Vela wrote:

Thanks Davy. Sounds like something to get for me. Don't often read on fiction but it sounds more serious an event than is commonly known?

Absolutely.

There are several possible outcomes that were prevented basically by people committing suicide by acting heroically. The core could have burned through the foundation of the plant and hit pools of water under the reactor - apparantly the resulting explosion would have irradiated the entire European landmass.  

Divers went into those pools and opened manual valves to drain them thus preventing that. They were heavily irradiated. One can't imagine what that job was like. But there was worse.

The core could have burned on through to the ground water irradiating the Black Sea for thousands of years.

Miners tunnelled underneath the station in 50C heat then installed a heat exchanger under the core to prevent that. They were all heavily irradiated. 

There are some who now in retrospect say that it wasn't necessary but no-one was going to take the chance to not do it.

The men on the roof shovelling fragments of the core back into the building had 20-30 secs before they received a lethal dose. They started going over their allotted time to get the job done.

There were other reactors on the site - if they had gone up then there would have been a global level event. Fire fighters on the scene preventing the spread of fire were all heavily irradiated.

These guys basically saved the world.

Hopefully he included the cooking him tune too.

tigersgogrrr wrote:

Hilariously, an accomplished Irish novelist has been found to have pulled an ingredients list for his book after Googling how to make red dye.

The ingredients list was from Breath of the Wild.

So his historical novel includes reference to Hylian shrooms.

El oh el.

I love that he just embraced it though

Haven’t really read anything recently (outside of all 986 chapters of One Piece) but someone I follow on twitter retweeted this short story from a few years back and it’s really great. Warning, it is a little bleak

https://nplusonemag.com/issue-35/fiction-drama/the-feminist/

Have you read anything outside of all 986 chapters of One Piece?

I think that was paranoid dreck.

Skelebones ahoy!

It's in me shelf. You should have book clubbed it.

Finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle.  Beautiful, tragic and, at times, genuinely funny.  I’m tempted to use the word masterpiece.

I’m halfway through my first ever Brandon Sanderson book, Alantris, and by god is it dull.  The prose is positively tepid.  I’m charging through because I know it’s his first book.  I mean he must obviously improve massively to have become as popular as he is, but maybe traditional fantasy just isn’t my bag.  The thing is littered with names (and places) that end in -din -dan -don -dell and fucking hell I can’t stand it.  Choice laughable names include Tooladoo and Dooladell.  All the characters are painted in striking shades of the dullest magnolia.  I will give him a second shot after this one (he must be popular for a reason) as I already have Warbreaker and The Way of Kings on my Kindle.

Conversely, I’m also over halfway through Nick Cutter’s The Troop, which has sign this fucker up for movie rights written all over it.  Great fun so far.  Five Scouts and their Scoutmaster on a small island earning some badges.  Guy turns up on a boat carrying something unpleasantly contagious.  Grotesque shit goes down.  Schlocky, disgusting, and brilliant so far.

How do you find his prose in these later books.  At least good?  I think the problem for me is that I started right at the top.  I read Tolkien when I was maybe thirteen or fourteen.  It was Tolkien that made me fall in love with the beauty of words.  There are points in Elantris where it’s just [dialogue] said, and then [dialogue] said, and then [dialogue] said...ad infinitum.  At some points my brain feels like it’s starting to liquify and run outta my ears.

I'm going to start The Dragon Republic soon. Can't believe how young the author is considering how excellent the books are.

I’m weeding out of that that The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a goodun.  I have it.  It’s next after this months book club read.

acemuzzy wrote:

But I might suggest that for October FML

Shall I book you in?

It's an absolutely beautiful book.