Year Zero

A Novel

By: Rob Reid

Narrated by: John Hodgman

Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet.

Worse, they were lawyering up....

In the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe - and the inner workings of our absurdly dysfunctional music industry.

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. And boy, do they have news.

The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity's music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything - and the aliens are not amused.

Nick Carter has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly, and he's an unlikely galaxy-hopping hero: He's scared of heights. He's also about to be fired. And he happens to have the same name as a Backstreet Boy. But he does know a thing or two about copyright law. And he's packing a couple of other pencil-pushing superpowers that could come in handy.

Soon he's on the run from a sinister parrot and a highly combustible vacuum cleaner. With Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick now has 48 hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

©2012 Robert Reid (P)2012 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Fans of Douglas Adams will rave about this smart, funny satire. Debut novelist Reid, founder of Listen.com, has crafted a masterly plot that deftly skewers the American obsession with music, money, and power. Fast paced and original, this is highly recommended." (Library Journal [starred review])

"Witty and original - I loved it. A biting satire of the record business and those who run it...and ultimately ran it into the ground." (Cliff Bleszinski, creator, Gears of War)

"With chess master precision, the refreshingly ray gun-free novel wittily plays with the possibilities of its fantastical plot. It mixes airtight point-and-counter point rounds of arguments with wild travails to distant worlds. The careful cohesion of Year Zero is a marvel given its star-hopping digressions." (Buffalo News)

International copyright law unites the galaxy ...

What made the experience of listening to Year Zero the most enjoyable?

John Hodgman is a great choice to read this book. It feels light and entertaining like his own books and that made it easier to engage with this story. I love stories with technology, and it was a great idea to pair first contact with copyright violations.

Have you listened to any of John Hodgman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've listened to two of the three John Hodgman books (just purchased That Is All), and I find him enjoyable and entertaining to listen to. Easy to recommend him as the reader.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Even aliens would rather destroy the Earth rather than pay for copyright violations.

Nerdily funny!!

I don't do fiction much, and I'm glad I did this time. Year Zero was a very amusing story with interesting and fleshed out characters and a solid story that wasn't dependent on a love story for its plot (which is a thing I look for in my stories).

i don't do summary-style reviews, i just want to emphasize that if you want some nerdy escapism, give this a read.

Hilarious

Though a little rushed or thin in parts, overall a fun and funny listen. John Hodgman is perfection.

One for the nerds, the geeks & the music lovers

Daringly original storyline taking to task a menace of the Internet age and showing how ridiculous and funny it can be. Unafraid to throw in pop culture and geek culture references while still maintaining a universally friendly story.
audio performance brings the musical moments to life that the page couldn't possibly do.
this is one story that you will revisit to ride the roller coaster again.

Inventive, cynical and fun

Once I dialled into the vibe of the story, I could just sit back and enjoy listening with a big grin on my face.

Space Opera narrated by John Hodgman? Yes Please!

I love a good space opera. Interesting aliens, a fun plot, excellently flawed characters and a crazy romp in space to save humanity. Now, have John Hodgman read it and I'm all in. This was delightfully fun and made me literally lol sometimes.

Great pandemic solution

l broke from my reading of Gravity's Rainbow to tackle this tongue in cheek send-up of the Music Industry, the Legal profession, DRM, copyright law and just about everything in our society. It didn't make anymore sense than the Pinchon book but a whole lot more fun.

Waited for a big finish that didn't really happen

Meh. Slogged through this and I kept waiting for something big or interesting to happen but it was simply a flatline for me.

Why are aliens more ethical than us

Delightful tale of copyright gone wrong. Pleasurable story with some real context that should get you to start thinking why we have such ridiculous copyright laws. Also, consider that the vast world of the universe would owe so much, and be willing to function under Earth's messed up intellectual property laws. Truly fiction that we can only hope will be copied in real life!

Ried uses fiction very well to make his points. Hodgman is flawless with his performance of Reid's first work of fiction. Looking forward to more from this pair,

Alien Music Lovers have Altered your DNA

I didn't listen to this until after After On, so imagine my surprise to discover many of the same characters. Surely, I thought this must be a prequel; but no that doesn't quite work. I think that this proves what an extraordinary achievement After On really is; Reid took many of the characters from Year Zero and reworked them into a completely unrelated story. This novel, Year Zero, is a fine book in it's own right, with lots of ingenious ideas. Wait 'till you get a load of what the aliens have done with our music and our DNA!