YEAR ZERO

Three years after its original British publication, this weird, wacky fantasy grab-bag comes from the author of The Omega Expedition (2002), etc. It's the year 2000, and ex-hooker, ex-junkie Molly's attempting to get her life back and reclaim her daughters from foster care. Molly thinks 2000, the last year of the old millennium, should be renamed Year Zero and give the world a fresh start. Then she runs into Elvis at her local supermarket. Elvis is now immortal; problem is, the treatment has made his body's normal cargo of parasites immortal too—and they're eating him up. After Elvis, she raises a fallen angel back up to Heaven. Daughter Christine runs away from her foster home—right before Molly's abducted by aliens, who give her a conducted tour of nearby star systems and explain their plans to genetically re-engineer and improve humanity. Molly agrees to help. Unfortunately, the Men In Black—they're from Croydon, not Langley—know all about the abduction and subject her to a humiliating series of examinations and interrogations. When Molly finds another apartment, all her neighbors turn out to be demons hiding from the Devil himself, who also grabs Molly and commands her not to interfere with his plans for the upcoming end of the world. . . . Amazingly enough, all this isn't the half of what's going on here; yet, impeccably timed, it all comes together with a resounding bang.

Despite the occasional cultural reference that even avid anglophiles may find impenetrable, a wonderfully entertaining romp, and one of Stableford's best yet.