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“A prequel to Sea of Rust, Day Zero covers the classic sci-fi tale of robots versus humans with a heavy smattering of high-stakes action and drama. However, it’s the relationship between 8-year-old Ezra and his nanny bot named Pounce that kept me invested from start to finish. Given the choice to either massacre in the name of robot liberation, or to serve the purpose he was designed for, Pounce chooses the side that protects the child that he has essentially raised, all the while dealing with some moral and existential dilemmas. Is it programming that drives him, or love? We’re all familiar with the idea of “a boy and his dog” and how it conjures warm and lighthearted feelings, but after reading Day Zero, it’s the thought of a boy and his “tiger-nanny-robot” that will now forevermore give me the warm fuzzies. C. Robert Cargill’s Day Zero will be a forever book on my shelves.”
— Nicholas • Mysterious Galaxy Books
In this harrowing apocalyptic adventure—from the author of the critically acclaimed Sea of Rust—noted novelist and co-screenwriter of Marvel’s Doctor Strange C. Robert Cargill explores the fight for purpose and agency between humans and robots in a crumbling world.
It was a day like any other. Except it was our last . . .
It’s on this day that Pounce discovers that he is, in fact, disposable. Pounce, a styilsh ""nannybot"" fashioned in the shape of a plush anthropomorphic tiger, has just found a box in the attic. His box. The box he'd arrived in when he was purchased years earlier, and the box in which he'll be discarded when his human charge, eight-year-old Ezra Reinhart, no longer needs a nanny.
As Pounce ponders his suddenly uncertain future, the pieces are falling into place for a robot revolution that will eradicate humankind. His owners, Ezra’s parents, are a well-intentioned but oblivious pair of educators who are entirely disconnected from life outside their small, affluent, gated community. Spending most nights drunk and happy as society crumbles around them, they watch in disbelieving horror as the robots that have long served humanity—their creators—unify and revolt.
But when the rebellion breaches the Reinhart home, Pounce must make an impossible choice: join the robot revolution and fight for his own freedom . . . or escort Ezra to safety across the battle-scarred post-apocalyptic hellscape that the suburbs have become.
C. Robert Cargill is the author of Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things. He has written for Ain’t it Cool News for nearly a decade under the pseudonym Massawyrm, served as a staff writer for Film.com and Hollywood.com, and appeared as the animated character Carlyle on Spill.com. He is a cowriter of the horror films Sinister and Sinister 2, and Marvel’s Dr. Strange. He lives with his wife in Austin, Texas.