Please note, Zero Day is a direct sequel to The Hatching and Skitter. You really need to be reading them before you read this book. In fact, don’t venture any further than this paragraph if you haven’t. Trust me. You don’t want to miss out on all that gloriously squishy goodness. It’s also likely this review might contain some spoilers. Consider yourself suitably warned!
The world is on the brink of apocalypse. Zero Day has come.
The only thing more terrifying than millions of spiders is the realization that those spiders work as one. But among the government, there is dissent: do we try to kill all of the spiders, or do we gamble on Professor Guyer’s theory that we need to kill only the queens?
For President Stephanie Pilgrim, it’s an easy answer. She’s gone as far as she can—more than two dozen American cities hit with tactical nukes, the country torn asunder—and the only answer is to believe in Professor Guyer. Unfortunately, Ben Broussard and the military men who follow him don’t agree, and Pilgrim, Guyer, and the loyal members of the government have to flee, leaving the question: what’s more dangerous, the spiders or ourselves?
I think I’m a bit of a creature feature junkie. I can’t get enough of films where nature turns against us. Recently I discovered this article on Wikipedia and I was overjoyed. Someone has gone to all the effort of curating a list of exactly the sort of unashamedly bonkers stuff that appeals to me. If this list appeals to you, and you like to read books of a similar genre, then I can guarantee you are the target audience for Zero Day and its two predecessors. How is the world going to end? According to Ezekiel Boone it’ll be billions of homicidal spiders hell-bent on humanity’s destruction. How can that not be fun? I ask you.
When we last left the action at the end of book 2, Skitter, President Pilgrim had enacted The Spanish Protocol. Effectively ensuring the United States had been split up into its component pieces. All this in an effort to stop the flow of people (and spiders). Tactical nuclear weapons had been unleashed and things looked pretty grim. Zero Day doesn’t give the reader the opportunity to catch their breath. Pilgrim, and what is left of the barely functioning government, are regrouping on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean. The spiders appear to have the upper hand (if spiders had hands which I’m glad to say they don’t). Is there anything our plucky survivors can do in order to stop the arachnid menace.
My favourite apocalyptic scenarios are ones that feature a nice big diverse group of characters. Zero Day doesn’t just follow President Pilgrim. There are chapters that give you a soldier’s eye view of proceedings. We also get to discover how regular folks are getting by, turns out a flaming moat is a pretty effective option. There are welcome returns for many of the characters we’ve met before. Gordo, Shotgun , Fred and Amy are still valiantly taking the fight to their eight-legged adversaries.
Zero Day takes the best elements I’ve seen in other end-of-world novels and just runs with it in a manic sort of abandon. My only criticism is that everything does seem to get wrapped up terribly quickly and a little neatly for my taste. Personally, I think I would have preferred if the ultimate battle was a bit more drawn out. It’s a minor quibble, I’ve just enjoyed this trilogy so much. I think I wanted to eek it out for as long as possible.
I’d love to see this entire trilogy make the jump to the big screen. I’m sure I read that very rumour somewhere. Not just a cult ‘B’ movie adaptation either. I’d want a full-on OH-MY-GOD-O-VISION IMAX 3D spectacular. It could be amazing. Remember the fun we had with Arachnophobia back in the day? Imagine that ramped up to the nth degree. Billions of angry spiders munching their way through everything. It would be a sight to behold alright.
We have a Mexican Red Knee tarantula called Athena. After reading this trilogy of books I don’t think I will ever be able to view her in the same light ever again. I’ll certainly be giving her some serious side-eye. Oh yeah, I’ll be watching her from now on.
If you’ve read the first two book in this series, then Zero Day is a bit of a no-brainer. You’re going to read it because the story is so much fun. If you haven’t succumbed to Ezekiel Boone’s spider mayhem yet, I strongly suggest that you do. For pure horrific escapism I don’t think you can do much better. I’ll be looking out for whatever he does next.
My musical recommendation also has a bit of a cinematic nod as it goes. It strikes me that when it comes to world-ending horror you need something that is suitably sinister. Movie maestro John Carpenter is quite the accomplished musician and his album Lost Themes feels like the perfect fit with Zero Day. We should get him to direct the movie too. I’ve heard he has a knack when it comes to horror. I’m also going to throw in a bonus track for good measure – Black Widow by Alice Cooper because, you know, spiders.
Zero Day is published by Gollancz and is available now.
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