Customer Reviews

Year Zero

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(41)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I can't begin to fathom how or why this book didn't even crack the top ten bestseller lists, especially after a knockout editorial review posted on CNN.com simply headlined "Wow". And "Wow" is the only way to describe this novel. I have read a few lukewarm reader reviews on Amazon, and if someone doesn't "dig" "Year Zero", they must have discriminating tastes far beyond any author's ablity to please them.

I'm not going to write one detail about Jeff Long's eye-popping plot. That's for the reader to discover and be carried away by. Suffice it to say that it is, in my view, basically a sci-fi story, with a strong footing in religious history. There are some creepy seasonings of a Stephen King nature, although the closest King has ever come to the standard of YZ's excellence came and went a long time ago with "The Stand". And if you like Michael Crichton, you will be on the right track in running, not walking, to buy "Year Zero". However (and this is one of the book's pleasant surprises) I found Long's character development above and beyond Chrichton's.

Now here is one small warning: "Year Zero" is not a hard read, but it definitely requires more than a bit of attention. I started the first chapter in the midst of some everyday distractions, and I was utterly lost, and then began again when I was able and willing to concentrate. Once I found my focus and got into the swing of the first 4 or 5 pages, I was totally hooked and getting every word.

Hopefully, Jeff Long's next book will be just as good, and his publisher will give it the marketing push it deserves.

I bought this book for a vacation read, as it promised to be a fun, quick read. The premise behind the book is ingenious--an ancient plague is unleashed and scientists believe the clue to the cure lies in cloning people who were alive 2000 years ago during the time of the original plague.

A clever idea, but this book turned out to be much more than a simple disaster tale. Underlaying the simple plot is an appreciation for beauty and a sense of wonder that adds immensely to the depth and strength of the book. The images of a decimated world are strange and beautiful. And the descriptions of the high Himalayas are stunning. Even the depiction of the plague victims embues them with a strange dignity and beauty.

However, despite the interesting premise of the novel, I would say it spends less time on science than on the mysteries of human relationships and their power. If you look too closely at the science behind the novel, you may not care for this book. (Humans cloned from crucifixion fragments from Golgotha retain their memory!? Huh?) My advice is to suspend critical thought and enjoy the considerable pleasures of this book by accepting it for what it is--a heart-felt look at why we love and how we live with honor. I found this book entirely captivating, and several weeks after reading it I'm still pondering it.

I will be looking for other books by this author!

If Jeff Long's The Descent was Stephen King meets H.P. Lovecraft, Year Zero is Stephen King meets J.G. Ballard: Morally ambiguous characters weave devious plots amidst death and religious symbolism. But unlike in The Descent, Long loses control of his story in Year Zero.

The first half of the novel is dense and brilliant. Two men loot an ancient graveyard in Jerusalem. A man escapes from prison in Katmandu and flees across Asia as a deadly plague wreaks havoc. Brilliant scientists clone crucified criminals from ancient Judea, searching for a cure for the mysterious virus.

But Long has too many balls in the air; by the second half of the book, the plot spins out of control. One of the clones claims to be Jesus Christ. (Is he? We never find out.) The scientists do absurd, self-destructive things that ensure their deaths. (Why? It's never explained.) A million dying Americans threaten a scientific outpost - their one hope for a cure. (Why? Their motivations remain a mystery.)

Long is so busy striving for the epic, the mythical, the transcendent that he forgets to keep his characters believable, his plot coherent, his loose ends tied up. The world is destroyed, and we don't care. That's a shame, since many of the chapters in Year Zero are brilliant. But as a novel, it's a disappointment.

