I consumed this book in two settings, and it was like a fever. Time descended on me, closed over me, and for the space of a few hundred pages, the world was composed of only myself and this book. After reading, I immediately purchased Pulley’s other books, and recently raced through The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Lost Future of Pepperharrow as if someone might take them from my hands at any moment. It’s been weeks, and I still can’t shake the rhythms and cadences of these stories out of my brain. I can’t get enough of them. In the end, I am certain—to borrow some of Coleridge’s words—that I'd know a Natasha Pulley story if I found it wandering the desert.

A deeply moving, sharply tender, and unforgettable story. Highly Recommended.

Valery Kolkhanov is six years into a ten-year sentence at a Soviet gulag when he is transferred to work at a lab at the mysterious City 40: a small city in the middle of an irradiated marsh, home to five nuclear reactors and a thousand secrets. Conditions at City 40 are infinitely better than the gulag, but there’s something very wrong going on at City 40: rumors about a strange explosion six years ago, radiation charts that bear no correlation with reality, and an intentional lack of radiation equipment. But asking questions is a dangerous proposition in the Soviet Union, and some secrets are meant to stay hidden.

WELCOME BACK TO NATASHA PULLEY LAND, WHERE EVERYTHING HURTS!

At this point, Pulley has a very specific formula. If you liked her previous books, you will love this one. If you didn’t like her previous books, this probably won’t be your cup of tea. I happen to adore her books, so this was extremely up my alley and had me staying up past any reasonable bedtime because I couldn’t put the book down.

I could go on about why I love Pulley’s specific formula: her focus on small kindnesses in the face of immense cruelty and coldness; her masterful building of tension and suspense; the way she builds a relationship on the smallest, subtlest moments and gestures into something grand and beautiful and breathtaking; her penchant for really, really interesting historical settings; how all her books include adorably anthropomorphic animals (I am overjoyed to announce that we have another octopus in this book, his name is Albert and I love him). But I’ve talked about all those things in other Pulley book reviews, so I’m going to attempt to not be repetitive.

Pulley has long had an issue with casting her female characters as villains, or at least roadblocks for the protagonists. It’s a perfectly fine trope to pull once, but she’s used it in all her books except The Bedlam Stacks. I’m really pleased to say that Pulley has finally course corrected here! Not that there aren’t any female villains, but there are a lot of female characters in general and they come in a variety of flavors and personalities. It’s a refreshing addition of balance to the book, and one Pulley really needed.

One of the Pulley’s favorite tropes are characters with good moral cores who have been put in situations where they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their only course of action is to cause pain and hurt. That trope is turned up to eleven in this book, as is appropriate for a novel about radiation experiments in Soviet Russia. With the Cold War raging, the stakes have never been higher for Soviet scientists. Radiation experiments could discover ways to mitigate or even cure radiation poisoning, saving millions of lives if the US ever nukes the Soviet Union. But radiation experiments can only be effective if a fair amount of ethics are thrown out the window. Is it worth harming some to save many? Where is the line?

It’s a line that’s both fuzzy and constantly shifting for many of the characters, and it raises questions of culpability and judgement. Is it evil to put the potential needs of many ahead of the very real needs of a few? Does that math change if “many” is measured in millions and “few” is measured in thousands? Does the fact that we know in the modern day that most of the results of these radiation experiments were useless render those decisions and that math less moral in hindsight?

These are not easy questions to answer, and not ones Pulley even begins to attempt to answer. Her characters are morally compromised, and they know it, and they hate it. It tortures them, what they’ve done. But they also still did those things. And despite those cruelties, despite how cold and awful the grinding machine of society is, her characters still find space for kindness. In Pulley’s world, kindness is the ultimate saving grace.

I imagine more than a few readers will be turned off by the moral compromises the more sympathetic characters make, and I get it. But I don’t think Pulley is condoning anyone’s behavior – far from it. Rather, she presents situations in which good people make really awful decisions and explains how they get to those decisions. No one is off the hook here.

Side note: Pulley’s original title, Rust Country, was a hell of a lot better than The Half Life of Valery K. But book trends are a thing, so I understand why the publisher pushed for it. Please shelve this book next to The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and all the other The X Lives of Y books.

