Zero Day by Mark Russinovich (reviewed by readafew)

Sorry I'm bring them out so close together, but I'm trying to catch up on my reading during my week off of classes. Once again any help is appreciated. I might have rambled on too long.

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Zero Day is a debut novel for author Mark Russinovich. I have to say the book wasn't too bad for a first. The plot was excellent, the characterization was decent and most of the writing was pretty good. I did have a couple too many problems and irritations for me to give this a 3.5 or 4 star rating.

The biggest irritant to me was the hax0r passages between Jeff and Daryl. It was used between hackers which felt right but between these 2 intelligent, successful, highly educated individuals it felt like much more of a gimmick and 'see isn't this cute!' kind of thing. I use chat and the more important the information I'm trying to convey to the other party the more I try to use correct spelling, grammar and even punctuation. While I could see using some short cuts (which I do as well) those passages seemed to have a lot of thought put into making them as foreign as possible while still technically readable, mostly by taking out all the vowels unless it was the first letter.

The second thing this book was the pacing and plot got a little thin in the last 80 or so pages. Mark was a Microsoft employee and his writing about the viruses and security holes as well as his descriptions of the investigation shows. But when we get to the action scenes near the end, it felt cribbed like from a Borne movie or even from the Da Vinci Code. A little too convenient and clean. But I still think the books worth a read.

Jeff Aiken is called in to a law firm to help get them recover from a devastating computer crash. Most of the time it's a fairly straight forward affair. Not easy, (that's why he gets paid the big bucks) but generally these things follow one of several known patterns and then the company will be up and running again. This time Jeff seems to have a completely new problem. While Jeff is working on this problem Daryl Haugen has been getting reports of some really nasty viruses and worms affecting all kinds of systems, from Hospitals to Airlines and even Nuclear Power plants. All of which had fairly decent security in place. A very scary picture is forming and no one believes it's a serious threat. When Daryl and Jeff get together and compare notes, it's even worse. It looks like someone is coordinating an attack on the US via the internet and they quite likely are going to succeed.

Overall, great premise, strong plot and about a subject that really should be more in the front lines of peoples thoughts. Protecting our systems from an outside attack. Fun book and a quick read.

wow had some obvious bad stuff here's my second take...

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Zero Day is a debut novel for author Mark Russinovich. I have to say the book wasn't too bad for a first. The plot was excellent, the characterization was decent and most of the writing was pretty good. I did have a couple too many problems and irritations for me to give this a 3.5 or 4 star rating.

The biggest irritant to me was the hax0r chats between Jeff and Daryl. It was also used between hackers which felt right but between these 2 intelligent, successful, highly educated individuals it felt like much more of a gimmick and 'see isn't this cute!' kind of thing. I use chat and the more important the information I'm trying to convey to the other party the more I try to use correct spelling, grammar and even punctuation. While I could see using some short cuts (which I do as well) those passages seemed to have a lot of thought put into making them as foreign as possible while still technically readable, mostly by taking out all the vowels unless it was the first letter.

The second thing this book was the pacing and plot got a little thin in the last 80 or so pages. Mark was a Microsoft employee and his writing about the viruses and security holes as well as his descriptions of the investigation shows here. But when we get to the action scenes near the end, it felt cribbed from a Borne movie or even from the Da Vinci Code. A little too convenient and clean.

Jeff Aiken is called in to a law firm to help get them recover from a devastating computer crash. Most jobs are fairly straight forward affairs. Not easy, (that's why he gets paid the big bucks) but generally these things follow one of several known patterns and then the company will be up and running again. This time Jeff appears to have a completely new problem. While Jeff is working on with the law firm, Daryl Haugen has been getting reports of some really nasty viruses and worms affecting all kinds of systems, from Hospitals to Airlines and even Nuclear Power plants. All of which had fairly decent security in place. A very scary picture is forming and no one that matters believes it's a serious threat. When Daryl and Jeff get together and compare notes, it's even worse. It looks like someone is coordinating an attack on the US via the internet and they quite likely are going to succeed.

Overall, great premise, strong plot and about a subject that really should be more in the front lines of peoples thoughts. Protecting our systems from an outside attack. Fun book and a quick read.

Agree with the plot summary first, and then the details. Otherwise I liked it.

Thank you both.
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Zero Day is a debut novel for author Mark Russinovich. I have to say the book wasn't too bad for a first. The plot was excellent, the characterization was decent and most of the writing was pretty good. I had too many problems and irritations with the book for me to give this a 3.5 or 4 star rating.

