Ten people have been randomly selected to test an astounding piece of spyware called FUSION. Cy Baxter has created this ground breaking technology which he claims can track anybody anywhere in the world, but the selected participants are certainly out to prove him wrong. They have exactly 30 days to remain off the grid, remain undetected. The fact that the last remaining participant will receive a cool $3 million in cash, is definitely something of a draw!

$3 million is a pretty big incentive is it not? but for participant Kaitlyn Day, there is so much more at stake - for Kaitlyn has her own agenda.

Life in the 21st century means almost everything we do can be tracked, Internet searches, credit card purchases, text and phone messages to mention just a few methods. The hunt and the methods used to capture the participants, remains the focus of the storyline, but it then took off on a totally different track than the one I was expecting, because Kaitlyn is not the meek and mild mannered librarian that FUSION thinks she is, and she’s certainly going to give them more trouble than they ever expected!

This one really gives pause for thought about our reliance on technology - we see it as a terrific convenience, but we are being watched constantly, our whole way of life, our freedom monitored on a daily basis.
Eventually the narrative becomes focused on one particular participant, and it’s here that the storyline becomes more complex as the twists and the action begins!

A fast-moving, shock-a-minute rollercoaster ride.

In this "24"-like thriller, ten people are selected to field test a new piece of spyware, based on a collaboration between the US security services and a Facebook-type entrepreneur. This Zuckerberg-clone has staked his reputation on social media linked with standard surveillance technology being able to track anyone, anywhere. Each participant is given two hours to get off-grid and disappear for thirty days - success will mean a three million dollar prize.

The reader is immediately launched into a fast-moving race, as we follow the participants in their attempts to stay hidden. There's a nice mix of innocents, conspiracy theorists, average-Joe and surprise experts in the ten , and I enjoyed following them as the attempts they have made before and during the chase fail or succeed. Each has a shorter or longer back-story that emerges as the chase develops, and most are well-enough drawn to make the reader invest or not in their fates. We learn that some have more at stake than it seems and this keeps the story moving along.

The book is divided into two halves - the second half being nicely set up in the first, and this is when it's clear the story has been written by an award winning screenwriter. It's not a criticism, but clearly there's a film here waiting to be made. The twist towards the end might surprise a few readers.

There's also a nice warning built into the book, about the dangers of social media and the surveillance society, which will delight conspiracy theorists and perhaps get a few of us thinking about what we'd do if we had to disappear.

Fans of Michael Crichton and Matthew Reilly will be delighted with this book, and fans of the techno-thriller will eat it up. As such, I can heartily recommend it. If it ever makes it onto the big screen, I'll also be buying tickets.

As expected with an award-winning film maker, this thriller reads like it was made for the big screen.

The first half of the book was fast paced and interesting. In the near future, ten people are chosen to compete in a winner takes all cat and mouse chase where they have 30 days to evade capture while the government and a private company team up to find them using every piece of advanced technology available to capture them.

There is a twist in the second half that was cleverly done which you don’t see coming and then the story concentrates on this one competitor and her back story. Personally, I did question some of her choices towards the end, but like all good movie thrillers, you just need to suspend your disbelief and just sit back and enjoy the ride!

Ten participants are chosen to participate in a month-long contest to evade detection from a new joint venture between big tech and government. I enjoyed the first half of the novel with its brisk pacing and getting to know the contestants and their efforts to hide. I would have liked a little more of a deep dive into each character. Then there's a twist and the second part of the novel focuses on one of the contestants, a librarian named Kaitlyn who is unexpectedly adept at avoiding detection. The ending surprised me and didn't feel like it fit with where I thought the story was going. Overall though I enjoyed the novel and it offers some thought-provoking ideas about the ways that big tech invades our lives.

Loved this book- great story with a fantastic twist. It challenges the reader to think about how we could go off grid when we are constantly being surveyed. Highly recommend!

I enjoyed this book a lot. The premise of the book intrigued me and the fast paced nature along with the anticipation of seeing the thriller to the end pulled me out of a reading slump. The text moves between characters frequently, sometimes with action and sometimes with the backstory of the character but I found this movement to be really engaging. Some reviews have mentioned that these descriptions and backstory segments felt like fillers that seemed slowed down the pace of the book but I couldn't disagree more; I think they were essential and helped to make these characters real. I couldn't help but imagine this as a TV series or film and unlike a lot of books I read, I would been keen to see that adaptation.