I always come out of a Natasha Pulley book feeling like my heart has grown several sizes to better accommodate all the emotions the book has summoned in me. She has such a magical way with words, and her full talents are on display here. This book is a real gem, and a worthy successor to Pulley’s absolute masterpiece The Kingdoms. I want to spend ten hours on Wikipedia reading about radiation, and I want to reread this book immediately so I can feel everything all over again.

(Note from Miriam in the future: I did in fact reread this book immediately.)

Spoilers ahead!

The Kingdoms was my first Natasha Pulley novel (and I absolutely loved it), and as soon as I finished I immediately looked up her other works. This was the one that most appealed to me, so I'm incredibly grateful I was able to get the ARC.

All in all, this book was a hit for me. It was a decent amount darker than what I usually reach for, which I expected based on the description. I knew nothing about City 40 when I started reading, so I was fully engaged and on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next.

Much like with The Kingdoms, I wasn't quite sure who Valery's love interest was supposed to be at first. I really wasn't expecting it to be Shenkov. He was a character that I paid little to no attention to right up until the point it became obvious he was the love interest. The deeper I got into the story, the more interesting I found him to be. We find out he joined the KGB because he disagreed with how they handled things and he felt the best way to make a change was from the inside. So you have this character who is respectful and kind and thoughtful, but who also murders people who goes against the government in any way. It was certainly an interesting juxtaposition. I do feel Shenkov's violence throughout the book was very glossed over, which I'm assuming is supposed to be a reflection of the time period? It make sense if that's the case, but it was a bit odd when Valery would find out Shenkov killed someone the night before and they're already on a new topic a page later. As a whole, I didn't dislike their relationship, but I wouldn't say I was overly invested in it either. I'm ultimately glad they got a "happy ending," but I would say I was far more interested in the larger plot than their relationship.

I've seen a few reviews discuss how Valery should have figured out what was going on sooner because it was obvious, but I strongly disagree. After six years of literally being in survival mode, I think it's fully believable it took him a bit of time to figure out what was going on. He started realizing something was off immediately, so I don't think that was making him clueless for the sake of the plot. I've also seen people say his PTSD symptoms only occurred when it was convenient to the plot, but again, I disagree. PTSD is a very complex condition, and I think that's reflected in his character. Just because he didn't spend the entire book dissociating or having a panic attack doesn't mean he wasn't clearly displaying symptoms of PTSD the entire time.

The part of this book that didn't quite work for me was the ending, and that's for two reason. The first is that Alice and the kids, for whatever reason, weren't able to join them in getting to the embassy in Moscow. I don't see why that was necessary, other than to allow Valery and Shenkov to end up together in England alone with no distractions to their relationship. The second is that Shenkov didn't really seem all that upset that, as far as he knew, his wife and children (one of whom is dying) were still in Russia in a radioactive city that could explode at any moment. I know he said that's just how it is in that time for people like him, but it felt a bit downplayed considering we saw how much he loves his children throughout the rest of the book.

Despite my issues with the ending, I still found this to be a very engaging,entertaining book, and I will definitely be purchasing a physical copy when it comes out.

Valery Kolkhanov is six years into a ten year sentence in the Gulag. He's been doing okay, even now that he's noticed his bones fracturing for lack of calcium. He never thinks about his life Before, when he was a biochemist, but suddenly, his old mentor springs him from the taiga and plops him down at her new lab in a radioecological research facility known as City 40. He's given a stopwatch with instructions about how long he can be outdoors before becoming sick from the radiation.

It's 1963 and the Soviets are terrified that the Americans will discover City 40 and bomb it, but it only takes a day for Valery to realize that the real danger is in the program itself. He's horrified to realize that six years of keeping his head down in the Gulag is lost when he's back in his own field. He can't help but point out the bad math in the calculations of danger which puts him more and more in contact with the KGB agent in charge of City 40, who's already told Valery that he has shot a scientist this week who made the same observations. But somehow, he does not shoot the little skinny starved biochemist then and there. What's that about?

"The Half Life of Valery K" is creepy and frightening, but punctuated by humanity, hope, and even love. It's impossible to put the book down without wondering when you'll be able to get back to it. Natasha Pulley's characters are surprising and filled with contradictions. The suspense almost hurts.

Then you find out that the story is based on a real, utterly terrifying incident while in real time Russian soldiers are surrounding Chernobyl as they invade Ukraine. This Soviet-era historical novel is scary and hell and not to be missed.

