Sample Annotated Bibliography

IS 145 Ms. McNulty
Class 751 September 9, 2010

SAMPLE
Annotated Bibliography
Title: Year Zero
Author: Jeff Long
Genre: Thriller/Action/Adventure (fiction)
Number of Pages: 498
Date Finished: September 20, 2009

Summary:
Nathan Lee Swift and his partner, David Ochs, are archeologists who decide to take advantage of an earthquake in Jerusalem which unearths a rare artifact thought to contain evidence of the historical Jesus. Instead of presenting their find to the academic community and offer it to a museum to be studied, they steal the object and sell it to a private collector on the black market. When a secret compartment in the ancient relic is opened, a two-thousand-year-old plague is unleashed and begins to decimate the world’s population.

Nathan Lee begins a personal journey to somehow try to make up for his lack of judgment by trying to find a cure and to save his daughter from being another victim of the disease. He is driven across the United States to Los Alamos where all scientists, leaders, surviving military, and other key people are taking shelter, riding out the spread of the disease. Scientists are frantically working on attempting to clone human genetic material found beneath the crucifixion site known as Golgotha where the relic was original discovered by Swift and Ochs. When the clones are brought back to life and studied, Nathan Lee confronts a clone that might hold the answer to plague and he calls himself Jesus Christ.

Personal Response:
Year Zero is written in the style of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. It contains elements of the political thriller as well as a medical thriller with religious/moral undertones thrown in to the mix. In some ways, this novel also reminds me of Jurassic Park written by Michael Crichton where scientists cloned the DNA of dinosaurs. In that novel, Dr. Ian Malcolm and Dr. Alan Grant questioned the validity and morality of reanimating something long dead – basically playing God – for the purpose of study and ultimately profit. Similar themes and concerns are within Year Zero when DNA is cloned and people are created to be used as test subjects.

Although the original premise of the novel was good, I think there is too much going on in the plot and it becomes difficult to follow. I really liked the novel in the beginning and was eager to read on, but the last six chapters were muddled especially in regard to the characters and I found myself continually returning to other parts of the book to clarify specific facts in the book. In my opinion, the closing of the novel seems to lose its focus leading to an unsatisfying conclusion.