The Year of the Locust

By: Terry Hayes

Narrated by: Jeff Harding

Length: 29 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

AN AMAZING THRILLER FROM TERRY HAYES.

If, like Kane, you're a Denied Access Area spy for the CIA, then boundaries have no meaning. Your function is to go in, do whatever is required, and get out again - by whatever means necessary. You know when to run, when to hide - and when to shoot.

But some places don't play by the rules. Some places are too dangerous, even for a man of Kane's experience. The badlands where the borders of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet are such a place - a place where violence is the only way to survive.

Kane travels there to exfiltrate a man with vital information for the safety of the West - but instead he meets an adversary who will take the world to the brink of extinction. A frightening, clever, vicious man with blood on his hands and vengeance in his heart...

©2023 Terry Hayes (P)2023 Penguin Audio

NOT Anything Like I Am Pilgrim. Buyer Beware!

It pains me to give this one star. If you have picked up this book excitedly because you loved I Am Pilgrim, I would encourage you to put it back down to preserve that wonderful memory of a well crafted book.


****!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!****


Had the first half of the book had the same tone as the second half I would have been surprised but intrigued at the sci-fi elements being thrown into a spy thriller. It would have been a signal to expect something different. Alas, the first half of the book is set in a world very much like our own, without a hint of futurism - a classic spy thriller.

By having two halves of a book that feel like we were written by two entirely different people, we end up with a poorly thought out spy thriller and a clunky non-sensical sci-fi novel. Technologies that are unimaginable just appear out of thin air. Alien spore arrives to earth and not a single scientist is interested in researching. Incredulous coincidences are abound, where all the characters are just where they need to be when they need to be there. They react exactly how the plot requires them to react no matter how incredibly insane the plot becomes. The characters just accept whatever is happening without any pushback or questions like:

"Wait, what? Time travel is real and you arrived here on a time traveling invisible submarine?"

"Huh? There is literally an alien invasion occurring that is turning everyone into invincible zombies?"

"My nemesis, who I last saw in Iran is not only the cause of this dystopian future, but he is here, 24 years later, in New York at the exact same time as me? Oh and he is now also invincible and he started all this. How odd?"

"Dad? Are you seriously just going to assume you can get back into your invisible time traveling submarine and get back to the exact time you need to be"

Oh and let's not forget all the pointless side quests, faux symbolism and lack of any attempt to build anything more than 2D characters.

Sincerely, I hope I never have to use the phrase 'time traveling invisible submarine' again.

What a ride!

Not at all what I expected. The sci-fi twist took me by surprise as I’m not a fan. Still, couldn’t stop listening and held my breath for most of it. By far the best piece of writing I have read in a long while. Narration was seamless. So many twists & turns, but fast paced throughout. Never thought I’d enjoy something like this so much. Was worth the wait…

Strange…

The beginning of the book feels like a real accessor of ‘I am pelgrim’. However…. But seems like Terry Hayes wanted to combine a decent story with ‘the Philadelphia experiment’ and the ‘Walking dead’. Popular? But absolutely ruined a good story.. why?

Disappointing

After reading I am Pilgrim. I have been waiting for the next book by Terry Hayes.
I found the story line deviating into a 24 year futuristic account of an almost apocalyptic world very unappealing and skipped most of that. Couldn’t wait to finish the book. Anybody with sci-fi aversion, save yourself the credit.
Marilyn

awesome story with a brilliant twist

storytelling is top!
loved the first book and this one is in a way much better. you'll get technically 3 books and you must love it! :)
I personally enjoyed the sci-fi twist very much despite we are looking at awesome spy thriller.
cant wait for the next book though!

Very Good Novel

Not sure I signed up for Orcs and time travel in a spy novel but it works in the end.Very well researched and tiimes of tense suspense. Not quite up to "I am Pilgrim" standard or realistic believability but close, Definitely worth listening to for 29 hours.
Well read by Jeff Harding although his attempt at talking like Rebecca and other females was a bit ear jarring and would have been better read in his normal voice:-) Has all the elements of the making of a great movie!

Special

An intricately woven timeline of espionage, intrigue & stealth. It’s a story that recounts the life of a denied area asset, covering continents & time with unpredictable consequences. It’s cleverly crafted & beautifully told. Terry Hayes is a Master Storyteller. Perfect!

truly awful - one of the worse books I have read.

