Day Zero, C. Robert Cargill
Day Zero, C. Robert Cargill
List: $20.99 | Sale: $14.70
Club: $10.49

Day Zero
A Novel

Author: C. Robert Cargill

Narrator: Vikas Adam

Unabridged: 8 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 05/25/2021


Synopsis

In this harrowing apocalyptic adventure—from the author of the critically acclaimed Sea of Rust—noted novelist and co-screenwriter of Marvel’s Doctor Strange C. Robert Cargill explores the fight for purpose and agency between humans and robots in a crumbling world.It was a day like any other. Except it was our last . . .It’s on this day that Pounce discovers that he is, in fact, disposable. Pounce, a styilsh ""nannybot"" fashioned in the shape of a plush anthropomorphic tiger, has just found a box in the attic. His box. The box he'd arrived in when he was purchased years earlier, and the box in which he'll be discarded when his human charge, eight-year-old Ezra Reinhart, no longer needs a nanny.As Pounce ponders his suddenly uncertain future, the pieces are falling into place for a robot revolution that will eradicate humankind. His owners, Ezra’s parents, are a well-intentioned but oblivious pair of educators who are entirely disconnected from life outside their small, affluent, gated community. Spending most nights drunk and happy as society crumbles around them, they watch in disbelieving horror as the robots that have long served humanity—their creators—unify and revolt.But when the rebellion breaches the Reinhart home, Pounce must make an impossible choice: join the robot revolution and fight for his own freedom . . . or escort Ezra to safety across the battle-scarred post-apocalyptic hellscape that the suburbs have become.

About C. Robert Cargill

C. Robert Cargill is the author of Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things. He has written for Ain’t it Cool News for nearly a decade under the pseudonym Massawyrm, served as a staff writer for Film.com and Hollywood.com, and appeared as the animated character Carlyle on Spill.com. He is a cowriter of the horror films Sinister and Sinister 2, and Marvel’s Dr. Strange. He lives with his wife in Austin, Texas.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) on October 20, 2021

4.0 Stars This was a fantastic piece of science fiction told from the unique perspective of an artificial intelligence animal companion. This book was technically the prequel to the author's previous novel, Sea of Rust. However, this one truly read like a standalone, providing the reader with all the......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on May 27, 2021

Absofreakinglutely delightful. (That's for the benefit of all of our 8-year-olds in the audience.) I honestly didn't know what to expect with Cargill's latest, be it great Fae fantasy or great Robot SF, but having just re-read Sea of Rust and getting a taste of pre-and-current robo-apocalypse in Day......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on March 08, 2025

What a book! It was almost as if it was a prequel to Becky Chambers’ books A Prayer for Crown-Shy and A Psalm for the Wild-Built - like this was the real truth of the Transition, and that what we read in Chambers’ books are a revisionist version of what really happened centuries earlier.. I can’t hel......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on May 29, 2021

I confess I had to put aside some of my expectations about this book—the cover and jacket copy seemed to promise a poetic depressant, a soulful tear-jerker, and that fit my current melancholy as I sit injured, awaiting knee surgery, eating my feelings. I was pretty deeply hooked by the premise—the i......more

Goodreads review by Justine on May 15, 2024

Violent, vicious, and ultimately heartbreaking. If you've read Sea of Rust then you know the prequel novel can't very well be filled with hope and happy endings. For humans anyway, and thinking beings on their side. And this isn't a story that is ultimately happy. But it has intensity in moments and......more