Review
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“This is sci-fi writing at its best. I couldn’t put the book down.”—Felicia Day, author of You’re Never
Weird on the Internet (Almost)
“An enjoyable read . . . Expect minor whiplash from the frenetic pace.”—Entertainment Weekly
“[A] science fiction [novel that] smashes The Bourne Identity together with The End of Eternity to create a thrilling
action rampage that confirms [Jason] Hough as an important new voice in genre fiction.”—Publishers Weekly (starred
review)
“No one has created a multiverse like Jason Hough does in Zero World. Imagine Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
meets James Bond.”—New York Journal of Books
“A fast-paced cinematic novel full of action . . . Story, character, world building, action—all points are firing on
all cylinders here.”—Bookreporter
“A fast, furious powder keg of a novel . . . Hough pulls off a complex science fiction thriller, keeping the reader
guessing about the good guys and the bad guys. . . . This is a smash hit. Loved it.”—Examiner.com
“Hough has combined all the ingredients of a first-rate sci-fi thriller.”—Kirkus Reviews
“One hell of an entertaining read. Hough continues to deliver white-knuckle books anchored by unusual and fascinating
characters. Zero World is a giant cup of pure badassery that secures his place among the finest sci-fi action writers
today.”—Kevin Hearne, New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Druid Chronicles
“A high-octane blend of science fiction and mystery, Zero World is a thrill ride that shoots you out of a cannon and
doesn’t let up until the very last page.”—Wesley Chu, author of the Tao Series
“Warning: Do not pick up this book if there is anything else you need to do. There is no safe place to rest inside
these pages, no lag in the full-throttle action, no moment when you will think, ‘Okay, this is a good spot to take a
break.’ Once you realize how much you don’t know—about this world, these characters, this inexplicable mission—the only
way out is forward.”—Brian Staveley, author of the Emperor’s Blades series
“I just finished Zero World and there’s only one thing I need to know: How long must I wait for the sequel!?”—Raymond
Benson, former James Bond novelist and author of the Black Stiletto series
“A brilliant combination of thriller, cold-case mystery, and hard sci-fi tale, Zero World is a smart, action-packed
thrill ride of a book. Jason Hough is redefining storytelling with his new novel.”—Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker
Men
“Zero World deftly blends the best elements of sci-fi and thriller with blistering action and a depth that unfolds
itself in surprising ways. Hough is a master.”—Jay Posey, author of the Duskwalker series
“Fast, fun, and full of action, Zero World melds a thriller with science fiction to excellent effect. If you’ve
ever wished Jason Bourne would tackle a mission involving wormholes and mirror worlds, this is the book for
you.”—Courtney Schafer, author of the Shattered Sigil trilogy
“Electrifying and addictive, Zero World is a page-turning sci-fi thriller that had my pulse pounding.”—Adam Christopher,
author of Made to Kill
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About the Author
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Jason M. Hough is the New York Times bestselling author of the Dire Earth Cycle: The Darwin Elevator, The
Exodus Towers, and The Plague Forge, as well as the novella The Dire Earth. Hough was born in Illinois but grew up on
the mean streets of suburban San Diego, California. In 1978, when he was six, his parents took him to see Star Wars, and
so began a lifelong love of sci-fi and all things geek. He later worked for a decade in the videogame industry as a 3D
artist and game designer. Today he lives in Seattle with his wife and two young sons. When not writing, Hough enjoys
building LEGO spaceships with his boys and other similarly grown-up pursuits.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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1
In a luxurious flat overlooking Hyde Park the assassin’s mind reverted.
He lay on a stiff mattress in a dark room, naked between silk sheets, cool conditioned air gentle against his face, when
the rewind occurred.
Time had just been taken from him. He knew this because he’d been exhaling, a slow, measured breath that suddenly and
quite inhumanly changed to a sharp inhale. He’d prepared for this, but even with all his measures to reduce the effect,
the moment of reversion always left him disoriented and more than a little nauseous.
The routine he’d developed over the last dozen years involved a careful arrangement of his environment and physical
state so that when his mind suddenly lurched backward to the trigger moment, the similarities would far outweigh the
changes. He always used the company flat. The same bed, the same sheets, the same pillow. Set the thermostat to exactly
20 degrees Celsius. Kill the lights, draw the curtains, and send his handler, Monique Pendleton, the message: I’m ready.
Then he’d lie down, face up, hands at his sides. As agent Peter Caswell waited for her to trigger the im, he would
silently recite an old song lyric. Not aloud, just in his head. It was his secret anchor. His bridge across time.
Speak the word
The word is all of us
Again and again he would recite the words until the reversion moment arrived. It never took long.
