Going Zero
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Going Zero, a high-concept thriller from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten. Erase yourself. The hunt has begun. Perfect for fans of I Am Pilgrim and The Circle.
TWO HOURS TO VANISH
Ten people have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. Pioneered by tech-wunderkind Cy Baxter, FUSION can track anyone wherever they are on earth. But does it work?
ONE CHANCE TO ESCAPE
Each participant is given two hours to 'Go Zero' - to go off-grid and disappear - and then thirty days to elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams sent to find them. Any Zero that beats FUSION will receive $3million in cash. If Cy's system prevails, he wins a $90 billion-dollar contract with the CIA to develop FUSION and revolutionize surveillance forever.
ZERO ALTERNATIVES
For contestant Kaitlyn Day, the stakes are far higher than money, and her reasons for entering the test more personal than Cy could have ever imagined. Kaitlyn needs to win to get what she wants, and Cy will stop at nothing to realize his ambitions. They have no choice but to finish the game and when the timer hits zero, there will only be one winner...
PRAISE FOR GOING ZERO
"Going Zero is the first novel I've read in years that speeds the pulse as much as it challenges the brain. That can-you-beat-the-system hook recalls the juggernaut likes of Ready Player One and Lost, but Going Zero outpaces them both, and dives deeper: it's a speculative-fiction classic in the vein (and even in the league) of I, Robot and Jurassic Park -- a thriller you can gobble down with a bucket of popcorn, and also feel smarter for having read. Provocative, perceptive, and -- no other word will do - ingenious." A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
"This is one of the best thrillers I've read in a long time, although the word 'thriller' doesn't quite capture the sheer pleasure of reading this story, with its wickedly clever set-up, its unassuming librarian protagonist, its twisty plot and surprise ending. Beyond pure entertainment is the truth this novel speaks about the disturbing times we live in. I highly, highly recommend this book." Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng and The Lost City of the Monkey God
"As fast-paced as it is timely...Anthony McCarten shoots a bullet through contemporary America with this wickedly taut conspiracy thriller. I'll never look at my phone the same way again." Graham Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The Holdout and The Last Days of Night
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In screenwriter McCarten's strong debut, Fusion, a Silicon Valley company led by flawed genius Cy Baxter, is competing for a $90 billion contract to provide the federal government with a massive new surveillance system, promoted as a public good but concealing several nefarious features. To test the system, Fusion picks 10 contestants from the public, gives each a two-hour head start, and promises anyone $3 Emillion if they can stay undetected for 30 days. One builds a hidden room in his house; another holes up in a storage locker; a third tries to blend in with the homeless. One contestant, Boston librarian Kaitlyn Day, does more than hide. On day 28, Kaitlyn stuns Baxter with a zinger: use Fusion's power to locate her lost husband, believed to have disappeared in Iran three years earlier on a CIA mission, or she'll reveal the company's deceptive promises to the government. McCarten taps into the current fascination—and revulsion—with modern advances in facial recognition, AI, and location data, though chase story fans may like more chase and less techno navel-gazing. This is an edgy, compulsively readable thriller.
Customer Reviews
Coming soon to screen near you
3.5 stars
The author is a New Zealand born, US based novelist, playwright, screenwriter and film maker (Bohemian Rhapsody, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, The Two Popes etc).
Megalomaniac tech entrepreneur seeks to sell the CIA and other US government agencies his data gathering and analytic system by staging a competition where ten not-so-randomly-selected individuals get three million bucks if they can elude our boy’s system for 30 days. There are other agendas are involved: the tech bro, his GF, spooks versus spook, and a female librarian from Boston no one expected to last more than a day.
I found the plot a tad blah at the start, but it improved. The prose is crisp, if generic. The pacing built well. There’s twists and turns aplenty, possibly too many, including a Gone-Girl-esque frame shift. Willing suspension of belief required in abundance.