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A review by horizon_brave
Zero Day by Mark Russinovich
2.0
So, I'm not normally one for mysteries, or thrillers. But I was inspired to check this one out from a recommendation of one of the security podcast hosts I listen to, Steve Gibson of "Security Now". Besides, Im inbetween book series at the moment, and awaiting the release of the much anticipated Babylon Wakes of the Expanse series. Plus, the book Zero Day falls into the sub category of Cyber Thriller. (adding cyber to the theme makes it more desirable) So having recently read the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson, and having been searching for that next step but with a more down to earth, current theme, I recalled the Zero Day recommendation from Steve G. earlier.
I'll say this, security expert and the author of this book, must have expected this to be picked up as a movie or made for tv series or something, because it reads like a movie script. I can seriously see this (and I'm surprised it hasn't already) being raked into a screenplay and released. The idea behind the book is fascinating, and with all due respect really should be examined further in depth on a serious note. Mark Russinovich the author proposes a scary, and down right menacing real life threat. What if our national grid, and various agencies and corporations were suddenly hit with a virus that was kit bashed together? The virus in the book that cobbled together and eventually unleashed on the US isn't even the most well written software, but scarily enough, it proves more than capable of doing immense damage as well as killing a score of people in the process. A hospital, airliner, law firm, manufacturing plant, all struck with the virus and suffer the often fatal aftermath.
The main character we follow is Jeff Aiken who seems like an all around nice, smart security analyst. He's no fighter, he gets more of a workout from his brain than from his arms. Opposite him is a fellow IT investigator, Daryl Haugen. Daryl, female, and a prior co-worker with Jeff, is put on the case, to investigate a seemingly random glitch at the site of the hospital attack. Jeff, now working for a different firm than Daryl is put on the task of looking into an Agency's computer network, also hit with the virus. At the initial start both don't realize, but soon come to find out...that both their assignments are two sides of the same virus. This brings them to work together in a tag team to uncover what this virus is...how it got there...and most importantly who was behind it.
We're also given a host of other characters including Jeff's douchebag, arrogant, selfish, and womanizing boss, George Carlton. From the getgo, we're given the impression that Mr. Carlton is a dick...just how much of a dick is exasperated as the story goes on, and we learn more and more of the level of greed that this guy has. Carlton, working as a sort of head of a department security in what's deemed as the Division of Cyber Security. He basically and foolishly makes a deal to supply information, credentials, and the like to a bunch of Arab characters, posing as Frenchmen. While Carlton knows the work they do, the extent of their treachery remains hidden. Despite this it's hard to feel sorry for Carlton as we're given a backstory of him and his history with Jeff Aiken. Apparently Jeff, in his infinite foresight, predicted something very big happening in the week of September 11th, 2001, and really stressed that George raise the matter up the gov't ladder, to get someone to take a look. He basically ignores Jeff's request and the matter is forgotten. Not only do the Sept 11th attacks occur, but they take the life of his fiance...
Now, I'm going to stop here and backtrack a bit. While this all sounds good on paper... the way Mark Russinovich actually executes it, is..flat. What I mean by that is it never comes off to me as emotional, or shocking, or made me feel for any of the characters. One main point I bring up here is Jeff's fiance's death on 9/11. It makes such little sense, I couldn't take it very seriously. Jeff, flustered that George sat on the reports of an upcoming attack, makes it known to his would-be wife Cynthia, to stay away from the Towers for a week. Which..she does. Because she knows he works for a cyber security agency and would privy to such threats. On the last day, he friend and co-worker calls her and tells her to come to the freaking Twin Towers for lunch. That day was 9/11.
So you're telling me that she managed to skip work and refrain from going all week... just to cave in for a quick luncheon with a friend? It's New freaking York? You telling me she's risk death, knowing that her husband has ties with informants...for a random restaurant?
Stuff like that irked me to no end. Likewise, the characters in the book just seem uninspired cliche's. I don't have a lot of feeling for Jeff, I mean he's a cool character, in so far as he's been taken from his normal life of analyizing security hacks etc, and put into a more action hero status. Unfortunately this isn't really explored or discussed. He's just literally shifts lifestyles going from a desk jockey to Bruce Willis/Liam Nieson action here.
Another big complaint I had with this book...is one that I didn't *know* I actually had until I opened up the physical copy of the book. (audio book reading native) There is, as you probably would expect given the nature of the book, a fair amount of character dialogue online through IM or chatroom. While in the audio book it's read as normal english, Mark Russ had the 'brilliant' idea of making everyone speaking in 'leet speak. Seriously we're talking about men and women, adults, all typing with words like "cum" instead of come, or liek, 4 instead of for "u no" I mean no one above 11 would type like this. especially anyone professional. I felt increasingly annoyed and aggitated that it was used so much.