I can't believe that this is by the same author as "I am Pilgrim"

It lurches awkwardly from one ridiculous cliche to another connected by only the flimsiest of plots.
Scattered with every unnecessary quote and cheesy proverb, this must be one of the worse books I have ever listened to. Can't believe that I actually stuck with it to the end.

It doesn't know if it is a James bond spy story, a zombie apocalypse novel, or any of a dozen other b-movie stories with no connection to each other.

After waiting for so many years for the second novel, I couldn't be more disappointed.

The writing is terrible and makes Dan Brown's prose seem like Shakespeare by comparison. Endless unnecessary technical details about weapon specifications and implausible technology make an already awful book practically unreadable.

There is not a single original scene. Everything is stolen from action films (Terminator, the hunt for red October, etc) or sci-fi books (day of the triffids, I am legend, etc.) and all loosely connected by a 3rd rate James Bond/Jason Bourne knock off.

Every few minutes I thought that the predictable cliche might not happen only to say out loud "you've got to be kidding", but the author never failed to disappoint.

If the author is wise, he will take the money, never write anything again, sell the movie rights to Pilgrim, and retire on a pile of cash

Terry Hayes is a one hit wonder and this is not the hit

Narration is ok (not great) but the narrator had little to work with. Hard to see the narrator reading this rubbish with a straight face.

Save yourself the time and skip this one.

Utterly ridiculous

Genuinely the most utterly ridiculous of any audiobook that I've listened to in the last decade. I was literally open mouthed with the absolutely crazy coincidences and prosperous narrative constructs contained in the story. A procession of outrageous dramatic impossibilities wrapped around a series of stupid coincidences and insane contrivances. I was way too deep in when this narrative finally completely jumped the shark. No one can read this and not think "What the actual f"? Ultimately it reads like the author was contractually bound to deliver the novel and did so but was ridiculing the contract. Literally the worst garbage I have read or heard since graduation in 1990 and I'm happy to damn it because it's 30+ hours of total rubbish that I'll never get back!

Huge disappointment

What a car crash of a book. Terry Hayes jumps the shark so many times I lost count. What starts out as a passable but overblown thriller is transformed into a mash up of Lord of the Rings, Night of the Living Dead, Star Trek and Doctor Who. Yes we have Orks, invisibility cloaking devices to make the Klingons green with envy, accidental time travel and a hero and villain with almost superhuman survival abilities. Utter tosh.

You don’t always get what you want 🤔

Ten year wait , Ten hrs excitement, Ten hrs going the wrong way , Last Ten hrs on a LSD trip . 🙅🏽🤦‍♂️

Total rubbish story ridiculous narration even worse

There is not one positive thing to be said about this drivel reads like it was written by AI intelligence and the narrator makes things worse honestly don’t waste your money on this after Pilgrim this is a total disappointment and I actually waited 10 years for this Hey Amazon can I have my money back as only managed the first 9 hours

So long and so disappointing

I loved I am Pilgram, was really excited for this, but it was ridiculous. Dreams, Time travel, post epileptic world and then apparently it’s ok to tell national security secrets to the wife of an agent. The twist comes 25hrs in, which is such a long time to spend and be so disappointed.

I don't think Terry Hayes wrote this!

Such a disappointing book with an incredibly long, but very superficial plot, which was very predictable. It just doesn't seem to be written by the same author. Part way through it becomes a time travel story, which was just ridiculous. The worst thing was how superficial the details were, such as the Time travel part which was all just very convenient. None of the sophisticated writing of the earlier book and so so so longwinded!

Absolutely worth the wait!

I’ve been waiting for this book for what feels like ages after absolutely loving ‘I am Pilgrim’ - it’s been absolutely worth the wait as Terry serves up another fast paced, clever and enthralling epic.

Weirdest story ever

I thought I knew what I was getting with Terry Hayes however unless you are expecting aliens, rampant overt American nationalism and a time travelling submarine you are way off base here. It’s a miss for me!

Oh my goodness was it worth the wait

I was absolutely sucked into this epic story , it was worth every second of the wait . Please don’t make us wait so long for the next one though 😊