Maybe 1.5

The first 50% of this book was OK but it goes crazy in the second half and turns into some kind of jumbled hybrid of The Terminator, Coma and The Walking Dead and Big Hero Six. It would have been better if author had done more work to make me care about the characters and their relationships but he didn’t. Instead he made most of them obnoxious caricatures and even the ones we were supposed to like best didn’t really bring out the warm fuzzies.

This is more of a horror movie/thriller screenplay than a good novel. ( )

It was a long time since I read as fast paced novel as this one.

In a manner of action movies we witness formation and then destiny of a rag tag group of hackers from almost all periods of modern computer technology. While all members of the group (and their antagonists) are rather cliche (old wise vet, woke activist to whom you cannot say a word without being misinterpreted, socially awkward one and friendly psychopath) story truly flows with all the twists and turns. and to be honest story is something that will remain with me, characters not that much because they easily blend with all other characters from similar books. FBI agent seems to be based on Samuel Jackson :) with all the description I constantly imagined Copper to be character visually identical to Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction :)

As I said entire novel has that movie quality.

But twist is very interesting and with a rather unique approach to development of artificial intelligence. Author managed to merge technology with zombie/slasher genre in a very successful way. Wont go more into details here but entire AI setting was very much in W40K style.

It is book aligned with the time (with all the hype about cyber attacks, Ai research etc). Isn't it interesting that nobody knows what intelligence truly is but everyone wants AI developed, its like working with chemical set and pursuing the exercise even while knowing everything can blow up into everyone faces. Weird and extremely dangerous.

Highly recommended to fans of action/adventure. although based on modern computer hacking and scripting it is not so heavy on details and reads very very fast. ( )

It's important to understand that nothing in this review is meant to deter you reading Zeroes. In fact, the damn thing never lets up once it gets rolling. Your patience will be rewarded.

It took me "forever" to read this, until just before halfway through. I got there in and around reading other novels over months. This isn't a bad thing, since Wendig wasn't waiting on me. :) Actually, it's a compliment. I will give up on a story that bores me. I wasn't bored, he just hadn't snagged me hard enough yet to compel my devotion. I knew it was coming. I 'knew' Hollis from reading Invasive and I liked the hackers. ("Like" means appreciate what each is for, and enjoy the little surprises Wendig gives from them, breaking an assumption or two of mine.) I appreciated the trek through the setup with the hackers, how the cover story starts to warp and fall apart. How they can't believe, until they're forced to. Very human, that trait. That's the point at which I devoted time, when they're scrambling to stay alive and understand fast enough.

If you want to gain suspicion of your electronics, here's your chance. ( )

Rocks along surprisingly quickly, like a thriller, especially when the plot isn't super-thriller-esque. As it gets more conventional, it gets a little less interesting, but this is hardly the first novel to fall prey to that. Accurate to about the second decimal place in many technical areas, though some of the simplifications damage the explanations as a whole.

It has the plus of being decently funny, with characters that are differentiated a bit. That said, at moments it feels like it could have been a screenplay or a TV series instead of a novel, for better or for worse. ( )

I loved this book. The story was good and I cared about the characters. Then the story started to drag and some weird stuff started to come in. The characters started doing things that were out-of-character. Then there was the end. Chuck Wendig did a Christine Golden. See those reviews. I don't even want to talk about it. ( )