For Simyon Smin, Deputy Director, the Chernobyl Nuclean Power Station was a source of great pride. For Leonid Sheranchuk, engineer, it was a place where he could put his vast skills to the best use. For Tamara Sheranchuk, doctor, it was a place where she longed to work in order to be closer to her husband. But on April 26, 1986, Chernobyl forever became someplace very different for these three and for everyone around the world.

In an extraordinary novel, Pohl has cast the events surrounding the explosion at Chernobyl into a monumental work of speculative fiction. Based on careful research, Chernobyl takes readers into the lives, homes and heartbeats of the people who were there: plant officials, beaurocrats, crewpeople, soldiers, doctors and emergency workers. We see through their eyes the staggering reality of the disaster itself and re-live, in unforgettable detail, the heroism, the sacrifice, the fear...