Year Zero
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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John Hodgman
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By:
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Rob Reid
About this listen
An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet.
Worse, they were lawyering up....
In 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.
Low-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.
The 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.
Nick Carter has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly, and he's an unlikely galaxy-hopping hero: He's scared of heights. He's also about to be fired. And he happens to have the same name as a Backstreet Boy. But he does know a thing or two about copyright law. And he's packing a couple of other pencil-pushing superpowers that could come in handy.
Soon he's on the run from a sinister parrot and a highly combustible vacuum cleaner. With Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick now has 48 hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.
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Critic reviews
"Fans of Douglas Adams will rave about this smart, funny satire. Debut novelist Reid, founder of Listen.com, has crafted a masterly plot that deftly skewers the American obsession with music, money, and power. Fast paced and original, this is highly recommended." (Library Journal [starred review])
"Witty and original - I loved it. A biting satire of the record business and those who run it...and ultimately ran it into the ground." (Cliff Bleszinski, creator, Gears of War)
"With chess master precision, the refreshingly ray gun-free novel wittily plays with the possibilities of its fantastical plot. It mixes airtight point-and-counter point rounds of arguments with wild travails to distant worlds. The careful cohesion of Year Zero is a marvel given its star-hopping digressions." (Buffalo News)
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The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day.
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Hardest of hard SF...
- By DLee on 11-24-14
By: Charles Stross
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Bloodshot
- Cheshire Red Reports, Book 1
- By: Cherie Priest
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn’t usually hang with her own kind. She’s too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist - even though Ian doesn’t want precious artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files: documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn’t bargain for is a case that takes her from the frozen outskirts of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta.
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A notch above
- By Eivind on 01-31-11
By: Cherie Priest
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Hellbent
- Cheshire Red Reports, Book 2
- By: Cherie Priest
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Vampire and thief Raylene Pendle doesn’t need more complications in her life. Her Seattle home is already overrun by a band of misfits, including Ian Stott, a blind vampire, and Adrian deJesus, an ex–Navy SEAL/drag queen. But Raylene still can’t resist an old pal’s request: seek out and steal a bizarre set of artifacts. Also on the hunt is a brilliant but certifiably crazy sorceress determined to stomp anyone who gets in her way.
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Nice Second Installment
- By Tiffani on 09-02-11
By: Cherie Priest
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Variable Star
- By: Robert A. Heinlein, Spider Robinson
- Narrated by: Spider Robinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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At his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein's masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Now, the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand his outline into a full-length novel. And the result is vintage Heinlein.
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Spider WHO
- By Randall on 04-25-09
By: Robert A. Heinlein, and others
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Off to Be the Wizard
- Magic 2.0, Book 1
- By: Scott Meyer
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble. Oh, and boy meets girl at some point.
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Hang in there
- By Kelly on 03-04-17
By: Scott Meyer
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The Automatic Detective
- By: A. Lee Martinez
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Even in Empire City, a town where weird science is the hope for tomorrow, it's hard for a robot to make his way. It's even harder for a robot named Mack Megaton, a hulking machine designed to bring mankind to its knees. But Mack's not interested in world domination. He's just a bot trying to get by, trying to demonstrate that he isn't just an automated smashing machine, and to earn his citizenship in the process. It should be as easy as crushing a tank for Mack, but some bots just cant catch a break.
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SOME DAYS, I WISH I HAD BEEN MADE A TOASTER
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 02-11-18
By: A. Lee Martinez
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The Kid Sensation Series: Books 1-3
- By: Kevin Hardman
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Get the first three books in the Kid Sensation series. Like millions of other kids, Jim grew up wanting to be a superhero. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Jim actually had the goods: a plethora of super powers that would have been the envy of any meta on the planet. But when his tryout with the Alpha League - the world's premiere group of supers - goes disastrously wrong, Jim basically becomes an outcast.
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Puberty and Superpowers
- By LITRPG Audiobook Reviews on 03-06-18
By: Kevin Hardman
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Kingdom Keepers: The Return Book One Disney Lands
- Kingdom Keepers: The Return, Book 1
- By: Ridley Pearson
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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With the defeat of the Overtakers behind them, the five teenagers known as the Kingdom Keepers should be celebrating. By all accounts they saved Disneyland from certain destruction. Why then did their mentor leave one last puzzle for them to decipher? The Keepers must solve a puzzle of the past, or be crushed under an evil that makes the Overtakers seem like gentle souls.
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Why do I keep buying these?
- By Rebecca on 04-04-16
By: Ridley Pearson
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The God Wave
- A Novel
- By: Patrick Hemstreet
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades scientists have speculated about the untapped potential of the human brain. Now, neuroscientist Chuck Brenton has made an astonishing breakthrough. He has discovered the key - the crucial combination of practice and conditioning - to access the incredible power dormant in 90 percent of our brains. Applying his methods to test subjects, he has stimulated abilities that elevate brain function to seemingly godlike levels.
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it lost its way at the end, but I liked it
- By Leo on 09-25-16
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WebMage
- Ravirn, Book 1
- By: Kelly McCullough
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Ravirn is not your average computer geek. A child of the Fates - literally - he’s a hacker extraordinaire who can zero in on the fatal flaw in any program. Now that 21st-century magic has gone digital that makes him a very talented sorcerer. But a world of problems is about to be downloaded on Ravirn - who’s just trying to pass his college midterms. Great Aunt Atropos, one of the three Fates, decides that humans having free will is really overrated and plans to rid herself of the annoyance....
