Rating: 
Summary: Meltdown by James Pawlick - author did not do homework
Review: The author has a good start for an interesting science fiction yarn with an underlying environmental message. However he did not do his homework in a number of scientific fields. What kept me going was to discover error after error in the fields of nuclear reactors, nuclear and isotope chemistry, nuclear waste management work, and chemistry in general.
Rating: 
Summary: actually less than 1 star
Review: The premise of this book was good and should have resulted in a real page turner. This, for me, was not the case. I found the writing extremely boring . I kept turning pages hoping to find improvement. NO SUCH LUCK. This book is easily one of the worst I've read in recent years.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost as entertaining as 'Sea Change'
Review: Unlike some of the other reviewers who actually *know* about the glaring errors that James Powlik has littered 'Meltdown' with, I simply did NOT excell in Nuclear Physics, so any and all of those mistakes simply passed me by, as they probably would the vast number of folks who are entirely unaware what a radioactive isotope can and cannot do to the human body. What did *not* pass me by was a fun story.Mistakes notwithstanding, I still found 'Meltdown' to be an exciting example of the action/adventure novels that are suddenly showing up over the past few years. It wasn't long ago when if you wanted a novel in this particular genre, you had pretty much Clive Cussler to choose from, and that was about it (as far as what was worth reading...) but TODAY, things are a bit different (thank HEAVENS). You can pick from Cussler, Du Brul, Matthew Reilly, James Rollins, James Byron Huggins and now you can add James Powlik to that growing list of authors to watch for. While I personally did not find 'Meltdown' to be as thought-provoking and overall entertaining as I did his 1st novel ('Sea Change'), I DID find it to be full of a lot of what I personally look for when I open up a book like this: FUN. It allowed me to temporarily forget my problems for a short while and there are a few places where you need to check your believability meter before progressing, but that's all in good fun as long as the storyline is just plain FUN -- which this one definitely IS. IF you happen to pick apart novels based upon factual errors within a novel such as street locations, how radioactive material affects the human body, well you may want to skip 'Meltdown'...b-u-u-u-t if you can put all that aside and concentrate on the story as a whole, you will find yourself wrapped within a very entertaining scenario that bristles with action and suspense. While not as action-packed as a story by Matthew Reilly (which is virtually IMPOSSIBLE for ANY novelist to pull off) I found myself rushing through this book enjoying virtually everything -- mistakes included.
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