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)

Enjoyed it!

Year Zero was a fun read. It might appeal to fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide series, though I don't think you would have to love science fiction to enjoy it.

A Very Fun Read

This book is one of the best Audiobooks I've ever read. It's a lot of fun.

Witty as well as funny

I tried to get everyone I could to read of listen to this novel. It's wonderfully refreshing to encounter comedy that's also intelligent, and I mostly only find that balance in books and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Add to that a great voice in John Hodgman, and incredibly creative thinking born in Rob Reid, and suddenly you have this amazing piece of work.

Humorous sci-fi

I have had this book on my to be read this for a few years. I was excited to finally get around to reading it. I loved the hilarious concept behind it, but I thought the pacing started to drag a bit as the book continued.

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was very well done. The narrator did an excellent job with emotion and having individual character voices for everyone.

In the year 1977 aliens discovered Earth music and found it was far superior to anything aliens had created (in fact it was literally mind-blowing because of how much better it was). Now aliens have been listening to Earth music for the last few decades...without paying any licensing fees. Given the amount aliens listening to Earth music that means that the universe and beyond are quite literally in Earth’s debt by an astronomical amount of money.

Enter Nick Carter, entry level music copyright lawyer (who is sometimes mistaken for a Backstreet Boy). Nick winds up with two aliens in his office one day demanding he figure out a way to nullify the Universe’s debt to Earth. It may not sound like a big deal, but some of the aliens are thinking the best solution to their debt problem is just to blow up Earth...or at least allow it to blow up itself. Suddenly Nick is put in the position have having to save humanity from the music loving aliens that are in debt to it.

This was a hilarious book that reminds a bit of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi or Armada by Peter Clines. The whole story is completely over the top, yet strangely plausible.

For the most part this is a fun and zany sci-fi novel that is entertaining and engaging. None of the characters are all that likable, but this is more of of plot driven story than anything...so that works pretty well for this book.

I do have a couple of complaints...mid-book things start to drag quite a bit and I found myself getting a bit bored with the story. Additionally some of the plot points are so completely over the top that they come across as just plain ludicrous rather than entertaining.

Overall this was a decent humorous sci-fi read. I enjoyed a lot of the humor and craziness and the strange power Earthling music has over the rest of the universe. The story did lag a bit in the middle and some parts were so over the top that they were more ludicrous than entertaining. I would recommend to those who enjoy John Scalzi’s books, Douglas Adams, and Peter Clines.

Fun Book

Douglas Adams meets Men In Black meets Better Call Saul. A fun and quick read. John Hodgman hits it out of the park with the performance. If this ever becomes a movie I hope John gets the lead.

I loved it

This was a fantastically fun story. There should be more scifi without a military focus.

Year Zero

I have recommended this audiobook to anyone who will listen, family, friends, colleagues, strangers. Everyone

Keeper

Would you consider the audio edition of Year Zero to be better than the print version?

Yes.

What other book might you compare Year Zero to and why?

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

What about John Hodgman’s performance did you like?

John Hodgman was the reason we bought this and he did not disappoint. Perfect show.

Who was the most memorable character of Year Zero and why?

The main one, because I kept thinking he was John Hodgman.

Any additional comments?

Nope.

Laughed Out Loud

It's rare that I laugh out loud to audio books, but "Year Zero" caused me to several times. But I've worked in the IT business for the last 14 years so I'm probably the target audience for this book.

I'm reluctant to discuss most of my favorite parts since I don't want to publish spoilers, but will mention that I loved the return of Clippy. I spent a lot of time early in my IT career helping end users get rid of him, so it was great to see Clippy make an appearance in the book.

John Hodgman was the perfect choice to narrate and did an outstanding job. I'm glad I took a chance on this audio book.

Read It Now

What a great surprise. This book was recommended to me by Audible a couple of times before I finally took the bait. I think that it is narrated by John Hodgman was part of the draw for me. I don’t really like John Hodgman’s sense of humor, I have listened to excerpts from his book "The Areas of My Expertise", and didn’t find it funny, but as an actor I think he is great. And he does a fantastic job narrating this story.

I am very tempted to rant about how much I despise the RIAA and the way they treat the people, or the ridiculous laws that have been passed in the last dozen years or so regarding music. But I am not going to do that, lets just say that I feel like this book expresses most of my feelings pretty clearly.

This story is great fun, I recommend you read it as soon as you get the chance.