Furthermore characters like George, the two Arab agents, Labib and Dufour..Sue..and others are just flat devices for Jeff to work around. Even his new love interest Daryl, I'm just not really feeling for her character. Labib and Dufour, are evil, and we're made not to like them for obvious reasons. They are indeed though master manipulators, also roping in some contacts in Russia. Now despite the lack of character depth... (I do actually like the character of Ivanka..I feel immensely bad for her character as she seems to stumble into one bad situation into another due to her greedy, unthinking husband.) As I was stating, while Mark Russinovich falls short of creating depthful characters, the story and action here is amazing... It really does feel like a thriller movie, Jason Bourne type stuff. The plot unfolds slowly at first, chapters are longer, slower...but by the climax, chapters are only paragraphs at time, flipping back and forth between characters and points of view, but never confusing or leaving you wondering what was going on. The characters all converge and mass, fun, exciting chaos takes place. We're given a wild roller coaster ride as the stakes are explained and characters begin to drop like flies.
While the characters themselves seem a tad lifeless in their backstories, we can't help but still feel a major sense of urgency, and suspense, as the terrorist plot begins to unfold. I found myself rooting for Jeff and Daryl regardless of their flimsy and cliche stories. And I found myself really hoping that the three "bad guys" Labib and Dufour (who each have their own shallow story) meet their demise! And speaking of which, I feel as though the Arab characters weren't really given any fleshed out reason. Well...I guess the reason is the destruction of the infidels..I suppose, but besides the obvious hatred of the West, I just got the sense that the two brothers, were just going along for the ride as well. It seemed more like they were going through all of this trouble with hiring Russian code writers, and Western correspondents, setting up a fake "boiler room" company as an a front to their operation, was all just because they felt like it.
At least with George Carlton's character we're given the fact that he's a lush, womanizing greedy dick. Even that character building is something at least. And as I stated, Ivanka's character was probably the most sympathy inducing in the entire book..you really feel for what she's gone through.
All in all, this book was fun. It was like a summer action movie. That being said, there's something very very serious here that Mark Russinovich themes the plot around. Our security for infrastructure and 'soft targets', is wholly ignored. We're given this in the manifest of the character George Carlton, but it does exists in this country. Much of our infrastructure and utility systems are wide open and would be easy prey. They were built in a time period where literally none of these attacks and systems existed. At that end, the book accomplished directly what it set out to do.. Open your eyes that these system's we've constructed are flawed, and our dependency on them must warrant far far more focus on hardening them. On that front, Well done Russ. I just hope that the next two books in the series see some improvement over character design and dialogue.
I'll say this, security expert and the author of this book, must have expected this to be picked up as a movie or made for tv series or something, because it reads like a movie script. I can seriously see this (and I'm surprised it hasn't already) being raked into a screenplay and released. The idea behind the book is fascinating, and with all due respect really should be examined further in depth on a serious note. Mark Russinovich the author proposes a scary, and down right menacing real life threat. What if our national grid, and various agencies and corporations were suddenly hit with a virus that was kit bashed together? The virus in the book that cobbled together and eventually unleashed on the US isn't even the most well written software, but scarily enough, it proves more than capable of doing immense damage as well as killing a score of people in the process. A hospital, airliner, law firm, manufacturing plant, all struck with the virus and suffer the often fatal aftermath.
The main character we follow is Jeff Aiken who seems like an all around nice, smart security analyst. He's no fighter, he gets more of a workout from his brain than from his arms. Opposite him is a fellow IT investigator, Daryl Haugen. Daryl, female, and a prior co-worker with Jeff, is put on the case, to investigate a seemingly random glitch at the site of the hospital attack. Jeff, now working for a different firm than Daryl is put on the task of looking into an Agency's computer network, also hit with the virus. At the initial start both don't realize, but soon come to find out...that both their assignments are two sides of the same virus. This brings them to work together in a tag team to uncover what this virus is...how it got there...and most importantly who was behind it.
We're also given a host of other characters including Jeff's douchebag, arrogant, selfish, and womanizing boss, George Carlton. From the getgo, we're given the impression that Mr. Carlton is a dick...just how much of a dick is exasperated as the story goes on, and we learn more and more of the level of greed that this guy has. Carlton, working as a sort of head of a department security in what's deemed as the Division of Cyber Security. He basically and foolishly makes a deal to supply information, credentials, and the like to a bunch of Arab characters, posing as Frenchmen. While Carlton knows the work they do, the extent of their treachery remains hidden. Despite this it's hard to feel sorry for Carlton as we're given a backstory of him and his history with Jeff Aiken. Apparently Jeff, in his infinite foresight, predicted something very big happening in the week of September 11th, 2001, and really stressed that George raise the matter up the gov't ladder, to get someone to take a look. He basically ignores Jeff's request and the matter is forgotten. Not only do the Sept 11th attacks occur, but they take the life of his fiance...
