secondly it’s set against the backdrop of a nuclear power station.
The novel opens with a mystery, that will be explained fully as the story progresses. Frank received a suspended sentence for violently protecting a girl. However, the nuclear research labs where he worked don't want him back, especially after he was maimed in revenge, his face knifed leaving a terrible scar. Friends tell his wife Gail to leave him, but she can’t.
The Authority organise a transfer. It’s midsummer, and Frank and Gail find themselves on the road to Suffolk where a new nuclear power station has recently been built. A bungalow in the ‘Atomics’ village built for the workers awaits. It’ll be their new start, and Gail is hoping for a baby. They soon meet their neighbours, Judy, Maynard and their kids. Maynard is an engineering manager at the plant: Frank takes an instant dislike to him. Gail takes an instant like to Judy and the two will become close friends as the summer goes on. When Frank discovers that Maynard is embarking on an affair with Alice, a local young woman who is a nurse at the plant, it starts to bubble up in him again. Frank must protect Alice at all costs.
We see Frank’s descent into mental illness and anger, his desire to commit violence barely suppressed, his longing for danger increasing daily. Frank was damaged early after his mother’s suicide, he's haunted by the person who maimed him too. This was the 1960s, and PTSD wasn’t really recognised then. Gail is preoccupied with her own concerns, and spending more time with Judy. We’re never quite sure whether Gail is at risk from Frank either, and that also adds to the tension. Without the nuclear setting this novel would still have been a compulsive piece of domestic noir, but the addition of the power station, Frank’s unhealthy obsession with his work and the dynamics of being stuck in the sterile ‘Atomics’ village all add to the sense of horror that builds up.
I also liked the chapter titles too, words mostly related to nuclear physics, such as Uranium, Reactor, Containment, Nucleus, Chain Reaction, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and so on; and they cleverly reflect the events in each chapter in a way. The Atomics is cycling journalist Maunders's first novel, I enjoyed it very much.
My fuller blog review is here https://annabookbel.net/the-atomics-b...
The novel opens with a mystery, that will be explained fully as the story progresses. Frank received a suspended sentence for violently protecting a girl. However, the nuclear research labs where he worked don't want him back, especially after he was maimed in revenge, his face knifed leaving a terrible scar. Friends tell his wife Gail to leave him, but she can’t.
The Authority organise a transfer. It’s midsummer, and Frank and Gail find themselves on the road to Suffolk where a new nuclear power station has recently been built. A bungalow in the ‘Atomics’ village built for the workers awaits. It’ll be their new start, and Gail is hoping for a baby. They soon meet their neighbours, Judy, Maynard and their kids. Maynard is an engineering manager at the plant: Frank takes an instant dislike to him. Gail takes an instant like to Judy and the two will become close friends as the summer goes on. When Frank discovers that Maynard is embarking on an affair with Alice, a local young woman who is a nurse at the plant, it starts to bubble up in him again. Frank must protect Alice at all costs.
We see Frank’s descent into mental illness and anger, his desire to commit violence barely suppressed, his longing for danger increasing daily. Frank was damaged early after his mother’s suicide, he's haunted by the person who maimed him too. This was the 1960s, and PTSD wasn’t really recognised then. Gail is preoccupied with her own concerns, and spending more time with Judy. We’re never quite sure whether Gail is at risk from Frank either, and that also adds to the tension. Without the nuclear setting this novel would still have been a compulsive piece of domestic noir, but the addition of the power station, Frank’s unhealthy obsession with his work and the dynamics of being stuck in the sterile ‘Atomics’ village all add to the sense of horror that builds up.
I also liked the chapter titles too, words mostly related to nuclear physics, such as Uranium, Reactor, Containment, Nucleus, Chain Reaction, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and so on; and they cleverly reflect the events in each chapter in a way. The Atomics is cycling journalist Maunders's first novel, I enjoyed it very much.
My fuller blog review is here https://annabookbel.net/the-atomics-b...
July 16, 2021
This book had a lot of promise - subject (nuclear power station), setting (1960s, a growth time for nuclear build) and its mysterious summary on Amazon. It looked really good...
Unfortunately, the reality is rather different: a poorly-comstructed, trashy novel, populated by one-dimensional characters, that could have been set anywhere and at any time. The scientific aspects are dodgy at best and in some cases just incorrect (even in 1968, smuggling fissile material offsite wouldn't have been possible). Every chapter has a seemingly-random nuclear-related title and some of the text is laughable (e.g. "Could animals detect radiation? Did he, to them, glow? Or could they detect a buzz?" and "Now that he was lying perfectly still, the radiation was sending little rushes of cold energy across the back of his hand, up his neck, through his scalp. It felt soothing").
I finished the book - it was a quick read - to see if it would improve. It didn't.
Unfortunately, the reality is rather different: a poorly-comstructed, trashy novel, populated by one-dimensional characters, that could have been set anywhere and at any time. The scientific aspects are dodgy at best and in some cases just incorrect (even in 1968, smuggling fissile material offsite wouldn't have been possible). Every chapter has a seemingly-random nuclear-related title and some of the text is laughable (e.g. "Could animals detect radiation? Did he, to them, glow? Or could they detect a buzz?" and "Now that he was lying perfectly still, the radiation was sending little rushes of cold energy across the back of his hand, up his neck, through his scalp. It felt soothing").
I finished the book - it was a quick read - to see if it would improve. It didn't.
September 11, 2021
Frank would probably consider himself a straightforward kind of guy. Happy in his marriage, passionate about his work, with a strong antipathy to violence against women. Unfortunately it’s a combination that can get him into trouble but, transferred to a newly-built nuclear-power station on the Suffolk coast, he has a chance to redeem himself.
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February 24, 2023
We recently started a book club at work and this one was the first title we picked! I loved the cover first of all, the toxic green against the grey background. It reminds me of the main character, a man who doesn't fit in the 1960s society, a man with a troubled childhood but extremely smart. Frank gets transferred to work for a nuclear reactor in a remote village off the cost of Norfolk, at first it seems like that's the best thing for him, what he needed to start over and get a new life but as time passes he becomes more and more alike to the nuclear reactor, toxic to the surrounding.
I enjoyed the plot, the timeline and the backdrop, but I felt the story wasn't quite there. The characters are a bit too stereotyped, the way mental illness is portrayed is also a bit simplistic and even naive. Frank was probably my favourite character but the rest were just black and white, not very realistic characters.
I enjoyed the plot, the timeline and the backdrop, but I felt the story wasn't quite there. The characters are a bit too stereotyped, the way mental illness is portrayed is also a bit simplistic and even naive. Frank was probably my favourite character but the rest were just black and white, not very realistic characters.
October 28, 2021
A real sense of unease runs through this book. The bleak landscape and stultifying heat only add to the claustrophobic feel. With an enigmatic, menacing main character, there's a nightmarish quality about it that kept me on edge from start to finish.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews