Cirrus@Austlit

'Every modern city has one week’s worth of food to feed itself. Then it will collapse. 

'Cut off the resources to New York, Sydney, or even a mid-size metropolis, and millions will soon starve. In Zero Day Code we see those immense and open, hyper-complex, networked supercities of the new millennium die. And in the last moments we see their vengeance take form as all the best and worst traits of humanity bubble to the surface. 

'Zero Day Code is set in a realistic near future with dwindling global food supplies under increasing pressure from worsening droughts, floods and extreme weather events. Written by prolific Australian writer John Birmingham, the thriller follows a handful of survivors from the first day of society’s descent into violent, uncertain futures. 

'James, a consultant to the US National Security Council, is the first to suspect that the worldwide emergence of a crippling computer virus is actually a cover for something else - a devastating cyber-attack by China on the food distribution system of the United States. The attack is a bid for the Middle Kingdom to distract America as it seizes the food bowl of South East Asia and feeds its starving population. But Beijing has miscalculated.

'Follow the missions of an embittered activist chasing salvation, a single mum rescuing her child from a frantic San Francisco and an army veteran who has long retreated from society, as the world they knew crumbles around them.' (Publication summary)

'On Zero Day of the first and last cyberwar in human history the internet went dark, transport and power grids collapsed, and cities began to starve. Ten days later millions have died from thirst and starvation, from violence, and from the simple failure of the world’s machines to keep them alive.   

'This second installment of John Birmingham’s End of Days trilogy finds James O’Donnell and his friends Rick, Michelle and Melissa hunkered down in the wilderness, where they know a horde of starving, desperate exiles from the graveyard of the US East Coast is heading their way.  

'On the far side of the continent, in the Pacific Northwest, Jonas Murdoch helps lead the good folk of Silverton in defending themselves from waves of starving and desperate refugees pouring out of Seattle.   

'And slowly, cautiously navigating the inland waterways of California, Jodi Sarjanan and Ellie Jabbarah negotiate an apocalyptic landscape of burning skyscrapers and marauding gangs.   

'All of them are seeking sanctuary. A safe place where the madness hasn’t penetrated. But does such a place exist?  

'And what if they need to sacrifice their very humanity in the struggle to reach it?' (Publication summary)

'Why do some societies collapse into lawless savagery while others prove resilient and lasting?

'On Zero Day of the first and last cyberwar in human history, the internet went dark, transport and power grids collapsed and cities began to starve, showing just how vulnerable the world could be to a targeted campaign of online sabotage. This final instalment of this prescient epic of civilisation collapse finds the small ragtag band of survivors come together to face a new, but eerily familiar threat - the rise of a fascist militia among the ruins of a failing country.

'With American Kill Switch, John Birmingham’s End of Days trilogy comes to a high-octane, thrilling conclusion.' (Production summary)