*thank you to Netgalley and Troubador Publishing Limited/Matador for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

3 stars.

This is one of those books that has just enough interesting parts to keep you going until the end. Unfortunately it did get a bit dull in parts and a bit over my head in interest, for me but that's just me. Others could really get into this but it wasn't quite what I was expecting and I did have to push through. It is not badly written and it is definitely a great idea as a story. So if you like the sound of it, go for it and give it a go.

I was a little reserved about trying a book which was new and was free to download. I was taken by the cover and the blurb, I was interested to see how this story would take from a European perspective rather than a distopia telling from the American perspective.

I think a densely populated part of the world like the UK was the perfect setting for this book. The characters were strong and well developed, I could believe that they exist within a wider world rather than created just for this book.

Exciting and tense in places. I would recomend this book if you enjoyed Station Eleven or The Road or The Wasteland Series.

I usually give a book to 40%, but I finally stopped here at 35%. I was just done. Finished. 35%, and we realize what the bacterium is, or is it virus? Either way, there is no way.to catch up with it and the government is of course hiding the facts. In the end there can only be massive loss of life. My problem is that at 35% this story hadn't moved forward much. Also, the ending for humans is bleak. If course some will survive, but it wasn't worth sticking around and seeing the politician's muck around with the truth. I will say in all honesty that I thought the writing was great. Matter of fact I was actually engaged. But, the slow development of the story completely detracted from that. I don't know, but maybe the editor should have lit a fire up underneath Mr. Tudors arse!
Anyways, my thanks to the publishers, and Netgalley. I'd actually read more from this author of maybe he wanted to try some excitement. Great writing, but his pacing stinks!.

I don't read a ton of medical science fiction novels, this was something a bit different for me.
The story was good, and it was really interesting to watch how things fell apart. The author clearly did his research, the whole thing feels so possible it's scary.
If medical things and disease creep you out, I'd avoid this paticular one, unless you want the pants scared off of you!

One of the things I appreciated was that the author did not default to male characters when introducing people. Both major and minor characters were split about 50/50 in gender. It's easy to just write male characters, and he went out of his way to make it feel real with plenty of female characters as well.
The females themselves were really well written as well. All of them were strong, but each in their own way. They all had their own drives and fears and desires.

I can't really explain why the story didn't totally catch me though. It was good, but not really my thing.

My only warning would be that about 70% in the way in there is an attempted sexual assault. It's about a page and a half, two pages long. While it is stopped, it is graphic in nature. If that is something that you avoid I would read the scene where the women are asleep in the barn with great care.

As part of the approach to developing vaccines, people investigate viruses. Indeed in a few, very secure, labs hideously dangerous viruses are kept alive in order to study them. Examples include smallpox, various plagues, hantavirus and so on. But what if the rest of the world is also playing around with these? Wouldn't it be better to have a virus that changed itself, so you could always be aware of what monstrosities could occur?

Enter the Zeno Effect.

This is a form of genetic tinkering that results in viruses that undergo rapid mutations, far quicker than normal, in order to prevent vaccines from ever being able to keep up with them. How is this supposed to help stop people dying from viruses? Literally no one knows. Still, must be a fun experiment to be involved with.

Unfortunately, it's not fun enough that one of the scientists doing this research doesn't want to kill off most of the human race in order to prevent an overpopulation problem he's seen coming. He's presumably a member of the more militant offshoot of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

Easy enough then, for him to wander out of Porton Down with a vial full of something horrible and infect the world. And so begins the deaths.

The world is thrown into turmoil pretty damn quickly, and a small band of scientists, journalists, intelligence specialists and people with more traditional skills have to get together to do their best to weather the storm. This will include running from the inevitable mobs, trying to form new communities that don't fall into religious mania or feudalism, and updating their website.

What follows is an updated form of the "Cosy Catastrophe" genre, as indicated by the recognition of the importance of that book in the afterword. It also has parallels to Survivors, and I think I detected a hint of The Death of Grass.

However, it's also heavily influenced by the politics of today. Looking back through books I've read in the past few years, it's possible to see the trends. We had zombies again for a while, and there's been a resurgence of the superhero genre, which I think it mostly due to Marvel, but there's also been a few recurring themes in dystopias. We've had political drama, based on the increasingly partisan status of the US under Donald Trump and it's creeping control of women's rights. There's naturally the ever present overarching threat of climate change and the influence it has on population dynamics.

But the other theme, perhaps unsurprisingly, is walls and borders. Whether we use them to keep things in, or keep them out, they're very much in the public consciousness. One of the major plot points of this book is that in the near future, IndyRef2 was finally successful following a ruinous Brexit and an authoritarian "English" government, and there's no small disagreement with the Auld Enemy.

It's a studious book, which is both a strength and a weakness. The author has a academic background in sociology, and there's a lot of exploration of the ideas of society and how it might fall apart. That also includes some serious consideration to the alternative approaches to working together that might develop after the end of the world. It's not afraid to dig deep into human nature.