The cover of "The Half Life of Valery K" immediately grabbed my attention between the ominous graphics with its vivid reds and skeletal trees calling to mind the desolate forests around 1990s Chernobyl and the nod to atomics in the mysterious title. I hoped it would fall into a niche sub-genre that's becoming a favorite of mine: Cold War era nuclear-program-related books (both fiction and non-fiction). The description and the book itself did not fail to deliver, and I found myself quickly engrossed and unable to put the book down.

I won't go into much detail regarding the plot as the unfolding of the story and setting was one of my favorite parts, but Pulley does a wonderful job balancing the bleakness of her settings and situations with the richness of her characters and the warmth of their interactions. These characters are not perfect but flawed, and their flaws make them human. I loved Valery's character and demeanor, propelled forwards as he is by a curious balance of nihilism and optimism as he faces the situations before him.

While the end of the book does have a few rough notes (wrapping up some plot threads too neatly while leaving a few others hanging), overall I really loved the journey and plan on picking up a copy for my personal library once the book is released. Thank you to both Bloomsbury and NetGalley for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review (though I will note that the KIndle ARC had a lot of odd typographic errors that I hope are corrected in the release).

Build Your Library 2022: A story about someone whose life is very different from your own
Popsugar 2022: a book with the name of a board game in the title

The twentieth century is a ripe time period for speculative fiction. So many things that you'd find unbelievable if they hadn't actually happened. It was a monster of a century.

This book begins in 1963 Siberia. Our main character, Valery, is in the gulag strategizing how to make it through one more day. Starting here gives the reader a good idea of the conditions in the Soviet Union at this time. It also weirdly reminded me of the pandemic. Valery looks for tiny good things to focus on to get him through the day. He likes the way the ice sounds when he cracks it to get water for washing or cleaning. He can use the same square of newspaper to do a crossword and then turn it into cigarette rolling paper- great use of one piece of paper! It was a fool's game to look too far ahead, to expect anything at all. Just small hopes and pleasures were how to survive.

When Valery is taken to the secret lab, we also experience his sense of unreality. He's learned to expect the worst whenever anything happens. He can't allow himself to believe that he is allowed a shower with hot water, much less a room where he can actually be alone for the first time in years (a blessing and a curse). Six years in the gulag was a long time and it marked him. Valery's inability to feel safe and his involuntary jumping at any sound or touch is utterly credible and also a survival tactic since he hadn't, in fact, been safe. Nor is he now.

Valery spends time at the lab learning how to act like a human again. He's long since perfected the harmless little act that had allowed him to be overlooked as a danger and thus allowed him to survive. But he still has his hyperalertness and honed ability to read a situation. He assesses Shenkov, the local KgB officer, as less of a threat than he appears. The environment around him is a bigger threat than anyone wants to admit.

Valery is a biochemist specializing in radiation research. This is what he's been brought to the lab to conduct. While the lab admits that the ground and surroundings (a lake, a forest) are somewhat irradiated, it seems likely that the whole truth is not out there. Valery is observant and more experienced than the students working in the lab and he notices things that aren't right.

There's a deadly puzzle here and even if it's solved, the Soviet government might not stir itself to act. The culture of the Stalinist regime is clear. Embarrass a higher up and you will be punished. Saving your face and your ass is far more important than truth. If a person happens to have morals beyond that, it won't serve them well. The book discusses the utter insanity of the millions of arrests that took place under Stalin (20 million people out of a little over a hundred million, with most sent to the gulag if not shot). In this twisted world, your children could report you for not being a good Party member and so could your spouse. The utter loneliness of not being able to trust anyone is brought home. Having been in the wrong place, knowing the wrong thing, being friends with someone who falls out of favor, any of these things could seal a person's fate. Even just being in the wrong place at the wrong time could be enough to end life as you know it. I've read other accounts of this time and the author gets it right. And it wasn't just the Soviet Union that treated its people this way. China post-revolution was a terrifying, deadly place. South Korea still is. The Khmer Rouge, the Argentinian dirty war, all over the world men who gained power did anything and everything to keep it.

This is what terrifies me today. The USA has not yet experienced such a time, but it is in no way immune. It could absolutely happen here and I think that there are people even now who want it to happen.

