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)

Loved It

Comparisons to other space books are well-deserved. The wit is similar, but extremely current. You don't have to know copyright law to appreciate this book as other reviewers suggest, but unfortunately I DO happen to be a lawyer who studied copyright, so I may not be the best source. This book is about the ridiculousness of our copyright laws, the music industry, our view of our place in the galaxy, and the Windows operating systems, as well as taking pokes at hipster culture, politics, and the Backstreet Boys. Hodgman was absolutely the perfect narrator for this book. 5 stars all the way.

The funniest sci-fi you will read this year!

Rob Reid combines research imagination and bawdy humor to create a must read masterpiece. This is a romp that you won’t be able to stop listening to until it’s ingenious conclusion. Superb!

Great Twist on a Crazy Universe

Okay, comparing anyone to Scott Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide is just unfair because that was classic. Rob Reid does come close though. The idea of America's ridiculous copyright law reaching into and affecting the highly refined beings of the cosmos is very funny. You won't laugh on the first page as I did with Hitchhiker, but by the 3rd or 4th I was consistently grinning at pokes at popular culture including social media (including "Flutter" - you have to hear it, I won't ruin the joke and Klippy the annoying mascot for Microsoft Word). Like Hitchiker's Guide there is an important "love interest" that helps keep the story interesting. The narration is an excellent performance of dozens of weird characters with great voices.

Very witty and funny, bonus at the end

The whole thing sounds so preposterous that it's very funny. Plot twist is very witty too so the whole story line won't sound shallow. And if you get to the epilogue, the bonus scene although predictable, it's the pinnacle of funny conspiracy theory.

Insightful, witty, creative, laugh out loud funny!

Rob Reid writes a witty and clever novel with Year Zero which is well performed by John Hodgman. This book caused me laugh out loud moments, lots of smiles, and an eagerness to get in my car and make the drive to work. It was also quite insightful, in that, after finishing the book, I'm pretty sure it's a true and accurate factual depiction of at least Microsoft* and lawyers :) If you're looking for something light-hearted and enjoyable that still retains great writing, a plot, characters with some depth (and some shallowness), and a lot of witty banter, take a listen. You won't be disappointed!

*Note: Word crashed on me while I was 5 minutes from project completion the day I finished this book. Listen and you'll understand why this was AMAZING, proves this book to be entirely factual, yet was nonetheless hairpullingly frustrating.

My favorite audio book ever!

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the writing, and the performance. I laughed and laughed, and like all good comedy, found the slightly dark underside compelling. The writing is clever, but the standout is John Hodgman. He is a stellar narrator.

Not The Martian

Just never became a fan of the quirkiness, and the ending left a lot to be desired. the audio kept it going for a lot of the book but in the end didn't salvage the story.

fun listen

enjoyed this book. great to listen to driving to work. Will look for more from author.

I dunno. ..

it was okay but just like "after on" it lingered too much on the boring details of law and business blah blah blah. enough to make me wish I had avoided it.

good idea for a story though

Fun Book, I want more

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

Great story, very creative and well put together. Some parts had a lot of moving parts, but it was all handled and explained in an elegant and enjoyable way. I like the world and characters Reid created. Excellent book

What was one of the most memorable moments of Year Zero?

Everything

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

No. This was great.