Rob Reid

"An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet. b>Worse, they were lawyering up. . . . b> n the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe--and the inner workings of our absurdly dysfunctional music industry. ow-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it's a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. he entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity's music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything--and the aliens are not amused. ick Carter has just been tapp

A Novel

Year Zero

Colleen

3.5 Stars
 
Year Zero is a humorous romp about a guy just trying to save the Earth from copyright infringements and fangirling aliens.
 
The publisher’s blurb and a lot of readers compare this book to  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . And on the surface, they do have similarities. They are both comedies about average joes who get stuck in the middle of aliens trying to destroy the Earth. But it’s kind of unfair to compare Year Zero to such a hallmark. I think it might have set some extremely high expectations. Year Zero does have some rough parts, but it was a light, breezy read that I had a lot of fun reading. Sure, it had some cheesy parts, but it made me laugh out loud.
 
Nick Carter is a low-level copyright lawyer (not a Backstreet Boy) who is drifting through life. Everything changes the day he meets the aliens. It turns out that the galaxy is filled with refined beings who prize and excel at all art forms… except music. They really, really suck at music. So when they started picking up Earth’s transmissions, the rest of the galaxy became obsessed with Earth music and everybody downloaded all the music they could get their hands on. The problem is that the rules of the refined beings dictate that if you use a planet’s material, you have to follow that planet’s laws. Now the rest of the galaxy owes Earth an absurd amount of money for copyright infringement. And some evil genius has decided it will be cheaper to just blow up the Earth rather than pay the legal fees.
 
Like I said, it’s a silly story. But silly was exactly what I was in the mood for. Some of the humor was trying a little hard, but there were quite a few moments that made me laugh. Hell, that Backstreet Boys scene is still making me giggle just writing this. The music references were fun. There’s an awesome Rick Roll in there. And I could picture what was happening so well even if the writing was simplistic. The ending fizzled a little, but this was an entertaining and hilarious story great for lovers of humorous SciFi.
 

RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

Year Zero A Novel

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