But I digress! This is an excellent book. Valery is a fascinating protagonist. The author has made all of her characters humans in an inhuman situation. The science of radiation is also fascinating and terrifying and the core of the puzzle of the book. Also, there is an octopus named Albert who likes to watch TV. Despite what I've written, don't avoid this book! I think you'll have a good experience reading it and highly recommend it.

This will sell well because of the author name recognition, she has lots of talent, and because this is very good. I'm not really interested in the history of Russia or fiction tales set there, but this was quite engaging. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

Over the course of less than a year, I've gone from only vaguely being aware of Natasha Pulley's name to being a die-hard total fan. Fortunately, I didn't actually have to sell my firstborn child to read an early copy of The Half Life of Valery K - thank you Bloomsbury!

Also fortunate? I was absolutely not let down by Pulley's latest. Though this might be the first of her novels to stay firmly in a realist mode, without the hints of the magical and fantastical that pervade her other works, in most ways it follows what's clearly a pattern or template of sorts for Pulley.

Which in a way is great - after all, I adore her other books, and despite the inclusion of many of the same sort of tropes and archetypes, she still finds fresh and surprising approaches to them, not to mention heartbreakingly, shatteringly perfect prose throughout.

On the other hand... I'm getting just a little tired of the way female characters (especially the ruthless, ambitious sorts) are given short shrift for the sake of the male leads. Just... kind of starting to be noticeable, you know? And maybe a bit worn out? And maybe we can try something else next time?

There's also a big ol' spoiler choice made toward the end of the book that I found jarringly out of character - all to get people where they need to be for one kind of satisfactory ending. It's a bit...imperfect.

But Natasha Pulley at less than perfect is still pretty damn good - and still a five-star, highly recommended read.

I received an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so fascinating! I really enjoyed the story of Valery, who in 1960's Russia, is involved in testing radiation. I loved all the science but it never felt too overwhelming. I could have done without the romance element, but it wasn't too bad. If you like spies, science, and intrigue, this is the book for you!

Having read all of Natasha Pulley's previous novels, I pretty much knew what to expect. This is perfect, because I always get exactly what I want out of a book from her. Despite the vastly different settings for all of them, they all center around powerfully compelling emotional arcs in detailed, wondrous historical settings.
They also all center around key scientific developments and concepts. In this case, that was radiation. Though I wasn't initially particularly interested in the topic, I soon got so sucked into the mystery of the main character's past that I started to really enjoy learning about how radiation works and how he studied its effects on the ecosystem. The initially improbable romance soon felt inevitable (another common Pulley pattern), and I loved watching the slow build of trust and care between them. I could have lived in the world of the last chapter for hours and been happy. In fact, I would love to read a sequel about (warning: vague spoilers) how they emotionally, culturally, and psychologically adjust to living in such different circumstances.
This was a delightful and harrowing novel, which I have already recommended to many friends and look forward to recommending to more!

4.5 stars.

With each Natasha Pulley novel I read, I can feel the romance getting softer and me becoming more thoroughly charmed by the way this woman writes pining and angst and plot in general. Pulley's characters are always so complex, never completely good or bad, likable or unsympathetic, and Valery's definitely one of my favorites. I also just thoroughly enjoyed his voice and the way he viewed the world, even though his view of himself crushed me. The story and science were horrible (content-wise, not craft) and fascinating in turns, and I thought the different elements—human experimentation, covert labs, surviving prison, performing atrocious acts because there isn't always another choice—were tied together nicely. And Anna! And Resovskaya! We got female characters who were multifaceted and who, despite their choices, I was invested in, which hasn't been the case for Pulley's female characters. The romance was subtle, something I didn't mind because it was still so clearly on the page; I was as smitten with Shenkov and Valery as they were with one another. Yes, it could have been addressed more at the end, and the epilogue itself was unfortunately weak compared to everything that came before (that dinner scene though; what was that for?), but the ending was also realistic considering the situation Valery and Shenkov found themselves in. I enjoyed the journey of reading this more than I did most recently with The Kingdoms, yet the payoff was greater for that book. Maybe I'll reread all of Pulley's novels sometime within the next year or two and reevaluate!

