Fallout: A Novel

In Wil Mara’s Fallout, the fictional town of Silver Lake, Pennsylvania, is about to be hit by a major storm, which will bring about large-scale flooding and evacuation. Now, as bad as that sounds, the situation is only made worse when lightning strikes the nearby power plant—hence the title. This causes radiation to pour into the heart of the storm, which has the potential to cover the entire Eastern seaboard.

The novel reads like the child of a direct-to-video disaster film and a Lifetime original movie. Sarah Redmond, Silver Lake’s acting mayor, can’t stop gushing over her EMT husband, Emilio Rodriguez. A potential but ultimately doomed romance between investigative reporter Marla Hollis and plant manager Andrew Corwin is also forced. But, despite these melodramatic relationships, you can’t help but care for these characters.

Besides the obvious references to the Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island disasters, Mara’s work is certainly well researched. He clearly hates nuclear power, and he doesn’t care if the reader knows it. The copy-like details he gives on the long-term effects of nuclear radiation, however, make this otherwise fast read just a little too long, as do the backstories of various townspeople who have nothing to do with the plot.