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.

BLACKOUT
MARC ELSBERG


MY RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️▫️
PUBLISHER Sourcebooks Landmark
PUBLISHED June 6, 2017

A terrifying but gripping electrical outage disaster, one that is hard to forget.


SUMMARY
The lights go out all across Europe. Hackers have infiltrated the interconnected electrical grid software through smart meters. The grid collapses. Fires are destroying substations and transmission towers are being blown up. Power generation units cannot be restarted. A nuclear unit in France is overheating. And that's just in the first three days.

It's February and it's cold in Europe. Germany is hovering around zero degrees. As the outage continues there are major problems. There is no water. Gas station can't pump fuel, food supplies are depleted, banks are out of cash, and hospital backup generators are shutting down. Stocks are plummeting and the European market is closed. People are becoming desperate. United States, Russia, China and Turkey are preparing to send aid. And then the U.S. goes black.

A former hacker in Milan Italy, Piero Manzano notices something abnormal about his smart meter. He notifies the authorities, who are wary of his background and they wonder if he might actually be the culprit. Manzano ultimately is forced to go on the run with American CNN reporter Lauren Shannon. Both are desperate to find out who is responsible for the attacks before things get any worse.


REVIEW
Having worked for thirty years in electric regulation, and seen the advent and evolution of SCADA systems and smart meters, this book fascinated me. MARC ELSBERG has taken a complex multifaceted scenario and woven a thought-provoking tale of our dependence on software and the electric grid for every day life. Typically, when we have an outage the electricity always comes back on, doesn't it? But what if it didn't.

The story involves a cyberattack of transmission and generation SCADA software and applies it to continental Europe, a huge geographic area. To bring a interconnected system of this magnitude back online requires an immense amount of cooperation and coordination. As BLACKOUT shows, cooperation and coordination is difficult at best, if not impossible in times of a crisis. And a cyberattack will be nothing like the recovery from a natural disaster. First you have to find the saboteur and what they did.

The geographic scope in BLACKOUT is immense, unlike anything ever experienced before. And hopefully we never will. The story shifts between Italy, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and France. Each country experiences its own set of issues in responding to the power outage and its aftermath. Transitioning to the various locations adds to the complexity of the book and there are a multitude of characters to keep up with.

ELSBERG gives us a small taste of what would happen to our society, if our food supply, transportation system, communication network, healthcare system, financial markets and water and wastewater systems were interrupted. He also raises awareness of how all of these systems are all interdependent on one another. Despite the magnitude of the story, BLACKOUT is very readable. It's a must read to truly understand the impact of a nationwide outage lasting more than three days.

Living in Florida, I have experienced many multiple day outages following hurricanes. We always stock up on groceries, water and batteries in advance. It is drilled into us to be prepared. In the aftermath, we have always been fortunate to have neighboring cities or states help with our relief and disaster recovery efforts. But what if there is no warning and the lights just go out. How long could we actually survive without power. What if our neighbors couldn't help? What if we were all in the same boat? What if the outage was nationwide?

MARC ELSBERG an Austrian author, researched this book by conducting interviews with intelligence, disaster, energy and computer security officials. His story has taken cues from previous large outage experiences in the U.S. and Europe. BLACKOUT was originally published in Germany in 2012 and has been translated into fifteen languages and sold a billion copies. It will be published in the United States for the first time in June, 2017.

I loved this book . I would recommend that our political leaders read the book. The event in this book is something that I hope never happens .

Blackout is a timely, thought provoking novel about what could happen if terrorists knock out the world's power grid, and how easily that could happen. Just a few days without power, and the long term consequences could be devastating, with many side effects that you would (probably) never consider. This is one book that would make an excellent movie, and the movie would probably be better than the book - an action packed, contemporary thriller. Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It did open my eyes, it just didn't grab me the way I expected it to. 3.75 stars. Still a very interesting read!

Blackout, written by Marc Elsberg, is a realistic and plausible look at the world we live, and the dangers lurking that we seldom consider as we go about our daily lives. We've seen the devastating results after a terrorist attack and we've also seen the damage that can be caused by hackers. What happens when a group of terrorists hack into the electrical grids and power plants in Europe? A total blackout is only the beginning of this unbelievable mess. Everyone is freaking out about the blackout, all while another danger looms unbeknownst to the public...the nuclear reactors are overheating!

Piero Monzano is a former hacker that knows pretty much everything there is to know about hacking, so when the blackout happens, he begins investigating how it happened and who is responsible for it. He teams up with the investigators, only to have the tables turned on him because he quickly becomes their prime suspect. Piero knows he can figure this out...he just needs time...so he flees before he is arrested. With the help of Lauren Shannon, a former journalism student and now a camerawoman working for CNN, the two race to find the answers before it's too late.

I have to admit that I was completely fascinated by the premise of this story. Cyber attacks are on the rise, and in my opinion, this could actually happen. Maybe not to the extent it did in this book, but any attack on our electrical grids and power plants would be devastating and chaotic, regardless if it happens to one city or the entire country. I loved the way the author showed the events in different cities and the reactions of the people. It's obvious the author did his research when writing this, and explains everything through the various scenarios. The world we live in is a scary one, to say the least, and the author brilliantly told a story that could be all too real in the near future. I would definitely recommend this book!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book. My views are my own and are in no way influenced by anyone else.

Blackout is a fascinating, yet frightening story about hackers getting into the power grids and causing electricity to go out all over Europe and the United States. Life as we know it comes to a standstill as the governments, power companies and IT professionals try to restore power.

The story follows Piero Manzano, a reformed hacker who discovers how it may have started and tips off the authorities, which in turn makes him a possible suspect. As Piero tries to help find the bug, he also finds himself on the run with the help of an American journalist, who believes in his innocence.

This is a fast, easy read with a great subject, but not much in the way of character development. The story skips around from country to country, letting the reader know what was happening in each location. There is also quite a bit of technical talk about the power grids and internet security.

Going for days with no power had many life-threatening repercussions that were pointed out along the way, but the meat of the story was Piero and his attempts to solve the problem and expose the hackers.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for allowing me to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I just couldn't get past 200 pages in this book. I guess it's being described as a techno thriller but I felt the pace was slow, lots of meetings trying to figure things out, not enough actual action. It just didn't do it for me. I will not review it on social medial since I did not finish it and it may just have a knock out ending which I didn't get to. Thanks for the opportunity!