Zeroes

This book delivers a powerful piston of zippy, zangy, hard-hitting narrative straight to the facemeats. It's like the opposite of Mein Kampf, with washboard abs and binary biceps.

My only critique is that the ending felt a little abrupt, even for Wendig. However, that doesn't detract from the experience – the resolution is fresh, unexpected and satisfying all the same.

Side note – Reagan Stolper reminds me of Helga from The Oblongs.

The book absolutely captured my attention and kept me reading more. But in the end the clever new ideas were overwhelmed by the formulaic zombie story. Not sorry I read it, but wouldn't do another one.

Fast read because it's basically impossible to put down. You'll stay up all night with it and won't want it to end. No spoilers. I just hope the main characters are revisited in some way. Really rich characters

Zeroes comes close to describing my evaluation of this novel. While it tries to stay current with the politics and the possibilities of the times, it was difficult to get completing into the story and characters.

A fun, fast-paced thriller! I have read many books where I may have to read 50, 100, 200 pages in before I'm thoroughly engaged. With this book, I was immediately engaged and stayed engaged all the way through to the end.

Excellent Sci Fi. Probably not popular for true computer nerds. The premise is very interesting and the character development works. I can see however how the technically oriented might disagree, but geez, it's Sci Fi!

Loved every second of this roller coaster ride. A very original take on AI. Buy. Read. Think. Think most of all because the AI train is rolling in some form or other and maybe we need to think about what kind of brakes that engine needs.

I enjoyed reading this book. The whole time I was reading it I was imagining it on screen. Bye the screenwriters can polish up some spots other reviewers had problems with. I happened to enjoy the concept.

Interesting if not totally new concept - assembled in a very well crafted plot with extra levels evolving as you go through. Unfortunately the characters are rather juvenile and feel like an excuse to build a tale rather than people you could care about.

If you don't understand anything about technology and want a story about a group fighting the evil government this might be for you. It was inventive but I couldn't get past the flawed understanding of what computers can do and how the brain works. If it hasn't been set in the near future I might have been able to suspend my belief better.

Drat this Wendig guy! Not only is his blog good, (that's how I discovered him) but his books are excellent! At least the two I've read are. This is a book about a bunch of hackers, a diverse bunch, who have been caught, but offered the chance to serve a year in sort of "public service hacking" rather than do jail time or worse. Of course, um, nope, ain't gonna tell you that part of the story. I will say that there are a lot of surprises in the story, and the good guys tend to be a sort of fluid connection. The chief bad guy is, well, pretty damn creepy, is all I can say. Bottom line here is that this is an excellent thriller wherein you can learn a few things about hacking and hackers if you've a mind to, and if you like thrillers, then you really oughta read this one.

While I liked the realistic descriptions of computer hacking, I found the story to be too over the top and fantastic. It was a fun beach read, but wouldn't recommend it if you're looking for anything too deep. Maybe it was because I read this right after Cryptonomicon...

the store is censoring my review, for some reason, even though I am totally playing by their rules. I suspect their system has been hacked by Typhon. So let me just say that this book is awesome, and you should go read it RIGHT NOW.

And if you want to read my full, uncensored review, check out my blog post this Thursday... unless Typhon gets there first!

the store is censoring my review, for some reason, even though I am totally playing by their rules. I suspect their system has been hacked by Typhon. So let me just say that this book is awesome, and you should go read it RIGHT NOW.

And if you want to read my full, uncensored review, check out my blog post this Thursday... unless Typhon gets there first!

I hate Chuck Wendig. I hate his clever metaphors, his instantly knowable characters, his twisty plots, his oh-so clever chapter headings... because dammit, why can't I write like this??!?

I loved Zeroes (or maybe Zer0es, if you like, but the book and listings suggest otherwise). It's a fast paced hacker tale that goes one way, then moves another and in the end lands somewhere I didn't expect. Part techno thriller, part body horror, part end-of-the-world tale, I found it gripping from start to finish. Loved all the characters, loved the supporting cast and was thoroughly creeped out by the bad guys.

While arguably it could have been a bit more nuanced, I read this as the Crichton-esque techno thrill ride I expected, and it didn't disappoint. Also, god-damn his eyes, Wendig's prose is smooth and precise, like... like... dammit Chuck help me out here?

So some slight bias upfront: I pretty much dig Chuck Wendig and will buy and read anything he produces. Also, it brings me no small amount of joy to be the first review to use the Schoolhouse Rock title.

I really enjoyed this book. I sympathize with the reviewer that said he hated it because of technical inaccuracies -- I am a disease biologist and pretty much hate anything that has an Outbreak element. Similarly, my father, a clinical psychologist, can't deal with any story involving psychoses. Fortunately, I don't know diddly about hacking, so I thought Chuck's descriptions were TOTALLY convincing. Never took me out of the story, so unless you are a hacker or 'puter fiend, I think you'll be fine.

I caution you with reading some of the reviews here, as there are spoilers (come on people, get with it). I like some of the twists, and most of them I didn't see coming. I also liked the ensemble approach to the protagonists - it let Chuck experiment and create a couple that were rather unpalatable while not making the story something I'd put down.

I agree with others about the prologue, intralogue, and epilogue not fitting well, but it wasn't a big deal. Seems to position it for a sequel, which I would totally read as well.

A fast, fun, creepy read. Pure Wendig.

Chuck Wendig has written some pretty good books. This isn't one of them.

This awful mess is what happens when a halfway-decent author who knows nothing about computers, networking, the Internet, and technology in general decides to write a 'hacker' novel. And, in the process, recycles tired, overused plot devices and typical 'cyber-'nonense characterization - if you can call it that - which are utterly predictable and so overused as to have become self-satirizing.

If you work in any aspect of the IT, networking, or information security disciplines, avoid this book like the plague; the author comes out with some cringe-inducing clanger every page or so. If you know nothing about these things, you should still avoid this book like the plague, because the author has apparently forgotten everything he knows about decent plotting, robust characterization, and is phoning it into a sea of incompetent, incoherent technobabble.

One of the most disappointing books I've ever bought. A real stinker.

The book kept me interested, although I thought the use of profanity and more adult references by one character really became unrealistic to the point where I almost stopped reading it. Frankly, it was unnecessary, the storyline was fine without it.