At the same time, that means the book can come off a bit sterile. There are a few sneaky elements involving the various countries' spycraft, but the muckier aspects of the destruction tend to be skimmed over. Still, it's compelling enough that I bashed through it speedily, helped along by the central characters, who have a fair bit to survive while maintaining a semblance of morality. Good for thinks, less for thrills.

The Zeno Effect has incredibly interesting underlying plot and scientific principles underlying it but it's pacing is off for me.

I got to 52% and had felt like the plot was dragging since about 40% and having many pages I put several hours into trying to finish it but unfortunately had to DNF despite LOVING the idea behind it.

The book starts off strong and is full of action but then slows down and becomes monotonous with no major plot driving the middle of the book.

I'm sure it would pick up again eventually but I didn't have the patience for it.

Overall it is a good read if you don't mind a slower pace with lots of dialogue and speculation.

I absolutely love this type of story, apocalyptic and dark but I felt The Zeno Effect dragged a little. I often found myself getting distracted while reading and there wasn't enough action for me unfortunately. Overall it wasn't a bad read I was just expecting more.

The Zeno Effect by Andrew Tudor
Published by Matador
Publication date: 14 January 2019


As a fan of intelligent speculative fiction in general (*more on that later) including well-written apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic fiction, I was happy to be provided with a copy of The Zeno Effect for review via NetGalley. My expectations weren’t high after looking at the summary of the existing reviews, but on reading the reviews thoroughly, I realised that what disappointed some of those readers, actually increased my desire to read the book. It seemed to me they were looking for an action thriller and instead found the book to be a more considered, perhaps to them slower, investigation of what would happen if, in a hypothetical future, a divided England and Scotland were at the centre of a world-altering pandemic. Reading the author’s bio and discovering he taught at the Universities of Essex and York, and was the Head of the Sociology Department at York, I was further encouraged—after all, how much of what would happen in an apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic scenario would be down to functioning of human society? In my opinion, quite a lot.

Happily, I can report I was not disappointed. The Zeno Effect started out as a dramatic political thriller along the lines of Le Carré  (with maybe a hint of Graham Greene)—with the crossing paths of scientists, politicians, spies, and a journalist caught up in the maelstrom of a dangerous virus released into the wild—and evolved through into a dramatic apocalyptic thriller which, though more modern, reminded me of George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides, John Christopher’s The Death of Grass, and P.D. James’ Children of Men. Some of these influences were seemingly conscious as both Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Earth Abides were actually mentioned in the narrative.

As always, I like to write my reviews for the prospective reader and therefore do not like to go into plot details for fear of spoilers, but I will say that The Zeno Effect is intelligently written and not at all boring or lacking in plot. I started reading this at bedtime, expecting to be up for a half an hour or so, and before I realised, it had been two hours. I finished the book the following day; the story was obviously compelling. It did make me wonder about the initial middling reviews I’d read and, as I said previously, I think their lack of enthusiasm really may have stemmed from the book being different from their expectations. Looking back at my first impressions of the book now, it occurs to me this may have something to do with the cover art. I’m not a book designer, but in my opinion, it seems to follow the design conventions for mysteries and light thrillers and the large red Z was more than a little reminiscent of the covers for World War Z. For those who were consciously or subconsciously influenced by the cover to choose the book, perhaps there may have been an element of disappointment when they discovered the book to be different (more, in my opinion) than what they were expecting. They say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ and I’d say, especially in this case, that is exceptionally good advice.

*When I say I appreciate intelligent genre fiction, I mean books that are as crafted in writing and construction as any story would be within the literary genre. There are variations within any genre, but I think this is amplified in speculative fiction and science fiction where we have authors like Margaret Atwood, Cixin Liu, George Orwell, and Alastair Reynolds sitting like gems amongst the penny-laden coffers of zombie, vampire, and prepper fiction. (Though I readily admit that there are exceptions even within those subcategories). Given how difficult it is to find this kind of quality in such an eclectic and prolific genre, I am happy to have found a new book to add to my library and a new author to keep an eye on in the future. If you’re into intelligent speculative fiction, I’d recommend you give The Zeno Effect a read

3 stars

This is an interesting book – in places. It posits a viral plague set loose by a scientist who feels that ther eis much wrong with the world – and it needs to end.

The government catches on pretty quickly, but chooses to keep the pandemic a secret.

There are several players in this story, among them: a journalist who is determined to tell the truth to the people of the UK and the scientists who are trying desperately to find a cure.

Dr. Alison MacGregor from Scotland, but working in England, is a liaison between the scientific communities in Scotland and England. Irene Johnson is Alison's opposite for the English government. Jonathan Hart is a governmental security specialist and Julie Fenwick is the journalist. Jonathan begins to have concerns about how his own government is handling the crisis.

This is a cerebral type of story. There is not a lot of action, but is more about science and the relationships between the people in the drama. It severely drags in places and that's a shame. I began to question whether I wanted to finish the book or not. The book is fairly well written, but there was something about it that I didn't care for.

I want to thank NetGalley and Troubador Publishing Ltd/Matador for forwarding to me a copy of this book for me to read and review.