Valery glanced at the window and had a strange deep roll of hopelessness. [...] [A]ll of them together blasting the same poison into their children, as cancerous as any radiation, with as long a half life. Even if everyone changed right now, overnight, that contaminated way of thinking would still be around for a good thirty years. Some of it for far longer.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! I am a huge fan of nuclear history, so this book was right up my alley. Natasha Pulley does an excellent job imagining the details behind the source of the Chelyabinsk-65 1957 radiation blast.

It's got queer representation, romance, KGB agents, spies and double crossers, and biologicat studies. Who knew bananas set off dosimeters?

Well done.
4.2/5

A fascinating, nuanced book. Set in 1963 Russia, Valery is a scientist who is plucked from a Siberian gulag to study the effects of radiation in a secret blighted city called City 40. He is a fully fleshed-out, complex character who develops a romantic relationship with an equally developed character, a guard named Shenkov. Together they realize there is more going on they they have been told. The plot, main characters and side characters are all interesting. The science aspects are complex but I understood them, at least while reading, don't expect me to try to explain it to anyone else lol. Highly recommended.

This was very enjoyable, but not quite in the same league as the author's excellent "The Kingdoms". I really enjoyed the first half, but in the second half my attention was starting to drift. I also didn't love how the main relationship in the book is so similar to the one in Kingdoms. The ending was simultaneously a bit too tidy and a bit too unrealistic, and the gender themes which had been a light touch through most of the book became very heavy handed in the last few pages.

4 1/2 stars.

I've been trying to figure out how to review this novel for days now. I have a pretty strong background in Russian history, both Soviet and not, and so I kind of feel like I shouldn't have been surprised by anything in this book, but I was. I was gutted, my heart was shredded, I kept saying, "no!" aloud, to the story on the page, not least because Pulley draws her story from true events. Not least because my reading of Soviet history and the genocide perpetrated against the Russian people (to say nothing of everyone else) supports every single awful thing that happens here.

It is a marvel of a book. It is also utterly shattering.

Solzhenitsyn's <i>In The First Circle</i> tells the story of his time in the gulag, and the opening of <i>The Half Life of Valery K</i> reminds me strongly of it. The tone is similar enough to serve as a warning of things to come, and it's also a clue that every word Pulley writes is deliberate. Every line of dialog and every bit of self-censorship is intentional and eventually so ingrained that the characters don't even dare think their concerns, they only circle them allegorically.

It is harrowing.

Somehow Pulley wrangles a (relatively) happy ending out of this journey through horrific moral relativism , and along the way we see her usual themes of iron-willed women, gender dysphoria, and desperation for human connection in settings that literally kill people for seeking it. There's a polyamorous love story between the protagonist and his married male love interest and some wonderful m/f friendship.

The real life setting that inspired the novel is the Mayak complex nuclear waste disaster that took place at Lake Karachai in the late 1950s and its shuttering in the early 1960s. This resulted in a radiation poisoning event 20 times worse than that of Chernobyl.

I had a couple of quibbles, as usual. First, it was weird to me to read Russians using British slang. I get the desire to convey colloquial conversations, but it was distracting. Second, the sex scenes are so oblique as to only exist in hindsight. This is clearly intentional: homosexuality was illegal & people learned from childhood to censor their very thoughts, much less words, when it came to anything that might land one in the Lubyanka. But readers are not actually able to read the author's mind and most people haven't read as much history as I have, so I wish there were more -- words like "texture" or "rhythm" or "pressure" or "strength" in the narrative would have drawn in the outlines while maintaining sufficient terror of discovery.

That said, this was an amazing book. Excruciating at times, and surprisingly literary for historical fiction, but amazing all the same.

Content warnings: mass murder, non-mass murder, animal harm, offscreen atrocity, offscreen atrocity against women, radiation poisoning, gulag conditions, Lubyanka conditions (including torture), trauma, psychological horror.


ARC

Natasha Pulley is, as always, an expert at writing historical fiction! This novel, set in 1960s Russia during the cold war, is perfect for any fans of Pulley, historical fiction, literary fiction, political thrillers, or novels of the World Wars. I was totally drawn in by this book and finished it only in a few days!

The novel opens with our main character, Valery, being pulled from a Siberian prison and transferred to an unknown location. A former nuclear specialist, Valery and been in prison for years without any hope of release. His sudden extraction is as shocking to the reader as it is to him, and it only gets more intense from there. Valery arrives at City 40, a secret location in Russia where Valery is required to serve out the rest of his prison sentence studying the effects of radiation on local forests and animals. But right away, Valery realizes that there is more happening at City 40 than meets the eye, and these realizations place him and those he cares about in harms way.

