Day One by Nate Kenyon

Day One by Nate Kenyon

Cloverfield  meets The Terminator  in this story of one man’s escape from New York City as technology becomes sentient

Scandal-plagued hacker journalist John Hawke is hot on the trail of the explosive story that might save his career. James Weller, the former CEO of giant technology company Eclipse, has founded a new start-up, and he’s agreed to let Hawke do a profile on him. Hawke knows something very big is in the works at Eclipse—and he wants to use the profile as a foot in the door to find out more.

After he arrives in Weller’s office in New York City, a seemingly normal day quickly turns into a nightmare as anything with an Internet connection begins to malfunction. Hawke receives a call from his frantic wife just before the phones go dead. Soon he and a small band of survivors are struggling for their very lives as they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone—with no obvious enemy in sight.

The bridges and tunnels have been destroyed. New York City is under attack from a deadly and brilliant enemy that can be anywhere and can occupy anything with a computer chip. Somehow Hawke must find a way back to his pregnant wife and young son. Their lives depend upon it . . . and so does the rest of the human race.

“Nate Kenyon comes out swinging with Day One, a powerhouse of a thriller. Scary, eerily plausible and lightning fast. Highly recommended!”
—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Extinction Machine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t have too much in the way of negatives to say about this book. Okay, right? So we have seen the machines revolt against their creators thing before. Not like this. I promise you it is different and was approached from a fresh angle this time. There are multiple things happening in the beginning of this story that all tie in together. Many stories come from recent/current events, this is a very timely story.

Enter strong main character with the attitude to lead a novel like this. One of the things that impressed me the most with this book was the way the main character problem solved. He was sort of Cool Head Luke and Macgyver all rolled into one. I love it when a lead character is not predictable, it adds and element of surprise to the story and keeps me interested. The level of organised chaos the author created was impressive.

If you are the kind of reader that enjoys a lot of action in your books, then this will surely impress you. There is always something going on in this novel. It never has a chance to lose pace or slow down. I liked that I never had time to lose interest or get bored with the writing.

The one thing I will mention, is that this book has quite a bit of computer related jargon. Techies–you will be in heaven. The rest of us–you might need to look a few things up. This didn’t bother me–in fact, I feel smarter, but if you aren’t familiar with the terminology, you might stumble a little.

The root of this story is that of a man wanting to take care of those he loves and fight for survival in a world gone mad. Every detail of this book is built off of that solid foundation and it worked beautifully. I never got the sense that the actions of the main character were contrived or pointless.

Overall? This one is a winner that you would be remiss not to pick up for yourself. Even though this book is outside my usual genre preferences, I liked it very much and would encourage others to give it a go.

This review is based off of a digital ARC provided by Netgalley and the publisher.