Now, I'm going to stop here and backtrack a bit. While this all sounds good on paper... the way Mark Russinovich actually executes it, is..flat. What I mean by that is it never comes off to me as emotional, or shocking, or made me feel for any of the characters. One main point I bring up here is Jeff's fiance's death on 9/11. It makes such little sense, I couldn't take it very seriously. Jeff, flustered that George sat on the reports of an upcoming attack, makes it known to his would-be wife Cynthia, to stay away from the Towers for a week. Which..she does. Because she knows he works for a cyber security agency and would privy to such threats. On the last day, he friend and co-worker calls her and tells her to come to the freaking Twin Towers for lunch. That day was 9/11.
So you're telling me that she managed to skip work and refrain from going all week... just to cave in for a quick luncheon with a friend? It's New freaking York? You telling me she's risk death, knowing that her husband has ties with informants...for a random restaurant?
Stuff like that irked me to no end. Likewise, the characters in the book just seem uninspired cliche's. I don't have a lot of feeling for Jeff, I mean he's a cool character, in so far as he's been taken from his normal life of analyizing security hacks etc, and put into a more action hero status. Unfortunately this isn't really explored or discussed. He's just literally shifts lifestyles going from a desk jockey to Bruce Willis/Liam Nieson action here.
Another big complaint I had with this book...is one that I didn't *know* I actually had until I opened up the physical copy of the book. (audio book reading native) There is, as you probably would expect given the nature of the book, a fair amount of character dialogue online through IM or chatroom. While in the audio book it's read as normal english, Mark Russ had the 'brilliant' idea of making everyone speaking in 'leet speak. Seriously we're talking about men and women, adults, all typing with words like "cum" instead of come, or liek, 4 instead of for "u no" I mean no one above 11 would type like this. especially anyone professional. I felt increasingly annoyed and aggitated that it was used so much.
Furthermore characters like George, the two Arab agents, Labib and Dufour..Sue..and others are just flat devices for Jeff to work around. Even his new love interest Daryl, I'm just not really feeling for her character. Labib and Dufour, are evil, and we're made not to like them for obvious reasons. They are indeed though master manipulators, also roping in some contacts in Russia. Now despite the lack of character depth... (I do actually like the character of Ivanka..I feel immensely bad for her character as she seems to stumble into one bad situation into another due to her greedy, unthinking husband.) As I was stating, while Mark Russinovich falls short of creating depthful characters, the story and action here is amazing... It really does feel like a thriller movie, Jason Bourne type stuff. The plot unfolds slowly at first, chapters are longer, slower...but by the climax, chapters are only paragraphs at time, flipping back and forth between characters and points of view, but never confusing or leaving you wondering what was going on. The characters all converge and mass, fun, exciting chaos takes place. We're given a wild roller coaster ride as the stakes are explained and characters begin to drop like flies.
While the characters themselves seem a tad lifeless in their backstories, we can't help but still feel a major sense of urgency, and suspense, as the terrorist plot begins to unfold. I found myself rooting for Jeff and Daryl regardless of their flimsy and cliche stories. And I found myself really hoping that the three "bad guys" Labib and Dufour (who each have their own shallow story) meet their demise! And speaking of which, I feel as though the Arab characters weren't really given any fleshed out reason. Well...I guess the reason is the destruction of the infidels..I suppose, but besides the obvious hatred of the West, I just got the sense that the two brothers, were just going along for the ride as well. It seemed more like they were going through all of this trouble with hiring Russian code writers, and Western correspondents, setting up a fake "boiler room" company as an a front to their operation, was all just because they felt like it.
At least with George Carlton's character we're given the fact that he's a lush, womanizing greedy dick. Even that character building is something at least. And as I stated, Ivanka's character was probably the most sympathy inducing in the entire book..you really feel for what she's gone through.
All in all, this book was fun. It was like a summer action movie. That being said, there's something very very serious here that Mark Russinovich themes the plot around. Our security for infrastructure and 'soft targets', is wholly ignored. We're given this in the manifest of the character George Carlton, but it does exists in this country. Much of our infrastructure and utility systems are wide open and would be easy prey. They were built in a time period where literally none of these attacks and systems existed. At that end, the book accomplished directly what it set out to do.. Open your eyes that these system's we've constructed are flawed, and our dependency on them must warrant far far more focus on hardening them. On that front, Well done Russ. I just hope that the next two books in the series see some improvement over character design and dialogue.