Jeff Aiken is called in to a law firm to help get them recover from a devastating computer crash. Most jobs are fairly straight forward affairs. Not easy, (that's why he gets paid the big bucks) but generally these things follow one of several known patterns and then the company will be up and running again. This time Jeff appears to have a completely new problem. While Jeff is working with the law firm, Daryl Haugen has been getting reports of some really nasty viruses and worms affecting all kinds of systems, from Hospitals to Airlines and even Nuclear Power plants. All of which had fairly decent security in place. A very scary picture is forming and no one that matters believes it's a serious threat. When Daryl and Jeff get together and compare notes, it's even worse. It looks like someone is coordinating an attack on the US via the internet and they quite likely are going to succeed.

The biggest irritant to me was the hax0r chats between Jeff and Daryl. It was also used between hackers which felt right but between these 2 intelligent, successful, highly educated individuals it felt like much more of a gimmick and 'see isn't this cute!' kind of thing. I use chat and the more important the information I'm trying to convey to the other party the more I try to use correct spelling, grammar and even punctuation. While I could see using some short cuts (which I do as well) those passages seemed to have a lot of thought put into making them as foreign as possible while still technically readable, mostly by taking out all the vowels unless it was the first letter.

The second thing wrong with this book was the pacing and plot got a little thin in the last 80 or so pages. Mark was a Microsoft employee and his writing about the viruses and security holes as well as his descriptions of the investigation shows here. But when we get to the action scenes near the end, it felt cribbed from a Borne movie or even from the Da Vinci Code. A little too convenient and clean.

Overall, great premise, strong plot and about a subject that really should be more in the forefront of peoples thoughts. Protecting our systems from an outside attack. Fun book and a quick read.

Hey readafew,

Here's a few things I caught:

1st sentence, 1st paragraph: Zero Day is a debut novel for author Mark Russinovich. 'A' should be changed to 'the'. 'A' implies that Mark Russinovich has more than one debut novel.

4th sentence, 1st paragraph: I think you should add a 'but' to the beginning of the sentence. Right now it's a too abrupt shift in tone from sentence three to sentence four.

1st sentence, 2nd paragraph: ...to help get them recover... I think 'get' should be cut from that. It reads funny.

1st sentence, 5th paragraph: 'peoples' should be 'people's'.

Random stuff: I think you should add a short explanation of who Daryl is to Jeff. Reading through the review, it sounded like they were co-workers, but I get the feeling they have never met before the novel begins.

I didn't have a problem with 'hax0r chats', but another user did. You could clean it up with something like ...the hax0r lingo in the chats between... However, you can also leave it as is.

I was going to make some smart-aleck remark about how I'm not surprised a Microsoft employee knows all about viruses and security holes, but I won't.

6 > excellent catches!

Jeff and Daryl. They had sort of worked together in the past as government employees and then Jeff went to the private sector. So they knew each other but weren't coworkers. You still think I need to add something like that in there?

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Zero Day is the debut novel for author Mark Russinovich. I have to say the book wasn't too bad for a first. The plot was excellent, the characterization was decent and most of the writing was pretty good. but I had too many problems and irritations with the book for me to give this a 3.5 or 4 star rating.

Jeff Aiken is called in to a law firm to help them recover from a devastating computer crash. Most jobs are fairly straight forward affairs. Not easy, (that's why he gets paid the big bucks) but generally these things follow one of several known patterns and then the company will be up and running again. This time Jeff appears to have a completely new problem. While Jeff is working with the law firm, Daryl Haugen has been getting reports of some really nasty viruses and worms affecting all kinds of systems, from Hospitals to Airlines and even Nuclear Power plants. All of which had fairly decent security in place. A very scary picture is forming and no one that matters believes it's a serious threat. When Daryl and Jeff get together and compare notes, it's even worse. It looks like someone is coordinating an attack on the US via the internet and they quite likely are going to succeed.

The biggest irritant to me was the hax0r chats between Jeff and Daryl. It was also used between hackers which felt right but between these 2 intelligent, successful, highly educated individuals it felt like much more of a gimmick and 'see isn't this cute!' kind of thing. I use chat and the more important the information I'm trying to convey to the other party the more I try to use correct spelling, grammar and even punctuation. While I could see using some short cuts (which I do as well) those passages seemed to have a lot of thought put into making them as foreign as possible while still technically readable, mostly by taking out all the vowels unless it was the first letter.

The second thing wrong with this book was the pacing and plot got a little thin in the last 80 or so pages. Mark was a Microsoft employee and his writing about the viruses and security holes as well as his descriptions of the investigation shows here. But when we get to the action scenes near the end, it felt cribbed from a Borne movie or even from the Da Vinci Code. A little too convenient and clean.

Overall, great premise, strong plot and about a subject that really should be more in the forefront of people's thoughts. Protecting our systems from an outside attack. Fun book and a quick read.