Year Zero

Rating:
Summary: Decent "Descent" Decendant
Review: After staying up all night to read Jeff Long's novel "The Descent," I figured any other novels he wrote would be just as engaging. Unfortuantely, the very inriguing premise and Long's engaging writing style were not enough to distract me from the weak ending to this otherwise great read. In fact, Long raises issues related to cloning, DNA doctoring, and the world of "Year Zero" that are too quickly and too casually discarded by the wayside. An enjoyable read, but no match for his not-to-be-missed "The Descent."

Rating:
Summary: Good Hook
Review: You stay with this for a long time, the premise is interesting.
About 4/5 of the way it lost me. The end is a big letdown.

Rating:
Summary: Wow--they have to make a movie of this one!
Review: This is one of best books I've read in awhile. I do not want to give the plot away, but take Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Stand, and the Andromeda Strain, blend well, and sprinkle in a few parts of the New Testament. The result is an epic adventure of biblical proportions.

While Long tries to keep the science accurate, there is a great deal of fiction involved as well, as some of the scientific premises seem implausible if not impossible. Also, Long's writing style seems to change as you progress through the book such the beginning and ending almost seem written by two different authors. These nits aside, you can allow yourself to become transported into times and places of Year Zero for a very absorbing and enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: WOW is the word.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Once Again, Close, But Not Quite
Review: Just like in "The Descent" Jeff Long comes close to writing a satisfying book, but falls short of the mark at the end. Too much of the science is beyond the believability of even the most speculative fiction and many of the conclusions and resolutions what should have been the obvious results. If we will suspend belief enough to allow that it is possible to clone human beings from 2000 samples of tissue, blood and bone with all of their memories intact, then the cure for the plague was obvious. After someone dies of the "Corfu" plague, close them from a tissue sample and they will be reborn with their memories intact and also with a resistance to the disease. If that doesn't work then bring in the survivours that are hinted at near the end and ressurect the dead with the resistance gained from these survivours. As with "The Descent" Jeff Long starts with some great ideas, but seems to miss the most obvious conclusions and resolutions to those ideas. On the other hand, he writes the action sequences of his books so well that you want to stay to the end even when the end doesn't go where it should.

Rating:
Summary: Ok book, but extreamly shallow
Review: The book was an easy, easy read. Mostly because J.Long didn't mess around with any details. I believe that's the exact reason for its downfall. The story has a very brisk pace, jumping around to the immediate story lines of the characters themselves. But it leaves allot out. Rings very hollow. The book even leaves out what was to become of the Navy expeditions. Granted, you can guess what happens, but for all the times its brought up in the story, you would think that J. Long would give some author insight. And there other characters that seem to play catalyst parts in the beginning, and middle of the story, only to be found much later in the end without any one of them serving any purpose what-so-ever. The ending happens way to fast, as if there was tea pot was whistling on the stove in J. Long house or something. Over all, its a page turner, but don't get your hopes any type of rich story, and the ending happens in less than 10 pages, with no build up...at all. Oh yeah, there some editing mistakes as well.

Bummer.

Rating:
Summary: Long can do better
Review: 'The Descent' was riveting, scary, and seemed all too real. I was hooked from the first page.

Conversely, 'Year Zero' isn't compelling. Having steeped myself in post-Apocalyptic works by reading 'The Stand', I find 'Zero's characters shallow and unsympathetic with the possible exception of Nathan Lee Swift. Ochs is a caricature; there's the requisite deformed mad scientist; a girl genius with no heart at all. (She creates a creature, knowing it will surely be destroyed once discovered.)

In attempting to cover a broad period of time and place, the book doesn't dwell for long on one place or one person. The plague itself is never described or shown long enough to create the sense of horror, dread, and end-time that we need to feel.

In the end, I could never grab hold of any of the characters for long. In the end, even Nathan Lee shook me off his coattails.

Rating:
Summary: This Book is no Zero
Review: In 1999, Jeff Long wrote "The Descent", an entertaining novel in which he speculated that Satan is real and Hell exists beneath our very feet. In "Year Zero", he follows up by presenting us with a living, breathing Jesus who is most probably a fake.

