Year Zero

Rating:
Summary: Great, but CHRISTIAN novel???
Review: I thought this book was very interesting and highly enjoyable. But my reason for picking this up at our local library was because it was marked a new Christian book. After reading it, I asked our librarian and she said that that was how the computer tells them to catagorize it.
This was not a Christian book just because it speaks of Jesus. This book is purely modern science. If anything it speaks of anti-Christianity. Yet, I did find it enjoyable sense I am not afraid of differing viewpoints. It was definatly interesting and frightenly realistic.

Rating:
Summary: Sobering suspense
Review: So often, a thriller is just a thriller, and mention of newsworthy current affairs is just a writer's trick for placing a story in a certain time. Not often do I find a book that leaves me breathless with suspense (I look up and it's 1:30, 2:00, 2:50 in the morning...), yet filled with ideas and nuance as soon as I put the book down. I want to plunge on, but also want to pause for a moment to reflect on what I've just experienced.
Long's basically good, but co-opted and conflicted protagonists suffer and undergo catharsis, and, in the end, villain outdoes villain, outdoes villain. Granted, this is the grist for many a tale. But few authors have the ability to dip their pens in the inky darkness of human history, human nature, and human possibility and draw from that a picture of tomorrow's beautiful sunrise, full of worth. Thank you, Jeff Long, for turning my world upside down for a forty-eight-hour period with your incredible fantasy, only to set me back down, here and now, with a down-to-the-bone feeling of enriched reality for having read "Year Zero".

Rating:
Summary: Long hits another one over the fence
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: This book is amazing, but not in the typical sense...
Review: I'm not sure which of the following four facts amazes me more:

1. It made it through a big publisher and into print.
2. It was a Doubleday book club selection.
3. It was a Literary Guild book club selection.
4. I actually forced myself to plow through it.

The one star for this book is solely for a great concept. When I read the flap-blurb I couldn't wait to get started. Then I did. Oh my goodness. Mistake. When I ponder the first three facts outlined above, I wonder if anyone at the publisher or either of the book clubs actually read the book, or did they just go on the blurb? I suspect the latter.

It has many typos and misspelled words and instances of incorrect grammar-not the type of incorrect grammar that authors can successfully use. There is almost no continuity; it jumps around and makes grand leaps in action with no explanation. It lacks even the most rudimental accuracy with regard to factual/technical issues. Example: the protagonist finds an abandoned car and the "engine turns over" based on the fact that there's gas in the tank, not based on the car battery. A parked tank has flower pots arranged on its tracks. Take a look at a modern tank and tell me how you'd manage to put flower pots ON the tracks. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Elementary, bizarre writing flows from cover to cover. The protag's name is Nathan Lee Swift, and every mention of him in the book is Nathan Lee. Reading a two-part name througout a book is a nerve-grating exercise and shows a total lack of regard for the reader on the part of the author. It falls terribly short of being credible. Readers are often asked to "suspend their disbelief" in big fiction, but it sure didn't work in this one. Redundancy is everywhere; the same thing will be repeated over and over. A portion of a scene that should take a paragraph takes a page or two of rambling.

I rarely do reviews here on Amazon due to a lack of time, but I felt compelled to share my experience on this one. Maybe my doing so will save someone else from wasting their hard-earned money on one of the most profound examples of bad writing I've ever seen in print.

Rating:
Summary: Year Zero:A Fast Paced Current Novel
Review: Jeff Long tackles one of today's most contraversial subjects, but his brilliant imagination and flair for storytelling makes for a thoughtful yet fast read.His use of current events with todays historic happenings bring it alive,you forget it's fiction.As the book unfolds the characters are as familiar as some people you probably know. His subtle illusion to the classics give the story more substance than you'd expect from a science fiction novel.We wrestle along with Long the morality of cloning.The subject is handled with dignity yet urgency as the plague is consuming civilization.THIS COULD HAPPEN!

Rating:
Summary: Monsters and Messiahs
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 stars
Review: ...P>This had the potential to be an outstanding novel. The plot and storyline about plagues and life ending disasters combined with the biological sciences of cloning and genetics, along with a dose of pre-history, should spell bestseller. This one disappoints a bit. I didn't like the somewhat blocky writing style or lack of continuity. Though the story was very interesting, it just didn't grab me like a good thriller should. I really wanted to like this novel more. Maybe next time.

Recommended for the sci-fi buff.

Rating:
Summary: Long has dived a bit too far into the deep end in this one.
Review: Jeff Long reminds me of Jonathan Lethem: A truly gifted writer with a unique and highly developed imagination and a bit too little discipline and good sense. The latter can allow a fertile imagination to run a bit too wild.

That is definitely the case there. Year Zero : A Novel is essentially an apocalyptic novel in the tradition of Stephen King's The Stand. A virulent, highly deadly microbe (which bears striking resemblance to Ebola) hidden since the first century is accidentally unleashed. It is wiping out humankind. The group gathered to deal with the situation is split on a response-either go hell bent for a cure or find human DNA from the first century and clone a resistant populace.

As serendipity would have it, a huge cache of 1st century bones was recently unearthed in an archeological expedition in the Middle ERst. A r ready source of DNA is available. All is well and good up to this point-a highly charged, well written, fast paced thriller with interesting moral issues is upon us.

Unfortunately at this point things get a bit too weird. ...What are they after? Nothing less than the bones of Jesus.

Nathan joins up with the team gathered to deal with the situation and embarks on a task of his own-cloning Jesus.

It's an imaginative and interesting concept Long has developed here. The problem is, it gets in the way of-and distorts the underlying story. We now have two separate plot lines that don't synergize--they compete, and the result is both end up being less story than they should-and clearly could-- be.

There are also issues that are never really addressed. Didn't Jesus ascend to heaven? That issue is dealt with cavalierly here? How did anyone survive the 1st century plague-and why isn't there some vivid historical record of it? Again, a side bar issue seriously mishandled. Granted, this is fantasy fiction, but some internal consistency would be nice.

In the end Long talent and pure drive keeps the book readable and holds things together enough to keep the reader absorbed. It's not a bad novel-it's just that clearly there was a great novel here that got lost somewhere along the way. And that's somewhat disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Jeff Long Scores Again!
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Great Concept, Boring Book
Review: The whole idea of the book is very fascinating - a plague from Christ's time and place, cloning of his contemporaries, or even of Jesus himself, developing apocalypse, but the author could not implement it right. Although the first part is quite interesting, the second part is outright boring and I had to force myself to finish the book. Despite all the efforts the cure was not found so the book does not even have an end. I finished reading with feeling of emptiness and desire to know what would happen after the book's end.