This book was delightful. Valery is a thoroughly drawn character who we are allied with from the beginning of the novel. His compelling perspective and unique gifts in the text make for exciting reading, even in the moments when Valery reflects privately. Furthermore, the characters that surround Valery are full of nuance, and the novel does an expert job of clarifying each characters' motivations.

Furthermore, with a novel like this, historical/scientific accuracy is always a concern. Pulley includes a helpful afterward to clarify which parts of her novel are history, fiction, or both. Crucially, a lot of the science in this novel is clearly articulated and explained in a way that is both interesting and accessible. Most readers will have no clear idea of the effects of radiation on a human body (other than that it can be catastrophic), so Pulley's narrative, as told through Valery, carefully outlines the key aspects of the science behind the plot. However, the novel does so in a way that is subtle, carefully crafted, and immersive.

I was so taken with this novel and I found myself wanting more after the final page! I will definitely continue to read Natasha Pulley's books after reading this one!

Easily one of my new favorites. Well developed and uniquely lovable characters. A fantastically written story that will live with me for a while! A story line that stands alone. I highly recommend this book, and already have, despite the wait!

I was intrigued by the synopsis of The Half Life of Valery K. Having read and liked some of the authors previous work, I was eagerly anticipating another great release by her, but I can only say that the book was OK and not great.

The book opens as Valery K, a six year resident of the Soviet gulag, and an expert in radiation biology, finds himself transferred to City 40, the site of a concealed nuclear accident, and the site of research into radiation effects on various species. He slowly discovers not all is as it seems, and events spiral from there.

The protagonist, Valery K, was not an interesting character. For whatever reason, I cared less and less for him as I continued on in the book, especially as his past history started coming to light. The author’s portrait of him seemed inconsistent. At times, he’s quite the “nervous Nellie” who suffers from panic attacks, while at other times he’s determined and not at all anxious to undertake what he feels he needs to do. His counterpart, Shenkov, the head of the KGB at the facility, has an unconvincing change of heart towards Valery.

Overall, I struggled at times to finish the book, as I just found it hard to maintain interest. The ending was not at all convincing to me.

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing, and Netgalley, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Excellent Soviet-era historical fiction with a very compelling main character, this was a great read albeit quite depressing (especially in hindsight as Pulley makes it clear in the afterword that this is very heavily based in reality).

Valery, the protagonist, is a specialist in the effects of radioactive materials on biology and gets pulled from the gulag to work in the mysterious City 40, a city that has been cut off from the rest of the world in order to study the effects of radiation on a completely irradiated ecosystem. But there's something not quite right about the radioactivity heat map provided by the scientists/KGB overseeing the site, and Valery is determined to to figure out what's really going on and sound the alarm bells.

I really loved Valery as a protagonist and thought Pulley did a great job of creating a character with a troubled past trying to work through his own issues while also working through a rather large main plot. I was also a big fan of Shenkov and enjoyed watching the relationship between the two characters change and grow. There's also a great cast of side characters throughout the book.

The plot is well-paced throughout and even when there were chapters flashing-back in time I never felt like the plot wasn't moving along, and all of the major plot points were compelling. I also really liked the way Pulley tied things up at the end. She had also clearly done quite a lot of research into the setting and it felt very realistic while I was reading it.

I did have a couple of very minor nitpicks with word-choices a couple of times but overall it was a fantastic read and definitely makes me keen to go back and read Pulley's previously published worked.

Oh, and special shout-out to Albert the octopus for bringing some delightful levity to the book!

One of Natasha Pulley's great strengths as a writer is her ability to immerse the reader in a perhaps unfamiliar setting and time with great specificity. This book is no exception. Her attention to detail is both helpful in becoming familiar with the world of the novel and rewarding when rereading.

As usual, I admire Pulley's grasp of pacing. New information is revealed in a smooth, unhurried way, backstory is filled in when appropriate without being intrusive, and the reader is trusted follow the plot and understand changing character dynamics and motivations without overly explicit exposition.

Finally, I'm a physicist, and every joke and aside about radiation units made me laugh.