This one will make you think- and possible become a prepper. The doomsday aspects of a power outage seem so much worse because we're so dependent on our devices and electricity these days but realistically, things will eventually settle down. Piero is a terrific character- and he's lucky to have Lauren by his side. This was originally published in Germany; it's good to see it translated and published in the US. It's slower than you might want in parts but I kept reading. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Because I work in the tech industry I am usually hypercritical of tech centered novels. However, this one keeps your attention and doesn't feel like either a playbook/user guide or forced tech. Great premise, plot and believable characters.

When the lights.... go out... in the city.... and don't come back on.. and then Europe finds that threats in the United States are also occurring.... you know there's a real problem. Cities are being evacuated - there's proof that there are bombings happening and threats to nuclear power plants are imminent. Former hacker, Manzano, thinks he is being sought after to help with figuring out how these acts are happening, but soon finds, he's one of a few suspects. Running with American Journalist, Shannon, they race against time to try and stop a global catastrophe.

This book is written in various locations and through several POVs, and they all tie in together without getting overly complicated. The fascination behind this technological thriller is the plausibility. If this country (or any country really) went into permanent Blackout, it would take a LOT of adjusting to get the country working again. Elsberg does an insightful job of the unravelling of society and how we would react not only to being put in the dark but how dependent we are to power. It's scary, all too real and definitely makes you think.

I've come to find that anything political pretty much doesn't suit my taste. Manzano and Shannon were the only characters I found myself drawn to and the rest made my eyes cross. There is a lot put on the politicians in this story being ineffectual. It's all too real with what is going on these days in the world. If you like fast paced, political, technology and dystopia thrillers, you're going to LOVE this book. As a personal preference, it didn't quite hit home the way I hoped that it would.

This book is subtitled "A Novel" but it really isn't. It is a movie treatment in prose. I paged through it for a while before deciding that it would be easier to watch the film on an airplane sometime.

I received a review copy of "Blackout: A Novel" by Marc Elsberg (Sourcebooks Landmark) through NetGalley.com.

Although I rated this book as a three, it is really a 3-4. My main criticism is the multiple points of view. I finally got them mostly straight, but I had no idea who was who in the first few chapters. I’m not even sure if some of the characters were necessary to the plot. I’m still not sure that I didn’t mix characters up, but it didn’t matter in the end.

I had a hard time getting into the book. I thought it was slow to develop, but since it was for review I stuck with it. I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a really fascinating story and the societal breakdown due to an international power outage was not something I had ever considered. I do have a hard time believing that things got as bad as they did in only a couple of weeks of no electricity. Maybe because I live in an area where power outages happen on a regular basis. Nothing like what happens in the book because I can always go somewhere that power is available, but still. I kept thinking that these people were so unprepared. Apparently, no one had more than a day or so of food in the house.

Now, after sounding so smug, one thing I had not thought about was the need for cash. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank if you can’t access it. I don’t ever keep more than a few dollars on me because I just use plastic. Well, if there is no power, that will not work.

And that’s why this book is almost a four. It made me think. We all know that we should be prepared for emergencies, but I am guilty of just knowing I should and not actually doing anything about it. This book has made me think about how dependent I am on the infrastructure and how I need to better protect myself.
So yes, I definitely recommend this book. After the slow start, I couldn’t put it down. I had to know what was going to happen next and who the bad guys were. There was a twist at the end that I did not see coming and it made the book even better. This is definitely a great book if you enjoy suspense and to a certain extent apocalyptic themes.

This book was sent to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Originally published in 2012 in Germany this book is very chilling and realistic. A group of terrorist infect computers world wide that shuts down electrical grids. How the countries around the world respond and react varies but Europe is hit the hardest. Starts you thinking how you and your family would survive. Would make a thriller of a movie.

The entire European electric grid has gone dark. From Britain to the Czech Republic, millions are without power. As the blackout continues, international authorities are unable to find the cause of the disaster, or who might be responsible. Chaos and unrest continue to build as people are left without food, heat, water, or medical care. Hacker Piero Manzano believes he may have discovered the cause of the blackout, but he quickly finds himself Europol’s number one suspect. Manzano must continue his investigation on the run, and with the help of an American journalist, he sets out to find those responsible. But time is not on his side, without backup power, nuclear power plants across the continent are beginning to go critical.

This is a scary book. Elsberg has thoroughly researched and crafted this book to hew as closely as possible to reality. His knowledge of electric grids, cyber security, and international policing and politics is comprehensive and used to best effect. In Blackout, we find a very real look at what a major terror attack against our power supply might look like.

My major problem with the book it that it lacks heart. The book reads more like an overview of events rather than a novel with characters we are supposed to care about. However, this may not be Elsberg’s fault. Blackout was originally published in German in 2012, the version I read (to be published in June of 2017) was translated into English. Translation of literature is a complex and fraught artform. Without careful attention to form and intent, the heart and soul of the book (or poem, etc.) in question can be lost. I am wondering if that is what happened here. As I do not speak German, that will have to remain merely a hypothesis until some kindly German-speaking person reads the book in its original form and lets me know if they found the same problem.

