Year Zero: A Novel

by Robert Reid and Rob Reid

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on American pop songs ever since “Year Zero” (1977 to us), resulting in the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang and bankrupting the whole universe. Nick has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly. Thankfully, this unlikely galaxy-hopping hero does know a thing or two about copyright law. Now, with Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick has forty-eight hours to save humanity—while hoping to wow the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

• ISBN10: 0345534417
• ISBN13: 9780345534415
• Publish Date: 10 July 2012 (first published 1 January 2012)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Out of Print: 7 March 2014
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Del Rey Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[clq]

I love it when I read the first chapter of a book and just know that I am going to love it. Year Zero was one of those books.
Despite the promises given by so many cover-blurbs, it is rare for a book to make me laugh out loud. Year Zero did. Especially the first half of the book had me involuntary burst out into chuckles and beyond more often than I care to admit. Jokes are delivered in an effortless, Douglas Adams'y, way. Absurdity is taken right up to the line of the ridiculous, but never crosses it. Silliness is well-measured, and never seems misplaced.
The premise is brilliant. It is laid out in the first chapter, which can be read for free on Amazon (Go read it!). In short, aliens have been pirating human music for decades, and just realised that they owe us an unfathomable amount of money in copyright infringement fees.
The plot is more than good enough for a book of this genre, and it does exactly what it needs to do. It explores the premise, the characters, and the ideas this book is full of. These things are done superbly. The plot is somewhat loose, but easy to follow, and its casual and irreverent nature is probably what opens for some really funny, and some genuinely surprising, twists.

Basically, read the first chapter. If you enjoy it, you will enjoy the book. I really can't see why anyone wouldn't. It's just a bunch of really, really good fun.

[cornerfolds]

I received this book in a First Reads giveaway and really had no idea what to expect when I got it out of the mailbox. It had an alien wearing headphones on the cover... I read the back and realized that this is totally not my style. Still, I felt an obligation to the author to give it a go (he gave me a free copy of his book, after all).

Right from the start, the reader has to be up to date with every musical performer from the 70s until today. As a child raised in the 90s, I have no idea what most of these references even are. For anyone who doesn't know who the stars of the 90s and early 00s are, keeping up will be quite difficult as well. I cannot imagine this will be on too many shelves in 20 years.

The story itself seemed a little hurried and even sporadic. The characters didn't really keep me interested and the style of writing reminded me of an elementary school student's short story - then this happened, and then that happened, etc. I gave up on the footnotes about halfway through.

I'm giving it three stars purely because of the shock value. I was constantly like, "what just happened?" The parrot, for instance... Year Zero was somewhat entertaining and I did get through it very quickly just to see what sort of randomness would happen next, but I definitely wouldn't read it again.

This review can also be found at Cornerfolds.com.