But that's only a small portion of this entertaining thriller, part adventure, part science fiction, part post-apocalyptic nightmare. It's primarily about a two-millenia-old virus unleashed upon an unsuspecting world, and its effect and aftermath.

Ho hum. Been there, done that. It was already old news when Stephen King did it with the "The Stand" (though he did it masterfully), and was appalling when Robert R. McCammon produced the carbon copy "Swan Song". So what else is there to say?

Not much, I'm afraid. I was drawn to "Year Zero" for two reasons: the cloning element, in which the scientists on the trail of the virus clone men who may have been carriers of the original virus in order to search for antibodies, and the writing - Long had impressed me a great deal with his earlier novel.

We are introduced to idealist archaeologist Nathan Lee Swift and his greedy mentor David Ochs after a devastating earthquake in Jerusalem. Because he is married to Ochs' sister, Nathan Lee reluctantly allows himself to be induced into a looting a mass grave uncovered by the quake. Later, Ochs frames Nathan Lee for murder, landing him in a Tibetan jail. When the virus breaks loose, Nathan Lee risks life and limb to get back to the United States and his estranged wife and daughter.

It took a long time for this novel to capture me. The opening adventure scenes were interesting enough, but nothing special, and the account of the virus's movement across the globe was no better than a hundred King imitators. It wasn't until a scene between young scientist Miranda Abbott and Nathan lee, in which each tries to reveal enough to seduce the other without allowing himself to become too vulnerable, that I really felt I was reading about real people and began to care about the outcome.

I was also interested in the Year Zero clones, a group of resurrected condemned men, reborn with their memories intact and no knowledge of the past 2000 years. Author Long imagines their reactions and presents them thoughtfully and carefully. Things go well until Ochs reappears and causes more grief for Nathan Lee and Miranda.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Certainly, it has its flaws and the author is working in a genre that has been played to death, but he manages to bring some fresh ideas and tell a good story, too. If you're looking for a good beach book that will hold your interest and won't overtax your cranium, I can recommend "Year Zero".

Rating:
Summary: Cataclysm at the Chinese Buffet
Review: Join Michael Crichton, Jerry Jenkins, and Robert Ludlum, and you'll get a book like this...an apocalyptic sci-fi thriller. Long's style is clipped and fast-paced; his characters are plot-driven, but full of real motivations; and the premise was throat-grabbing. Unfortunately, I kept waiting for the payoff that never seemed to come. By building layer upon layer to increase the tension--which he did admirably--Long was left holding too many loose ends to tie off realistically at the end.

But the story's worth telling.

When a collection of bones and "year zero" artifacts leads to the unleashing of an unprecedented plague, Nathan Lee is a man caught on the crest of the destruction. His arduous road back to civilization lands him with a group of the world's top scientists as they race to find a cure before total extinction occurs. Part of their plan is to clone "year zero" humans who might have built immunities to the same virus. In so doing, they raise ethical, moral, and spiritual questions. They also discover a man who claims to be Jesus Christ--cloned from DNA on a wood splinter. (This tantalizing idea, like a number of other subplots, is more an afterthought than fleshed-out idea.)

Nathan Lee, a likeable and sympathetic character, is driven to find his young daughter. Along the way, he deals with Ochs, his old nemesis, Miranda, a potential flame, and Eesho, the man claiming to be Jesus Christ. Through Nathan Lee's eyes, in particular, we glimpse the frightening fallout of a world on the brink of destruction. The details, small and large, are credible and thought-provoking. Long makes it all seem somehow possible. For that reason alone, this novel's worth reading. It strips away the superficial aspects of culture and questions where our loyalties and beliefs truly lie. Unfortunately, the cloning and Christ-clone ideas proved to be only fluff in the book's overall resolution. (Try James Beauseignur's "Christ Clone Trilogy" to see that idea explored with great zeal!)

Although enjoyable, for me "Year Zero" was like a Chinese buffet: it looked so good, went down so easy, yet left me hungry for more soon after closing the last page.

Rating:
Summary: Glaring historical problem
Review: I'm sorry, but no matter how well-written this is I can't get past the title. Doesn't it bother anyone that there was NEVER A YEAR ZERO? No one was born in the year zero, nothing happened in the year zero, because it never existed! (Would that be zero AD or BC?) Any amateur student of history should realize this.