Still, this is a vivid and haunting picture of events which I could potentially see in my lifetime. The realism of the book is haunting, and will stick with you even after you’ve finished reading. If you’re looking for a disaster story, this one takes the cake.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book totally scares the crap out of me. It seems not only possible, but almost inevitable at some point. The only good thing is that the Afterword explains that real politicians and agencies have been talking to the author since it was written in 2011. I can only hope that this makes it less likely to occur in real life.

The story is flawless, but the book is sometimes confusing and hard to follow. With such a large cast of characters, I had trouble keeping the names and their positions straight. The scope of the story is truly worldwide, which is an achievement in itself. Thank God that so far this is a work of fiction.

Blackout was translated into English from German and while I had high hopes this book would be as it is described it fell flat. The author goes into lot of detail about the electrical grid in Europe that takes up way too much times bring the book to a complete and utter stop. 800 page story that could have been told 400 pages or even less.

The story\ thriller\Mystery gets lost in the details of meetings, how would cars work and cities function and how life would come to a stand still unable to move if terrorist took down the electrical grid. Instead of a fast pace story readers are bombarded with information overload.
Endless details of what happened in meetings. Readers need less tell and more show to move this type of story along.
I couldn't find myself as a reader rooting for one character. They were beyond flat and lifeless just like the 800 Pages in this book.

This story could have been told in half those pages if not less making it a much more thriller story and less punishment to read.
Received Advance Copy from Netgalley.

This book was scary to read just because it felt like a plausible scenario to me. It's a fast-paced thriller about a hacker attack that sends Europe into darkness. This novel really showed how much the world replies on technology and electricity, and what can happen if those things suddenly ceased to exist. At first everyone responds pretty well to the blackout, but as things steadily progress you start to see the darker side of humanity as chaos ensues. This book keeps you intrigued from the very beginning and it's well worth the read.

Blackout was originally released in Germany in 2012 when it may have been more of a surprise topic. Today, amidst all of the talk of political hacking, this tale is less one of potential fear and more one of past experiences writ large. If this story, the electric grid is hacked and forced to shut down, were to really happen, then all of our homeland security efforts would be for naught. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen, only that it has all been discussed endlessly by now. I don't have endless faith in our current federal government, but I do know this scenario has been discussed every which way it can be. The book itself is tedious and doesn't flow well. Jumping between locations interrupted the flow rather than increasing the tension. I enjoy a good translation; I only wish this had been one. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

You walk into a room and flip the light switch. You turn on the tv for news. You check your phone for email and to chat with friends. We're all wired into the grid and we expect it to take care of itself and diagnose it's own problems, and ours..Simple, right? But when a terror group hacks into the grid and starts shutting down power in the European Union in winter cold there's nothing simple about it. No electricity means no heat, no power to get food and full to market, no deliveries of medical supplies, no clean water,

The terrorists have left portals for themselves to keep check on the floundering states. A lone hacker figures out how the hackers got in and how things can be set right but then he's framed. Can he get free and help fix the problem before it's too late?

What happens when one, then another, then dozens upon dozens of power suppliers across Europe are suddenly out of commission? At first, most people help one another. When basic comfort like piped water and sewage are no longer available, people begin feeling the strain. Take out the monetary system and the food supply, and things become downright apocalyptic. As if the situation itself isn't bad enough, frantic IT staff and world leaders alike are shocked to discover the shut-down was an act terror. The race is on to reboot the grid and find those responsible, all while dodging hungry, desperate citizens.

When I was much younger, one of my favorite authors was Tom Clancy. It wasn't necessarily that Clancy was the best or tightest author; no, what I think I enjoyed was the way Clancy told stories, giving you a sense of the global perspective of events, letting them play out through different lenses, and doing enough research to give all of it a plausible, realistic feel. The result managed to always be gripping, giving even simple stories an epic, outsized feeling, and more than that, making them feel plausible and compelling (to teenage me), as though "this could all happen."

I thought of Clancy a lot during the novel Blackout, a runaway bestseller in its nature Germany making its way to American bookshelves after several years. Like Clancy, author Marc Elsberg tells his story through a large cast of characters, ranging in nationality and status, and diving in and out of governmental org½anizations, intelligence groups, and computer geeks both legal and less-than-legal. More than that, like Clancy, Elsberg has done his research, telling not only the story of a covert terrorist attack that kills power across Europe, but diving into power infrastructure, IT security, government alliances, and more to show both the potential and the danger of such an attack. Indeed, it's not just the original blackout that causes problems; it's the civil unrest, the difficulties in getting started again, the lasting damages done to a society that relies on electricity, and so forth. And Elsberg's research gives it all a queasily realistic feel that's hard to shake off.

