Year Zero

A Novel

By: Rob Reid

Narrated by: John Hodgman

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)

A great book for super nerds!

I wish people wouldn't compare new authors to epic writers like Douglas Adams or Steig Larsson. It just sets them up for failure and disappoints readers. While this is a funny book about aliens, that's where the comparison to Douglas Adams stops. Rob Reid may have been influenced by reading Hitchhiker's, but he may have also enjoyed a book or two by Christopher Moore, or any number of other humorous writers. If you choose to listen to this book, listen to it for its' own value and not because you liked some other book that came before it.

That being said, here's what I thought of Year Zero:

It started out a little slow for me. I had a hard time getting into the characters and the story line. But once I got the hang of it, I found it to be packed with little quips and references to everything nerdy that I love. From the video game Portal to Microsoft Windows. It's not the kind of book where I laughed out loud in random public places while listening with my earphones, but I did chuckle quite a few times, and thought to myself, wow, he really just said that!

The narrator was perfect for this part. Not too over the top, and not so middle of the road that he made the funny bits boring. He did a great job with all the voices.

If you are a nerd, geek or gamer (or have a partner that is) you will love this book.

Probably the best...

This is probably the best music copyright Sci-fi book money can buy. I love it!

Perfect for geeks like me!

I suspect, though, that most severely normal people would find this book silly and all the computer/music/science/pop culture/sci fi references barely interesting instead of hilarious. It's extremely up-to-date, and John Hodgman is an excellent choice as a narrator as the humour in this book fits in exactly with his other writing/comedy performances. I really enjoyed it--I definitely recommend it if you're in the target audience.

I hate current copyright law

This book is a brilliant sci-fi take on everything wrong with our current legal system. If you like The Hitchhikers Guide you'll likely enjoy this.

Royally totally awesome

It's a wonderful book with great set tires is one that I can listen to repeatedly and not get tired of it

Douglas Adams would be proud

Excellent book. In fact, I wish I had written it: I work in litigation consulting calculating damages for intellectual property infringement, so maybe I'm biased, but the plot was entertaining, well thought out, and well paced. If you enjoyed "Hitchhiker's Guide," you will likely enjoy this.

Hodgman does a great job narrating as well. He provides good nuance and pacing. In fact, he kind of just sounds like an associate attorney that's trying to save the world from imminent destruction.

Reid pleasantly and creatively tidies everything up by the end, but leaves enough open to develop his world in future books. I hope he does.

Very fun book

Very fun light science fiction with lots of music references. I had a great time listening to this book. Just I felt that Rob Reid rushed to finish it. There could have been so more.

Poking fun at absurd copyright laws

Rob uses a humorous story to point out how absurd or copyright laws are. John Hodgman's delivery is perfect.

Great Book

Very entertaining. Makes you think about how much influence greedy lawyers and their quest to screw anyone who is not their client at the moment have over the world I mean the universe. Even though it is fiction is also is a good study on how a ruling by the legal system can affect other things that were not even considered when the initial case was being heard.

John Hodgman and Sci-Fi. Who could ask for more?

What did you love best about Year Zero?

It's a very clever, complex story that just sucks you into the adventure. I love John Hodgman, but the story is really a perfect match for his style. I read a lot of Sci-Fi and this was such a refreshing and imaginative premise.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Probably Nick, the main character, who is an attorney working on protecting the music industry's intellectual property from piracy. Imagine billions of aliens crazy about human music, having pirated an untold number of copies of everything we've produced. And as a league of refined civilizations are compelled to compensate humans for the theft.

What about John Hodgman’s performance did you like?

John is amazingly consistent and is pretty good at making vocal distinctions when switching characters to make it believable.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I love when they used wrinkles to instantly transport somewhere.

Any additional comments?

I want more of this from both the author and John Hodgman.