Here it is, the ultimate Survivor episode, a thinking person's adventure tale. The writing hooked me with the first sentence, "The wound was their path", and what a path it becomes, full of twists and surprises and Nathan Lee's heart full of hope. I've never seen a book like this, with such wild premises that seem to have no connection, but by the end are woven together so perfectly. On the one hand Year Zero is a novel about the virus from hell, the big extinction event that we think can't happen to us. Then there's the cloning of human lab rats that has echoes of Frankenstein and Brave New World. Nathan's escape through the Himalayas is almost a story in itself, but Long keeps on spinning his web, and somehow, amazingly ties it all together in the end. I started telling the story to a friend, then just stopped and gave her the book to read for herself. This one defies simple description. All I can say is, dive in, and get swept away.

Here it is, the ultimate Survivor episode, a thinking person's adventure tale. The writing hooked me with the very first sentence, "The wound was their path", and what a path it becomes, full of twists and surprises and Nathan Lee's heart full of hope. I've never seen a book like this, with such wild premises that seem to have no connection, but which by the end are woven into a single thread. On the one hand Year Zero is a novel about the virus from hell, the big extinction event that we humans think can't happen to us. Then there's the cloning of human lab rats that has echoes of Frankenstein and Brave New World. Nathan Lee's escape through the Himalayas is almost a story in itself, but Long keeps on spinning his web, and somehow, amazingly ties it all together in the end. I started describing the story to a friend, then just stopped and gave her the book to read for herself. This one defies simple description. All I can say is, dive in and get swept away.

This is a taut, epic tale that you will read almost in one sitting. For a review of the plot line, check out the Booklist review or Harriet's review. I'll confine my remarks to Long's skill as a writer.

I have been reading Long's books for years -- he simply doesn't put out enough of them!

I first discovered Jeff Long by accident. He has written two truly brilliant histories of Texas. The first of these is "Duel of Eagles: The Mexican and U.S. Fight for the Alamo". And the second is "Empire of Bones" (which deals with the events leading up to the defeat of Santa Anna's army at the battle of San Jacinto). These were brilliantly conceived, researched and executed books.

After these two books, Long appears to have transformed himself first into a writer of climbing-based fiction, and then action-based fiction. His book "Angels of Light" was his first tentative foray - Stalone's entirely forgettable movie, Cliffhanger, is based on this book. Read the book - forget the movie.

I think Jeff Long came of age as a fiction writer with The Ascent. I am a climber myself - and so I love good climbing fiction. And despite quibbles I have seen over this point of accuracy or that point of accuracy, this book remains a climbing CLASSIC.

I can recommend ALL of these books.

With Year Zero, Long debuts in the so-called "speculative fiction" world. And he is peculiarly adapted to thrive here. Long has a great talent for drawing believable characters. But more importantly, he has an uncanny ability to make wild plot lines seems entirely plausible. Long is also not without a sense of humour - he invites us, I think NOT to take everything so seriously. The outlandish appearance, for example, of rock bands, ballet dancers and symphony orchestras at Los Alamos - well, that's just plain funny.

But such is the deftness of his story-telling ability that you are prepared to willingly suspend your belief with every new surprising twist and turn.

Long's writing is also smart - he has done his research - there is always a foundation for his speculations. And for a classical history buff such as myself, there is a delightfully erudite turn to this book. We find clever, non-pretentious references to Homer and Thucydides among others.

I devoured "The Descent" in a two-day span, and couldn't wait for Jeff Long's follow-up. I'm glad that it wasn't a sequel: Long is far too mindbendingly original to tread the same ground again. In "Year Zero", Long dons the mantle of all science fiction writers, and plumbs the scientific and moral question of his day: cloning. Faced with an extinction event that stirs from a 2000-year-old contagion, what will be our response?

Long constructs his tale with his use of dichotomies, some starkly drawn (Ochs and Nathan Lee, Paul and Miranda Abbott, Ben and Eesho), some mirror image (Cavandish and Adam). I've read some criticism concerning Long's pacing and continuity, but have to disagree. The development of each disparate plot line, setting, and set of characters illuminates what has been foreshadowed, and casts shadows across the rest of the novel.

