Book Review: Year Zero

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Year Zero     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Brian Stableford
Class/Genre:   Science Fiction
Five Star, May 2003, $25.95, 314 pp.

In 2000, thirty two year old retired hooker and former drug user Molly wants to regain custody of her two children are both staying with foster parents. However, she will soon believe that the cosmos acts against her goal as she wonders if she may be the center of weirdness or on some sort of delayed LSD trip.

Molly runs into a youthful looking Elvis in the nearby shopping center. He explains that he has been part of an immortality experiment. Over the next few weeks, they date, but as immortal parasites eat away at Elvis, making him look like a poster boy for the living dead so she ends their relationship for the sake of her kids.

Next she meets an angel who fell. As he falls further she tries to help him return. That is followed by an alien abduction by the Greys who plant their transmitter in her breast. Almost at the exact moment they return her to her home, the English Men in Black abduct her, but conclude she is either an idiot or an enemy agent working for the ET Greys. With this entire happening, can the devil be far behind?

If this weird tale sounds like Eerie, Indiana moved to England that is because that is how this engaging satire feels. In many ways, the terrific tale is a series of vignettes as readers receive a wild year 2000 ride with Molly trying to start fresh, but running into one strange obstacle after another. Nothing of the new age is sacred to Brian Stableford as YEAR ZERO is for those readers who appreciate the bizarre.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner