Rating: 
Summary: Well...what about the Jesus guy?
Review: An entertaining read up to a point but in the end confusing, incopmlete and unsatisfying. Much like "The Descent", a great bunch of ideas but not coherently assembled. At the sluggish end, all sorts of loose ends were left dangling and seemingly "major" themes simply ignored. The clones didn't have much to do with anything, did they? They just brood, get some pity and abuse, but don't touch the story. What was Eesho, shu, or whatever his name was, after all? Was there any point to him at all? Same with the Neandertal girl. Did she have any relevance to anything? Did her being a Neandertal have anything to do with anything? Hmm. Ochs's "preaching" was simply odd...no sense to it, no explanation for it. Really, this wasn't a story, just lot of ideas for stories clumped together. I kept getting the feeling that Long was trying to say something...Oh well. 2 questions: Why did Nathan Lee go NORTH from Nepal? Why not south to India where it would be safer and about 1/100th of the distance? And why did he have to be called "Nathan Lee" all thru the book? Wouldn't just Nathan, or Nat or some normal SINGLE name have done? Maybe a minor pick, but that really annoyed me. So it goes.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-crafted and complex
Review: I found this book by surfing recommendations one day here on Amazon. I was in the mood for some light reading, and the book's premise appealed to me. The book, however, turned out to be more than I had expected, and pleasantly so! I hadn't expected such a well-crafted thriller with interesting characters who change and grow as you find yourself caring about them. Jeff Long deftly handles the scientific details of an engaging story that takes us around the world and into the hearts of several very believable characters. I became involved emotionally with the two main characters and was surprised by most of the turns the story took. Don't make assumptions about the "clones" in this story; Long handles them in a mature way that never makes them a gimmick or Deus ex Machina.
I am a new fan of Mr. Long and moving on to his other works.
Rating: 
Summary: A real Zero
Review: I must say this book was a dog. I've been reading some great books lately and was on a hot streak ... then came Year Zero. The book plodded. Many characters were given big build ups and then disappeared or were briefly mentioned. The plot was slow and I found myself barely finishing the book. This was not because I cared for any of the characters or the plot, I was hoping something good come along to redeem the novel. Alas and alack I was wrong. Avoid it like the plagure. (Pun intended)
Rating:
Summary: Marketing Deception
Review: The storyline behind Year Zero held so much promise, but fell apart like a cheap suit. The first half of the story held my attention and I enjoyed how the author attempted to tie together Science and Religion. However, I found myself more and more frustrated as I neared the end. The author did a poor job finishing character relationships. Maybe I had greater expectations when I read the book jacket that Religion would play a greater role. In my opinion, besides 'unleashing' the plague, which was also weakly done, Religion could have been left out of the story. I feel like getting half my money back because it really is only half a book.
Rating: 
Summary: So-So
Review: I loved "The Descent" and can't help but admire Mr. Long's wild and wooley imagination, but this one misses the mark, especially toward the climax. I had hoped for another madcap pulp horror experience (for that, go read Harry Shannon's 'Night of the Beast')but souldn't help but be disappointed that I spent the money for a hardcover. Just so-so.
Rating:
Summary: Great start, but ends with a whimper, not a bang
Review: I completely agree with the other reviewer who also thought this book had an exciting start but seemed to lose its way about half way through the 500 page text. The blurb on the back cover was very misleading, too. I have read several "plague" or apocalyptic mysteries that were written in recent years, and at first I thought this would be a good one. The first part of the book is enthralling and well-written, but as the book goes on the loose ends multiply, and many are left to flap in the breeze. The whole "Jesus" scenario, which is built up in the jacket description, is confusing and apparently pointless. The character who is supposedly revealed to be Jesus is a nasty piece of work, quickly revealed to be a fraud. (How did anyone fall for his story in the first place?) While another character who is mysterious and seems a possible candidate to be a REAL Jesus clone, never develops into anything except a tool to be manipulated by other characters. The book is populated by several "bad guys" who seem much more deadly and repellent than the plague -- there are way too many bad guys and "end time" events, with nothing in the plot that seems to give the characters a reason to keep going. I could hardly put the book down for the first 200 pages or so. By the end of the book I was so frustrated, I felt like the whole second half had been a waste of time. A real let down, and with lots of questions left unanswered.
Rating:
Summary: Stephen Kings meets J.G. Ballard
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Grim apocalyptic thriller
Review: The end of the world seems to be a common topic for novels these days, and into the fray runs this entry into the genre. The drift is that a great plague has been unleashed on man, inadvertently of course, by a wealthy art collector's obsession for the discovery of an artifact of the historical Jesus. The world is in ruin, there are millions dead in the the calamity that follows it. We follow some of the survivors, a child genius, an archeologist and a few others as they seek to resolve personal issues and discover a cure. We are witness in the tale to a dark, grim portrayal of civilization as it decays around them with the faintest of rays of hope. The characters are compelling even if one can not identify with them. We are not overburdened with the science. Mr. Long, in an afterword says tht it started as a medical thriller, buth then evolved in the writing into an exploration of Religion v. Science in the setting of the apocalypse. He succeeds in its writing. Though not the happiest of books, it leaves us with that glimmer that perhaps we will have our woes, even on a cosmic scale, and that it just may be all right.
Rating:
Summary: Not as Good as Descent
Review: Something about this didn't quite work for me. Descent had real tension to it, but this one didn't quite have it. Maybe Jeff Long got a bit frightenned about offending anyone considering the religious theme. It also shares tha sme premise as Michael Cordy's 'The Miracle Strain', which again didn't really deliver for me.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing follow-up
Review: Having loved "The Descent," I was extremely excited for "Year Zero." The opening sequence and the general concept for the novel did not dissapoint. However, Long's efforts to bring the story through 400 pages and to a conclusion become so muddled and misguided that I actually started skimming. None of the conflicts ever rise to a dramatic climax and many storylines are simply forgotten about. Great idea. Terrible execution.
|
