DOME by Lawrence Huff

Mary Wolford, Ph.D., assistant to Professor Nichols, explained candidly and coolly to the mayor her understanding of the Slayer equations.

"Slayer's mathematics are rigorous. Absolutely foolproof. We've already established that on the computer. What we don't know and are trying to establish by this test run is how well his equations fit the physical conditions and characteristics of the Sodium Cooled Type Eight. If they fit we're in serious trouble.

This is author Lawrence Huff's only credited novel, and I'm not sure if he's a one-off writer or a pseudonym lost in the shuffle. A certain roughness around the edges points to a one shot author - Huff certainly lays it on thick with hero Dr. George Slayer's predictions of doom and gloom, and everyone's dialogue has a certain expository cant that reminds us over and over again that this is a DISASTER novel, all caps. Huff has some fun with it, anyways, and isn't afraid to take things to the limit ... eventually. 

In the meantime, we have to be satisfied with building premonitions of looming disaster: a missing plant worker, missing children on the causeway, a Howard Johnson's blown half sky high by a steam explosion, bugs in the system and false alarms out the wazoo. Things escalate quickly around the halfway point though, and soon enough we're all gonna be nuclear experts one way or another, the most unfortunate through personal experience ...

I said Huff has some fun with things - his hero is named Slayer, after all! He handles the coverup narrative with some appreciated subtlety, however, with General Power's minions scrambling to tell themselves it's all for the greater good even as we learn bit by bloody bit all the new and exciting ways a nuclear plant can lash out in destruction, long before we ever get to the dreaded supercritical tipping point. Who would have dreamed that a jetliner would be in danger 4,000 feet above the dome? Huff also, thankfully, gets everyone on board with the threat quickly enough once it's undeniable - there's not too much slogging through the Sturm und Drang of career worries and boardroom sniping that drag down so many mid-tier disaster stories.

At times, however, the scale is shabby and small, like a community theatre play with Huff's characters tripping over themselves on a cramped stage. At other times, Huff is successful at drawing the global stakes and invoking the awesome forces barely contained by General Power's Type 8 reactor. His character work can be clunky but his humanistic lens softens a lot of the rough craft. 

Too, Dome is a relic of a certain time, the era of The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island, when nuclear power was a visceral, immediate threat. Nowadays, with the plague years of police state terrorism, genocide, and climate apocalypse, what's an old fashioned meltdown? It's almost quaint ... until we get to the very end and realize how high the stakes truly have been. Slayer's been playing for keeps while the rest of us were rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, as it were.

As stated, Huff ties things up well enough by the climax, with some exciting derring do and dutiful philosophizing. In the end, his nuclear powered downer earns a 2/4 rating. As far as disasters go, this is an also-ran with some grody highlights ... but not grody enough!

Pocket Books, 1979