This ritual was key. Days ago had been the trigger moment. Monique would activate the im from her perch a few
hundred miles above, and he’d get up and dress and go off on some clandestine job. He’d conduct his particular business,
and then return here, to this same exact room, and put everything back just the way it had been. Once again he’d send
I’m ready. He’d lie down in the same position, and he would wait for reversion.
And so here he was. Mission over, brain ly reverted to that same trigger instant despite the days that had
passed. The first half of the lyric—Speak the word—front and center in his mind. A bridge over the memory gap. He
crossed it, silently. The word is all of us.
Three or four days deleted. That was the average duration, and so a safe assumption. All memory of his deeds wiped away.
Conscience cleared.
To jump ahead in time like this, as any drunk would know, can really fuck with the head. To trigger in a London office
and revert in an alley in Cairo produced a sensation of disorientation and that bordered dangerously on the
unbearable. Even to go from day to night, or one meal to something totally different, could leave one a vomiting wreck
for hours.
Caswell had learned all this the hard way, years ago. Gone from a beach cottage in Mexico, belly full of and fish
tacos, to drifting in null gravity on an Archon Corporation ore processor with nothing in his gut but tion paste.
That experience had nearly killed him. It had certainly made a mess of the Archon orbital. More important, the event had
forced him to do the thing he detested most in this bizarre life: plan. So he invented the ritual.
Yet preparation went only so far. In four lost days there were thousands of minute differences both to the body and his
surroundings, no matter how carefully controlled. Each tiny variation was quite easy to overlook viewed individually,
but added together all at once the effect could crush an unprepared mind.
Here now, in this room, the differences began to fall inside his head like sudden rain on dry pavement. A relaxed
heartbeat had shifted to a racing one, the rhythm slightly off. One instant he’d been exhaling, then abruptly breathing
in. Such things made the mind want to react, and react he did. A sputtering racked his body. He let it pass and
forced himself to focus, to continue the catalog of differences that allowed him to acclimate.
Before the trigger he’d been relaxed and ready, and was now out of breath. Okay, he could deal with that. He must have
rushed to get here in time. Not so strange. What else?
A new ache in his left shoulder. Another on his ribs, though less intense.
Stubble on his chin that itched. That was odd; he’d shaved beforehand like always. Why hadn’t he had time to shave again
before reversion? Because he’d been in a hurry. Right. Focus, Peter. He filed that and moved on.
He opened his eyes. The room was pitch black, but that was expected. A sudden shift from day to night could really
disorient him, so he always pulled the thick drapes fully closed. Slowly he lifted the blackout curtain beside his left
hand. Just a hair, enough to get a sense of things. Gray daylight spilled in. Raindrops on the window. The Thames
winding off into the distance between a forest of skyscrapers. London in the fall. That was good.
He let the curtain go, sat up, then stood. Muscles across his body were sore. He felt tired and hungry, yet seconds ago
he hadn’t been. There was something else, too: a faint antiseptic odor that reminded him of a hospital. Caswell felt his
way to the bathroom and switched on the nightlight. He stared at himself in the mirror. A square patch of white gauze
was taped to his left shoulder. There were sutures visible on the left side of his torso. Six stitches, recently
administered. That explained the hospital smell. The stubble on his face was barely visible, representing perhaps four
days’ growth, thanks to the curse of Korean genes. What could he infer from a four-day beard? He’d gone somewhere where
shaving had not been an option. Somewhere remote. A battlefield, maybe? There was no shortage of those around the world.
Or had his cover required a disheveled appearance? His unkempt black hair said yes, maybe so.
Where’d you go this time? he asked the lithe form in the mirror. Not aloud; they’d be monitoring the room. Do the
injuries mean you screwed up? That you’re losing your edge? Did you fail?
For a minute he stared at himself, as if looking into his own eyes might reveal some hint as to what exactly he’d done
in the last four days. This burning need swept through him every time, but he always battled it back. Not knowing was
the whole point. And truthfully he didn’t want to know.
A clear conscience was his greatest asset, the reason for his extraordinary success.
Caswell showered. First scalding hot, then ice cold. He toweled off, shaved, and dressed. Dark slacks, a maroon polo,
light gray casual coat. Comfortable Italian shoes. A tungsten biometric bracelet he slipped onto his right wrist. The
band performed all the usual functions but also interfaced with the im, automatically regulating certain aspects of
his brain chemistry according to his personal desire.
Phone, wallet, passport. This last he thumbed through quickly, looking for new stamps. There were hundreds of stamps
inside, but none were new. No surprise there. Wherever Archon had sent him, they would have provided the required
documents. This passport was his, and he had a few more pages yet to fill.
Now came the moment of truth. Clear conscience or not, there was one thing he simply had to know. He went to the
kitchenette and gripped the handle of the fridge. Steeling himself against what lay within, he pulled the door open.
White light bathed him from inside, along with a rush of frigid air that brought goose bumps to his skin.
