Zero Override by Steve Blackman

 i, Robot meets Alex Rider: a high-stakes adventure debut for readers of 10+, featuring a group of young underground hackers who steal from the rich in a world populated with bots and AI.

Scholastic

In a near-future London where humans and humanoid bots live side by side, a sophisticated virus is infiltrating the national system. If it uploads fully, every intelligent machine in the country – from home assistants to hospital bots to android enforcers – will shut down.
Zero, a thirteen-year-old hacker whose day job is to sneak into high-security server rooms and ‘liberate’ funds from undeserving corporations, has a serious distrust of bots – and no real interest in saving the world. But the virus threatens the life of Grace, his younger sister, who – as a result of the car crash that killed their parents ten years ago – now has a machine heart.
No one will work harder than Zero to stop the upload. Except perhaps Andi, a mysterious humanoid bot who has appeared with secrets of his own. Zero doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t even like him. But with only hours on the clock, the only way to protect Grace might be to partner up. And along the way, he must come up against MI6 – and unravel his own past…

We have a great guest post from the author of this thrilling Robin-Hood-style adventure:

The Curators of Curiosity

There’s a box my wife wants me to send to recycling. Spoiler alert: it’s never going to happen. That box has been with us through house moves and renovations. It’s been with me since I was 14. Inside are hundreds of copies of 2000AD, which is a comic that would arrive every Saturday morning and I’d savour it until the next one came.

Back then my dad didn’t really understand. He knew why I loved books and films because he loved those things too. But comics, Dungeons & Dragons and Choose Your Own Adventure stories? He thought they were frivolous.

He was wrong, of course. And what he couldn’t see was that I was mining all those mediums for storytelling. That was the connective tissue between them all. Each one of them offered worlds to explore, characters to follow and problems to solve. They taught me how stories work.

The same remains true for many young people today, especially boys. The difference is that the storytelling ecosystem has become much bigger. Manga, gaming, YouTube, podcasts, graphic novels and social media all compete for attention alongside books. Yet too often we treat these interests as separate, when in reality they are connected by the same motivation: the desire for great stories. And that is where libraries represent one of our most valuable – and perhaps most underused – resources.

For too long, discussions about reading have fallen into a false choice between books and everything else. But libraries have the unique power to bridge those worlds. They are one of the few places where someone can discover a graphic novel, borrow an audiobook, attend a gaming session, explore coding, research a favourite topic and leave with a novel that speaks directly to their interests.

If someone walks into a library because they love Minecraft, Roblox, manga or AI, the goal shouldn’t be to persuade them to abandon those interests. The opportunity exists to show them where those interests can lead. Libraries can make connections that many people – not just young people – don’t make for themselves: between gaming and storytelling, between technology and imagination, between curiosity and reading.

That matters because today’s young readers are among the first generation who will never know a world without AI. They are growing up surrounded by intelligent systems, algorithms and technologies that shape their everyday lives. Naturally, they have questions. What happens when technology fails? Can AI be trusted? What does it mean to be human in a world filled with intelligent machines?

Interestingly, these are questions that young people are already exploring through entertainment. Stories about technology going wrong are often the best stories. Whether it’s rogue systems, failed experiments or worlds thrown into chaos, we’re drawn to them because malfunction tends to be more interesting than perfection. And these stories provide a safe space to explore uncertainty, risk and responsibility.

When I wrote my debut novel, Zero Override, I wanted to create exactly that kind of experience. My aim was to attract reluctant readers, particularly boys, through the things many of them already love: exciting tech, high-stakes adventure, and young people challenging powerful systems. At the same time, I wanted to explore the idea that technology itself is neither inherently good nor bad. Ultimately, it depends on how we choose to use it.

The challenge is not that young people have stopped loving stories. Far from it. They consume stories every day across multiple formats and platforms. The challenge is helping them recognise reading as part of that wider landscape.

Libraries are uniquely placed to do exactly that. They can meet young people where they are, validate the interests they already have and guide them towards new discoveries. In a world overflowing with content, libraries remain trusted curators of curiosity. And that makes them far more than places that lend books. They are gateways to stories in all their forms.

Zero Override is published in the UK by Scholastic, and is out now!