Long is unflinching in his examinations of the brutality with which man savages his savages, in "The Descent", the hadals, and here, in "Year Zero", the dehumanized clones. Yet while some descriptions might disgust and dismay, others delight: all of the passages with the Appaloosa, the passages with Tara, the ancient child of the future, and the passages about the storybook Nathan Lee wrote for Grace are heartfelt and beautiful.

When you buy this book, be prepared for a couple of sleepless nights because you'll be drawn in and catapulted through this story. Like its predecessor, "The Descent", "Year Zero" has it all going for it: Long's winningly literary style, a dizzyingly suspenseful story, and a fictitious construct of complex issues which remain with you long after the final chapter.

This guy is good and getting better. I have read Descent previously, which is also a very good read in a "King-horror" sort of way, but this book gets into some real deep stuff on religion and cloning (there's not much that's more controversial than these issues, is there?). But there's more than horror here. It really puts one's mind to work contemplating these and other science/morality/religion issues. And he's really coming along on character development and depth, something that's woefully and permanently lacking in many of your good thriller authors (your Crichtons, Cooks, pretty much all your legal/spy thrillers, etc.). And Long has a nice smooth style (again, continues to improve), none of that flowery ... like Koontz and others. Limits his text to the tale, but with just the right dashes of realism to take you right into the fantasy and captivate you.

I also fervently disagree with one reviewer that this is a "one-hit" author. He's already got two hits now, and we'll see what encore is next. I'm going to go back and read one of his earlier works, though with naturally lower expectations. Writing is a continual learning process, for almost all (excepting the occasional non-fiction esoteric stuff). Though most all writers have ravines and ridges as they create - even King himself I count as having the periodic "dud," though still worthy of reading if for no other reason than they highlight the really good works. But Long is good enough so that both his past and future fiction works are probably all in the "quite readable" category.

One little bone to pick:... What...happened to Elise? I mean, I can imagine her fate pretty much (the Ochs/Cavendish fiendish duo, of course, did something atrocious with her), but I think it was someone's inadvertant oversight to miss her actual kill-off scene. Author, editor? HELLO, WHERE ARE YOU? A good question for someone involved, anyway.

But all in all, one of the top couple books I've read in the past year or two. This is a book you can really immerse yourself into the wee hours with, and should cause you to at least do a little self-analysis, if you're honest with yourself, on issues like religious roots, cloning, and morality. And it IS heavy, VERY heavy.

I loved this high-speed winding down of civilization. There's so much going on here, human guinea pigs from the first century who run amok or rise to the good, the search by creations for their creators and by fathers for their children and vice versa, that it's almost like entering a labyrith. Some of the chapters read like miniature books in themselves, full of tantalizing hints...Miranda, her father and the clones are all based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Los Alamos is their island. The plague is their storm. I'm not normally an adventure or sci-fi reader, but I love novels of ideas, and this one kidnapped me for two solid nights.

I have one criticism, it's that his mystery of the Jesus clone didn't include more "inquisitions." I would have loved to hear more from the year zero. And to have seen more of the wilderness of the plague - riddled United States. All in all, this felt like a book for our times. I'm taking Year Zero to our book group.

I fell in love with Jeff Long after reading the " Descent". I've been a fan ever since. When I found this book by accident I was overjoyed. I didn't even know he was scheduled to have a new book out.

I must tell you this...if you read a Jeff Long you will be up till 3am finishing the book. Like the Descent, I was sucked into it after the first few pages. It was fast paced & definitely a page turner. There were a few things that I felt prevented the book from being 5 stars.

He seemed just a tad bit stretched to the limits. There were so many plots going at once. I don't think he gave them the attention they deserved. I wanted to know more about Miranda and her relationship with her father. I was always curious about her father & miranda' mentor. I wish I could remember her name.

In all I really liked this book. I found myself debating the whole cloning thing. I wanted a happier ending but I was satisfied with it. I think you will be too.