| While still seven hundred miles at sea en route to New York, the Liquefied Natural Gas supertanker Georgia Pioneer suffers a "blowout." Although damage is sustained, the blowout is capped and Georgia Pioneer proceeds toward the United States and its final fatal moment in New York Harbor. There, while preparing to pump the LNG ashore, the weakened ship ruptures and explodes. Over Staten Island, Lower Man- hattan, and Brooklyn flows an LNG vapor stream chilled to minus 260~E At that tem- perature, every metallic object it touches be- comes brittle and fails, every liquid solidi- fies, and every living organism freezes to death. Among the latter, of course, are hun- dreds of thousands of people. As the vapor warms it expands to six hundred times its frozen volume and encounters the inevitable spark. In the resulting firestorm, Manhattan burns. The total loss of life is in the millions. The fire department is overwhelmed, as had been the Coast Guard at the time of the initial leakage, their contingency plans hopeless in the midst of monumental disaster. Basil Jackson s novels are based on solid reality. LNG tankers ply the seas. Their cargoes are unloaded in heavily populated, deep-water ports. The ships are fragile, the LNG carried by one tanker easily capable of destroying most of New York City. Acci- dents such as Mr. Jackson supposes here are possible--perhaps, in the long run, likely. As always, the author creates human stories to carry his warning. This new novel is no exception. It is woven into a plot of"high suspense. This may be Basil Jackson s most dramatic tale to date. |
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