Year Zero: A Novel

(Paperback)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 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. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on American pop songs ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), resulting in the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang and bankrupting the whole universe. Nick has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly. Thankfully, this unlikely galaxy-hopping hero does know a thing or two about copyright law. Now, with Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick has forty-eight hours to save humanity-while hoping to wow the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

Reviews

Praise for Year Zero

Hilarious, provocative, and supersmart, Year Zero is a brilliant novel to be enjoyed in perpetuity in the known universe and in all unknown universes yet to be discovered.
John Hodgman, resident expert, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Reids extreme imagination never wanes as he builds an entire universe solely on how alien societies would react to our music and culture. Nothing is typical or obvious. Reid uses the lens of an outsider to unleash a sarcasticand hilariousrant on how obsessed we are with technology and greed.
Associated Press

Holy hilarity! A new force in geek humor is upon us. Youll never think the same way again about extraterrestrials, bad music, buggy technologyor lawyers!
Chris Anderson, TED curator

I loved it. Funny, smart, silly . . . three things I also happen to admire in a novel. Bottom line: recommended. Buy it and read it.
Phil Plait, Discover Magazine

Year Zero made me laugh out loud and taught me stuff about copyright infringement: Its clever, smart, and so original that people are probably already trying to rip it off.
Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

All in all, its a supremely fun read which will remind you how much you love science fiction comedyand how much you hate the music industry.
io9

My pick for best (and funniest) sci-fi book of the year.
Chris Anderson, editor in chief, Wired

Hailed as this summers best beach read for science fiction and music geeks . . . Its an often hilarious satire on much of current entertainment, including reality TV, the legal profession and fandom (interstellar and otherwise), but the books crowning achievement is that it actually makes copyright funny.
Toronto Star

Year Zero is ROFLMAO funny, insightful, and sly: A sort of Hitchhikers Guide to our own tortured commercial/litigation culture, by way of planet Zinkiwu.
Mark Jannot, editor in chief, Popular Science

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 originalI 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

Smart and wacky.
Bob Boilen, NPRs All Songs Considered

Reid . . . takes aim at many targetstechnology, the music industry, hipstersand nails them hilariously.
Parade

What if aliens heard our musicand really liked it You could what if for the next millennium and still not come up with as many zany scenarios as Rob Reid does in this tale of copyright law, astrophysics, biophysics, and crazy physics that hasnt yet been invented. So sit back, hold your sides to ease the laughing pains, and find out whether Earth survives.
Jill Tarter, director, Center for SETI Research

Awesome. Think Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but with copyright law driving a major plot line. A mainstream humorous sci-fi novel that uses the Berne Convention as a key plot point and tosses aside casual references to Larry Lessig and Fark Yes. Count me in.
Techdirt

Year Zero is a brilliant satire of the American entertainment industry, and I never stopped grinning.
Kevin Hearne, author of The Iron Druid Chronicles

Light-hearted, intelligent and just plain silly . . . Year Zero is very clever and has wonderful fun with themes I think youll enjoy.
Boing Boing

The fun in Year Zero comes from the banter among the main characters, all of whom are well drawn and hilarious in their own right. While the novel satirizes the music industry, its obvious the author feels as passionately as some of the alien characters about the power of pop music.
Shelf Awareness

Author Bio

Rob Reid is the founder of Listen.com, which created the Rhapsody service, the world's largest seller of online music until it was eclipsed (rather badly, he'll admit) by Apple's iTunes service. He is the author of Year One, a memoir about student life at Harvard Business School, and Architects of the Web, a business history of the Internet. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Morgan.