Zer0es (Chuck Wendig)

The Zeroes are a motley group of hackers and trolls dragged to a prison compound by a mysterious government organization and put to work on various hacker-related tasks that don't seem to make much sense. They gradually figure out that there's a powerful and dangerous force that's taking over the Internet, causing death and mayhem, and they band together to escape and fight this power. I enjoyed the geeky references to tech and pop culture, but ultimately the story didn't really work for me. The characters never came alive, but remained cardboard stand-ins for stock people. The story also had two basic flaws that dragged my disbelief to the ground. One is that if a computer takes over the Internet then it can take direct control over any interconnected digital device, from the GPS in an airplane to your car's radio. The other, even more implausible, is that it is possible to throw someone down on a table, drill a hole in their skull, and shove in a cable that allows the computer to both download all their memories and upload a command program that turns them into a remote-controlled zombie. I'm sorry, but no.