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.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for providing me with an ARC!

I love Natasha Pulley’s books. This one hits all the beats you expect from her by now: the desperate and complicated pining between two apparently diametrically opposed characters, the simple but beautiful turns of phrase, the very specific and fleshed out historical setting, the mystery and intrigue, the random but fun pets (another octopus)—except for one point. There’s no speculative/magic element in this one, it’s just historical fiction. That might trip up seasoned readers of Pulley, but it also might make this a good book to jump in with if you haven’t read her others before.

I personally don’t mind that there’s not a speculative element because the plot is already plenty interesting without it. I’m not always a huge fan of historical fiction, but I do love biochemistry, so I really like the premise of this book, and even if you’re not big on science, explanations are made that are simple enough for the average person to follow but also in depth enough that you can understand the gravity of what’s going on.

The plot itself is fairly straightforward but still manages to be engaging and appropriately stressful. In this case, I think the characters are more compelling than the plot, and it will be hard to care about the plot if you don’t care about them. Valery is a really great, complicated, and compelling protagonist. His intelligence and straight forward outlook on life is a delight to read, because naive and useless protagonists are the worst. I also think the relationship between him and the deuteragonist, Shenkov, is a super interesting and complex aspect of the story. It’s not straight forward or simple at all, and Valery’s mindset as he learns more about Shenkov is very interesting and compelling to read. I really really liked their relationship and I think it’s one of the strongest parts of the book because it isn’t easy and it isn’t straight forward.

One thing I struggle with is the ending. At the risk of spoiling, I won’t say much, but I think the complexity and turmoil that makes the rest of the book so good is lost in the ending. It’s at once too perfect and too bare. I felt somewhat unfulfilled by it, which is not something I usually feel about Pulley’s books.

All in all, a really great book and one of the most distinct of Pulley’s bibliography. I do have some issues with it, but by and far I had a great time reading it and I will definitely read it again when it actually comes out!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4583740052

This book kept me absorbed for the past two weeks as I read it slowly, appreciating and taking in every word of it. Natasha's writing here is incredible as always — her world-building is so immersive and atmospheric, and her characters so real, when the subject matter (radiation science and its effects) would otherwise seem unapproachable. I felt so attuned with Valery and his feelings and behaviors especially.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Half Life of Valery K. I loved it and highly recommend it. I truly relished in the tension of this book and all of its mysteries.

This is only my second Natasha Pulley book--I read The Kingdoms earlier this year--and I can say pretty confidently that she's now one of my favorite authors. She weaves wonderful, complex stories around three-dimensional characters, and she writes beautifully.

This book follows Valery Kolkhanov, a nuclear scientist, from his time in Siberia to the mysterious City 40. This book is very much in Pulley's style: there's a bit of mystery, a bit of adventure, strong LGBT representation, very high stakes, and generally good people who do terrible things without guilt.

With everything going on with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reading this book now felt timely.

And just a note: people are preemptively shelving this book as fantasy or speculative fiction. It's not. This is a pretty straightforward historical fiction book, and Pulley includes notes in the back grounding the book to real historical events.

Content Warnings:
<spoiler>
Nazis - in particular Joseph Mengele makes a brief appearance
Human Experimentation
Animal Experimentation
Implied group rape
Some homophobia - including random use of a homophobic slur
Cheating
Children with incurable cancer
</spoiler>

Natasha Pulley's latest is a difficult novel to classify – maybe historical thriller with elements of MM romance. The setting is the aftermath of a real historical incident - the 1957 Kyshtym disaster, a nuclear accident equivalent to Chernobyl that was concealed from the world for many years. The overall theme of the book is what sacrifices should be made by individuals for the good of the many. The protagonist, Valery, is plucked from the Gulag and sent to help with research at Chelyabinsk 40, a closed city in Russia that housed a nuclear power plant making weapons-grade plutonium. Once there, Valery, along with the head of security, Shenkov, uncover layers of conspiracy.
This book was surprisingly easy to ready for such grim subject matter. The narrative voice is whimsical and engaging and I will certainly be going back through the author's catalogue and reading her other novels that aren't so dark. There were also some lovely pieces of characterization throughout - Valery keeping the postage stamp as he leaves the Gulag comes to mind. Additionally, Pulley has clearly done a lot of research, both into the history and the science and I particularly enjoyed her explanations of scientific phenomena.

Note: the following contains plot spoilers.
<spoiler>

However, it felt like the writing was just a band aid for the larger issues this book had, both in plotting and in subject matter. Valery is portrayed as a shell shocked, half-starved naïf who doesn't understand people but this is at odds with his actions. He skillfully manipulates the people around him, he has deliberately killed people, and for someone who is meant to be a brilliant radiobiologist who lived through the paranoia of Stalinist Russia, it takes him far too long to realize the government is lying about radiation levels in the city. There are other instances that stood out – Shenkov being so blasé about leaving his children behind. Resovskaya’s reasons for bringing Valery to the facility.

I had to pause reading several times because of events in the novel, but the plot itself never dragged for me, largely because of the deft writing. It did however feel rather circular. Shenkov and Valery would discover yet another deeper conspiracy, with the occasional interlude of Shenkov and Valery watching the figure skating or Valery playing with his octopus or there would be some flashback to the past. I suspect it would have been a better book had it been shorter. The ending thankfully was brief but didn’t sit well with me. It's hard to be satisfied with Shenkov flees Russia with Valery, as he must leave behind his dying wife and 4 children (one of whom is also dying).

And all this probably would have been fine, but I found it hard to get past the subject matter. People can write what they want, and this certainly did make me more aware of Russian history. However, this is relatively recent history, and I'm not sure that deviating from the facts by adding in human experimentation at Chelyabinsk 40 really honors this history. It gives me the impression that the historical setting is just used as a framing device for the romance, rather than the plot being used to illuminate the history, and personally, I feel that the people who lived through this deserve better.
</spoiler>