I did think the end of the book felt rushed and the ultimate conclusion didn't work. I can handle an ending that I wouldn't have chosen, but this ending seemed like it was not in keeping with the character that I'd come to root for. I couldn't marry up her final choices with the narrative I'd had of her throughout the book. Perhaps I need to reread it again and focus more on her background and her headspace. Perhaps if the ending hadn't been as rushed as I felt it was, then more detail and nuance could have been added that made that final section feel true.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

How much you enjoy this book will, to some degree, depend on how much of a variation you're hoping for on one of the most familiar concepts used in tv and movies - ie variations on Richard Connell 's 'The Most Dangerous Game.' (called the "most popular short story ever written in English."and winner of the the O. Henry Award) : Someone being hunted and having to survive against the odds. Using ever more sophisticated technology to bring the classic crux of the story up to date, this novel came across, for me as a cross between The Running Man, Person of Interest/ Enemy of the State with new tech.
How do you keep the chase going to novel length and retain interest, plausibility in the trackers' competence and the target's 'underdog' status? There is, perhaps a reason Connell's original works so well as a short story.
Here, we get brief interludes of the other 9 contestants in the lottery selected group pitting themselves against the giant tech company headed up by Cy Baxter (think a cocktail of Steve Jobs/ Elon Musk/ Jeff Bazos/ Mark Zuckerberg) who is looking to prove to the US government forces he can offer the ultimate threat detection and resolution programme. But the main focus of our story is Kaitlyn Day - an unassuming librarian who initially seems an unlikely contestant and easy target who won't last the month of the contest.
Ultimately, the book - from award winning novelist/ screenplay writer Anthony McCarten had some interesting scenes, escapes and tech snippets of information and was a quick read, but didn't do anything I hadn't seen before. Sure, there's a plot twist around the 60% mark that couldn't have been predicted, but other than that the climax fizzled out and the villain of the piece ended up a lot less interesting than they began.
Ultimately, I could see this being turned into a tv series - but like the urban tech version Most Dangerous Game with Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz from 2020- the plot suffered some of the same draw backs of that version for me.
Thank you to the publishers for the chance to read an ARC of this title in return for an honest review.

Going Zero is a speculative tech-thriller about the possibilities of the surveillance state, dealing with questions of ethics, freedom and responsibility in a scenario that is juuuust far enough removed from our reality to be chillingly plausible.

MaCarten is by trade a screenwriter, and it shows when reading this book. The pacing, the setting of the scenes, the rapid flips between the various storylines are all reminiscent of a blockbuster thriller, with breakneck action throughout the book. Strangely enough, there are quite a few scenes mixed into this that are introspective or descriptive in nature, without adding much to the story; and I couldn't help wondering if these were filler content added to bring the story to a given word count.

Going Zero falls in two parts, the first dealing with the participants in the hunt, or "Zeros", trying to hide and escape, before the second half spins off more into the personal backstory of one of the participants. Personally, I enjoyed the first half more, but that's just a matter of taste. After all the build up going before, the ending felt a little rushed to me.

That said, I did enjoy the overall reading experience, although I had expected a little more going in. Given the movie-like structure of the book, I can't help thinking that this book would work really well if it was adapted for the big screen.

I'd recommend this to people who enjoy tech-/speculative thrillers, escape plots and conspiracy theories, or who like delving into the darker aspects of modern day digital transparency.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here expressed are my own.

⏱️ 𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪 ⏱️

Going Zero
Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller
Anthony McCarten
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

The synopsis of this book really intrigued me. I was curious if this would be dystopian or more about our present world and technology.

I wasn't keen on writing style. It seemed like there was a lot of filler when there didn't really need to be (paragraphs of desriptions etc) and info dumps.

I found the pacing better in 1st half, where the main focus is on the clock counting down and seeing the various participants trying to stay hidden or "zero" for 30 days. The 2nd half focused more on the FMC and her motivations so the plot shifted from a race against time, trying not to be discovered to uncovering secrets, conspiracy theories and what the CIA are hiding.

I usually prefer books with multiple POVs but I found them confusing in this book. When the POV would change, there would just be a heading with the location of that character but because most of them were actively on the run, their locations were changing so often it was hard to keep up. I think it would've been better if their names were used or even their ID numbers.

I didn't see the plot twists coming but at the same time I didn't feel like they were a huge surprise. The ending seemed abrupt and didn't really make much sense to me.

Overall I did enjoy this book but I don't think I'd read it again or read any sequels, if there were any.

*Thank you to @netgalley and the publishers for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review*