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.
还没人写过短评呢