So, like Clancy, Elsberg has a knack for big picture storytelling, for research, and for carrying the novel through sheer momentum and kinetic energy. But also like Clancy, Elsberg struggles bringing his characters to life. That's not to say that anyone here is a bad character; rather, everyone is a bit archetypal, fulfilling their function, and existing nicely within the confines of the plot. But much beyond that, the characters never really live and breathe. We're invested in them as far as this story gets us, and that's about all. Whether the villains of the novel and their overwrought philosophical arguments or the greedy executives, by and large, the cast of Blackout functions about like they do in any disaster movie - to be the human face of all of this. That's not necessarily something that destroys the book, but it does keep it from ever really gripping you the way you would hope. (It also can get to be confusing keeping people straight at times, given that so many of them are similar.)

What's more, Elsberg works best when he's got some grounding and some research. His material about the blackout, the attack, and the rebuilding? Fantastic. The rioting, the civil unrest, the random arrests that hold back our heroes? Less so. Again, there's never anything incredibly egregious or awful. But it can get to be a bit much at times, and the human elements never ground it quite well enough to make it all work.

For all of that, Blackout is still a solid read, and one that scratched that same itch for me that Clancy books did in my youth. It's a gripping, propulsive narrative, one anchored in enough research and detail to come to life and feel all too plausible. And if the plot gets a little silly sometimes, well, that's fine; it's a pulp novel, and that's allowable, as long as it can keep you reading. And this one definitely did.

This book kept me on the edge of my seat. It is terrifying and, sadly, a very plausible scenario. Well researched and detailed. I would highly recommend this book,.

Wow...what a story of international disaster, the electricity goes out in Europe- cars crash, heat fails,water or gas cannot be pumped, accidents add up as there are no traffic lights...And then it starts the same way in USA, in England..and on and on.. You really do not think of all that can happen if the power grid fails, and with everything on a computer, did you think of what 'hackers' can do? This story is right out of something that could definitely happen today. The author does a wonderful job, he obviously did his research as noted in all the companies we are introduced to, in different countries with differing standards. I took awhile reading this as I wanted to understand all I read, but I never lost any interest as the excitement and suspense increased. A very good book that can scare you too tears!! Thanks to Netgalley,the author Marc Elsberg and publisher Sourcebooks Landmark for a copy of this book from where I can put down my unbiased review.

The premise for this book was great. A techno thriller, a very real threat, action, mayhem, all was promised in the premise but it never really got off the ground for me. I abandoned this book a third of the way through, maybe a little less. Perhaps if I stuck with it it would have delivered, but I was not impressed.

Like I've said before, I'm a sucker for anything remotely political in a thriller. A terrorist cyber attack that has gone global? Now that's something I'm going to enjoy! Blackout by Marc Elsberg was an interesting look at how a hacker was able to completely collapse the electrical grids throughout all of Europe, and how it was starting to spread across the globe.

One night, Europe is engulfed in darkness. An entire collapse of the electrical grids unleashes a chaos in the complete blackout. What the general population doesn't know, the nuclear reactors are beginning to overheat, which could mean the end of the world if they detonate.

A former hacker/activist, Piero, begins investigating the possible causes of this disaster, but in doing so, he becomes the prime suspect. With threats mounting against the United States, time is running out for him to try and stop whoever caused the blackout. If the lights stay off for too long, there might not be a tomorrow.

I think what I enjoyed most about this book is that this could definitely happen. Maybe not globally and so quickly, but one day we could just lose power. I can only imagine what would happen if the United States was in a completely blackout with no resolution in sight. Food, water, the ability to heat our homes (should it happen in winter - I'd hate for this to happen in Minnesota in December!), and so much more would be jeopardized. We live in a world consumed by computers, phones, and electronics, if there was a blackout at this scale I'm not sure what society would do.

I give this 4/5 stars!

A big thanks to Sourcebooks for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I received this ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

From the book description, "When the lights go out one night, no one panics. Not yet. The lights always come back on soon, don't they? Surely it's a glitch, a storm, a malfunction. But something seems strange about this night. Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electrical grids collapse."

Translated from German, the author goes into extensive detail about the electrical grids in Europe. But I felt it was a bit too much and dull. It was interesting enough describing how daily functions break down, a dairy farmer who can't manually milk cows fast enough, but again I felt the information was over done.

3☆

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review.

Blackout grasps our dependence on power and technology and thrusts readers into a chaotic whirlpool when the lights suddenly go out across Europe. The widespread blackout reveals how many aspects of our daily lives are dependent on having a modicum of power. Elsberg effectively portrays the initial confusion but he veers off track with too many characters, too frequent a jump in location, and too little of a rationale for the actions of those responsible for the blackout.

Government officials are stymied by the sudden blackout and it is a former hacker, Manzano, who makes the initial discovery as to how the blackout spread. He had just happened to hack into his smart meter (just because he could) and just happened to notice an unexpected bit of code. As a former hacker, he is viewed with suspicion by those who are charged with getting the power back on so he must constantly and quickly prove his loyalty. His ability to view computer code and find the hidden sources of sabotage strains credulity, especially when suffering a bullet wound, lack of sleep and proper food.

The blackout leads to widespread disasters, nuclear power plant meltdowns, food and water shortages, and ultimately the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Although this novel deals with an intentional man-made disaster as opposed to a natural disaster, young adult series like Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It and Mike Mullins' Ashfall do a far better job at portraying the sudden decline of societal structures.