The space was completely empty save for the one thing he always made sure they stocked for him: exactly twelve bottles
of Sapporo . They were in a neat row across the top shelf, from one side to the other. Each had its famous label
facing him, save for the last three on the end. Those three were turned to face away.
Peter Caswell felt his stomach tighten. Over the last few days, under the Integrity-Assured status his im
provided, he’d killed three people. All memory of this had just been deleted. Since he’d come up with this way to keep
track a decade ago, he’d now assassinated a total of 206 human beings, and the only thing he knew about any of it was
the number. That’s all he wanted to know.
He could have tried to learn more: taken clandestine pictures, scrawled a secret coded diary, left himself a voice mail
on some personal unlisted number. There were a thousand ways to drop such hints that fell outside the safeguards already
built into the im. But part of the reason for his top-ranked status in this career was that he’d never attempted
to tell himself these things. The bottles were his one allowance. If Monique or anyone else at Archon knew about
this, they’d never mentioned it.
Caswell removed the three backward bottles, set them on the counter, opened them, and poured each into the sink. A
silent memorial to the three lives he’d taken and the widows or orphans he’d left behind. Then he took a fourth bottle
out and opened it with that satisfying tsuk. The cap rattled in the sink.
“May someone remember you,” he said for his victims, and drank.
On the elevator down he summoned an autonomous limousine on his phone. The sleek black vehicle waited for him outside
the doors of the corporate-owned building. No one said a word to him as he exited. No one ever did. Friends, even
acquaintances, did not suit him. Relationships were . . . difficult. Memories, the goddamn past, were not for him. He
had only Monique Pendleton, the one person in the world who could understand his life, who knew what it was like to have
bits of your memories stolen away for security’s sake. And though he’d never met her in person, she was enough. Besides,
she had the power to remove from his mind the horrors of what he’d done out there. She was the reason he could live with
himself.
Peter entered the car and immediately barked, “Turn that off.” The BBC news anchor on the seatback screen vanished.
“Radio as well,” he added. Silence enveloped him as the car slid into traffic. He stopped on the way and bought a scone
and coffee, diligently avoiding the magazines and newspapers on display just outside the café door. News was poisonous.
To glimpse some headline like three top malay diplomats assassinated in bali, or something along those lines, would fill
his mind with questions. Had it been me? Was I really capable of that? What if they were the good guys?
He didn’t want to know. He wanted to stay one step ahead of his past, his own version of Mr. Hyde.
But he also wanted to give himself every chance at success. He may have killed 206 people but he gained no benefit of
experience from that. To him, they’d all been the first. And the next one to fall would be no different. The perpetual
rookie, that’s what he was.
“Heathrow, terminal one,” he said to the car. His mouthful of scone mangled the words, but the vehicle obeyed without
hesitation.
Caswell parked himself on a stool at Wetherspoons, the only pre-security pub in the terminal. He’d chosen the spot, and
his mark, after several careful minutes of observation. Someone roughly his size, age, and build. A weary-looking Asian
businessman fit the bill this time. Caswell ordered a brandy and ginger ale, plus a burger with crisps. He made small
talk with the man next to him.
To be good at his job he had to keep certain skills honed. This was the only gift he could give his professional self:
training. Practice. He had no memory of past missions to guide his actions in the field, so he lived his personal life
in such a way as to best prepare himself for his next first assassination.
Oddly, it was not knowledge of weapons or martial arts that he prioritized. It was travel. The ability to go anywhere,
under a hastily assumed identity, and survive. Not just survive, but thrive. Play the role via total improvisation.
Adapt to the surroundings. Live in the moment with only his wits to guide him.
Reversion meant he had five days, give or take, of cool-down time. It was physically impossible for Monique to trigger
his im again before then. Doing so would drive him insane, or worse. So after each mission came the mini-holiday,
and with his rather obscene bank account balance, Caswell could literally go anywhere and do anything. That’s precisely
what he did.
At the bar he ate and drank and made conversation with the mark he’d chosen. One Wei-Lin from Shanghai, a factory
manager on his way to a conference in Brighton. Nice enough chap with a strong accent that Peter listened to carefully.
I am Wei-Lin, a Shanghai factory manager. That would do nicely. Caswell paid his bill and said his goodbyes. “I wish
you all success in Brighton,” he said to Wei-Lin, with a slight bow. The man blinked in surprise, for the voice he
heard nearly matched his own.
Caswell walked across the hall, past a crowded simkit parlor, and into the nearly empty bookshop. He meandered to the
travel section. In the center of the bottom shelf was a book titled 300 Thrills in 300 Pages: The Adventure Traveler’s
Guide to the World’s Most Exciting Destinations. Peter Caswell thumbed to page 206, one for each kill he didn’t have
weighing on his blissfully empty mind.
Page 206. Inland Patagonia, Chile.
From the Paperback edition.
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