It's incredible how much acclaim and praise this book received when it was published in 1955, indeed, given to such popularity that it was translated and republished into ten languages. It was still renowned when it was given a second printing run in 1965.

All of this is not without merit, for Dexter Masters so effectively captures the human element inside the science and technology disaster horror story that it is easy to forget that one is not reading fiction, but instead being carried by the narrator through his recollection - seeing the visions playing against his synapses as he recalls the daily events that have become burnt into his memory.

Yet, here we are and the book and the author are so thoroughly forgotten in the passages of literary history that no fewer than four publications have re-appropriated the title themselves. .

It is a shame, for this book reads like a warning to the future. The novel foreshadowing a range of issues surrounding the nuclear field - including radiation poisoning, worker injuries, community harm and even the moral debates over the right of magazines to publish details of nuclear tests and accidents.

If you can get your hands on a copy, it is a pleasure to read - and one I hope to find and re-grace my shelves once again. ( )