Product Description

"I'd rank this book alongside Michael Frayn's The Tin Men, another neglected classic. I've wanted for years to see it back in print. It is one of those books you end up buying several copies of, because you just have to lend it to friends. It's very funny. It's very real." - from the introduction by Terry Pratchett

Smuggling plutonium out of a nuclear research centre is surprisingly easy. The difficult part is smuggling it back in again ...

The Leaky Establishment is an atomic farce whose author David Langford once worked in the gentle radioactive glow of Britain's nuclear weapons industry, and who hilariously satirises it from the inside. Black comedy overtakes the unfortunate defence scientist hero Roy Tappen when a "harmless" theft of office furniture lands him with his very own doomsday nuclear stockpile at home. Chain reactions of comic escapades follow, with disaster piled on disaster, leading the increasingly desperate Tappen to the borders of science fiction as he seeks a way out of the mess.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143269 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

Mary Gentle, Interzone
A comic novel with both verbal wit and comedy of situation.

Daily Mail
A splendid send-up.

AWRE News, house journal of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment
An agreeable romp.

Customer Reviews

Timeless Classic - Scarily Believable
I read this 19 years ago and still remember it vividly. It has a distinctly english sense of humour combining the funnier parts of 'A Very Peculiar Practice' with the deranged logic of the civil service in 'Yes Minister' transposed to a nuclear weapons research laboratory. The ineptitude of management, the stifling of worker creativity, the institutionalisation of practices, in fact the whole of public sector life is revealed in its painful amateurishness. One of the funniest books I've ever read. Highly recommended.

Slightly bizarre comic novel
This is a humorous account of everyday life in a nuclear weapons research establishment, which suffers from the kinds of problems that beset any organization, plus those that come with high security and nuclear weapons. It makes an entertaining read while being at the same time curiously believable, and achieves a rather satisfying ending.

The book is by David Langford. Crediting Terry Pratchett as co-author is a silly error by Amazon; the cover indicates clearly that Pratchett has contributed only an introduction.

NOT a Terry Pratchett book.
The title of this review say it all really. If you are thinking of buyng this book on the strength of Pratchett's name alone, you should be aware that this is a twenty year old book which has been re-released with an introduction by TP. If you are expecting something co-written by Pratchett, featuring magic and disc-shaped worlds, and that is all you really like, you will be disappointed.

It all smells like a bit of a marketing ploy by the publishers to resurrect an old title, which is a shame really because it is not a bad book, even if it does show its age a bit. I particularly liked the idea of someone playing Space Invaders on a computer which has a printer as its only output. Basically its an old-fashioned farce, based in a nuclear facility, which will strike a chord of recognition with anyone who has worked in the British public sector in any sort of capacity.

The important thing is to judge this book on its own merits, ignoring the red herring of Pratchett's name on the cover.