Year Zero

Year Zero begins in a sort of Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider styled plot but quickly diverts into a completely different kind of tale. Part Seven Years in Tibet, part Clive Cussler novel, part Michael Crichton (ala Andromeda Strain—you know, the good Michael Crichton, not that other guy who writes movies), and a recurring dash of Indy here and there.

If you like the Dan Brown books Angels and Demons or Da Vinci Code then you will probably like this book also, since it deals with many of the same themes such as early Christian iconography, religious beliefs, and possible historical scenarios. Sure, much of it is conjured from the author’s imagination but it is all believable in the fabric of the tale, which is what makes the book so show more engaging.

I really fell in love with Nathan Lee Swift’s incredible journey from Tibet to Los Alamos and, surprising even to me, wished there there was more detail in the description of the trek. The last part of the book which takes place at Los Alamos while trying to find a cure for the Corfu Plague is just a little too predictable for my taste. Still, quite a good book and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys any of the aforementioned titles or genres. show less

Year Zero was one of the automatic recommendations from LibraryThing. I wasn't impressed when I saw that Jeff Long was a New York Times bestselling author: that typically indicates, for me at least, a book that is colloquial (as opposed to literary),pop-lit, superficial....And Dan Brown's recommendation on the back cover, depending on your taste, either taints or misleads by association.

Prejudices notwithstanding, I did try the book anyway, hoping that the 406 pages would turn into a good long, informative, entertaining, thought-provoking read. And they did! Jeff Long's storytelling reminds me of Nevil Shute; now there's someone who knew how to tell a story! The book contains science and fact and these are skilfully used to develop a show more surprisingly believable plot. I'm not going to recapitulate the story here as that can be found on Amazon etc. I think a review is to indicate what type of fiction is being served up. I would characterize this story as sci-fi on a human scale; i.e. no inter-galactic devastation, aliens or monsters. Perhaps this is what is meant by "soft" sci-fi, I don't know. What a fabulous read! Thanks Librarything! show less

A terrific apocalyptic story that unforunately ended a bit to abruptly. I loved 90 percent of it but the ending came to soon and left too many things left unanswered. Still a fantastic book though, and maybe if we are lucky a sequel will be written to fill in the holes.

A science fiction piece reminiscent of Michael Crichton, though less intense as a thriller, but with the same kind of smart, heroic but flawed characters who confront the destructive power of science. It's billed as a story about the conflict between science & faith, & the incident that initiates the devastating plague at the center of the story is a byproduct of a search for the historical (physical) Jesus, but that's pretty incidental; the heart of the story is less about a conflict between science & faith than about a struggle to maintain the human soul at the heart of scientific research rather than allowing the scientific goal, however crucial, to justify any means to attain it. It took almost half the book to set up the show more story, show less

This book was way more 'involved' (technical and complex.. lots of medical stuff and historical flashbacks) than what I usually enjoy. However here it didn't detract from the book.. infact I liked it. Very exciting and gripping story... nice character development... great pace to the story (once it got going)... it carries you through to the end.

416 pages - sounds long enough, doesn't it? But the author put way too many story threads into it, and what you're led to believe the story is about in the first 1/3 of the book turns out is only one of the smaller threads.

It feels like there are the ideas for 3 separate books put into this one, and none of them, 'cept maybe the "cloning" section, was completed. All the "ideas" are interesting, but none of them were fleshed out - Long would have had to double the book size to complete all these thoughts.

The story starts with a bit of a "thriller" take on it, and then this thread is dropped for 200 pages before being kinda wrapped up in the end. Then it turns into a man across the world trek, then it turns into a mad scientist story, show more then is "nicely" wrapped up by the mad scientists setting their experiments free.

What does this have to do with an apocalypse? With finding a plague from the Biblical era? Well, I think Long forgot to tell us. show less

I needed Scary that was not SciFi. This book was not especially Scary to me .. more strange and bizarre. Definitely compelling and a good vacation read. Plus you can't go wrong with 2000 year old clones.