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not what i was expecting
- By n.brumm 4 on 02-09-15
By: Kelly McCullough
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The Pole Vault Championship of the Entire Universe
- By: Conor Lastowka
- Narrated by: Eliza Skinner, Janet Varney, Al Yankovic, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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Kara Everglades has just finished her first year of high school and is longing for an adventure. So far, her only option is an invitation from some upperclassmen to watch them race a bunch of bullfrogs in a ditch. Her grandfather, Cornelius Everglades, is a family legend (and a loose cannon), who founded his own island micronation. Unfortunately, the rest of the world refuses to acknowledge it. When Cornelius shows up at Kara’s door needing her help and promising an adventure, Kara agrees to go along with his far-fetched plan.
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Highly entertaining, great listen
- By Leslie Braitsch on 01-17-19
By: Conor Lastowka
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InterWorld
- By: Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves
- Narrated by: Christopher Evan Welch
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Joey Harker isn't a hero. In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension. Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces: armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions.
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A good listen
- By Gurmukh on 10-31-07
By: Neil Gaiman, and others
What listeners say about Year Zero
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- january
- 01-25-13
A great book for super nerds!
I wish people wouldn't compare new authors to epic writers like Douglas Adams or Steig Larsson. It just sets them up for failure and disappoints readers. While this is a funny book about aliens, that's where the comparison to Douglas Adams stops. Rob Reid may have been influenced by reading Hitchhiker's, but he may have also enjoyed a book or two by Christopher Moore, or any number of other humorous writers. If you choose to listen to this book, listen to it for its' own value and not because you liked some other book that came before it.
That being said, here's what I thought of Year Zero:
It started out a little slow for me. I had a hard time getting into the characters and the story line. But once I got the hang of it, I found it to be packed with little quips and references to everything nerdy that I love. From the video game Portal to Microsoft Windows. It's not the kind of book where I laughed out loud in random public places while listening with my earphones, but I did chuckle quite a few times, and thought to myself, wow, he really just said that!
The narrator was perfect for this part. Not too over the top, and not so middle of the road that he made the funny bits boring. He did a great job with all the voices.
If you are a nerd, geek or gamer (or have a partner that is) you will love this book.
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33 people found this helpful
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- Mikael Brolin
- 09-24-17
Probably the best...
This is probably the best music copyright Sci-fi book money can buy. I love it!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Matthew
- 09-03-12
Perfect for geeks like me!
I suspect, though, that most severely normal people would find this book silly and all the computer/music/science/pop culture/sci fi references barely interesting instead of hilarious. It's extremely up-to-date, and John Hodgman is an excellent choice as a narrator as the humour in this book fits in exactly with his other writing/comedy performances. I really enjoyed it--I definitely recommend it if you're in the target audience.
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1 person found this helpful
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- T. Robinson
- 08-20-18
I hate current copyright law
This book is a brilliant sci-fi take on everything wrong with our current legal system. If you like The Hitchhikers Guide you'll likely enjoy this.
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- David
- 05-13-18
Royally totally awesome
It's a wonderful book with great set tires is one that I can listen to repeatedly and not get tired of it
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-07-12
Douglas Adams would be proud
Excellent book. In fact, I wish I had written it: I work in litigation consulting calculating damages for intellectual property infringement, so maybe I'm biased, but the plot was entertaining, well thought out, and well paced. If you enjoyed "Hitchhiker's Guide," you will likely enjoy this.
Hodgman does a great job narrating as well. He provides good nuance and pacing. In fact, he kind of just sounds like an associate attorney that's trying to save the world from imminent destruction.
Reid pleasantly and creatively tidies everything up by the end, but leaves enough open to develop his world in future books. I hope he does.
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- Enrique
- 10-24-18
Very fun book
Very fun light science fiction with lots of music references. I had a great time listening to this book. Just I felt that Rob Reid rushed to finish it. There could have been so more.
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- CHRIS
- 02-16-15
Poking fun at absurd copyright laws
Rob uses a humorous story to point out how absurd or copyright laws are. John Hodgman's delivery is perfect.
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- Geoff
- 08-27-12
Great Book
Very entertaining. Makes you think about how much influence greedy lawyers and their quest to screw anyone who is not their client at the moment have over the world I mean the universe. Even though it is fiction is also is a good study on how a ruling by the legal system can affect other things that were not even considered when the initial case was being heard.
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- Ralph W. Ledrew
- 10-16-14
John Hodgman and Sci-Fi. Who could ask for more?
What did you love best about Year Zero?
It's a very clever, complex story that just sucks you into the adventure. I love John Hodgman, but the story is really a perfect match for his style. I read a lot of Sci-Fi and this was such a refreshing and imaginative premise.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Probably Nick, the main character, who is an attorney working on protecting the music industry's intellectual property from piracy. Imagine billions of aliens crazy about human music, having pirated an untold number of copies of everything we've produced. And as a league of refined civilizations are compelled to compensate humans for the theft.
What about John Hodgman’s performance did you like?
John is amazingly consistent and is pretty good at making vocal distinctions when switching characters to make it believable.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
I love when they used wrinkles to instantly transport somewhere.
Any additional comments?
I want more of this from both the author and John Hodgman.
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