| Italic Title: | Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late |
| Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late | |
| Author: | Marc Elsberg |
| Title Orig: | Blackout – Morgen ist es zu spät |
| Orig Lang Code: | de |
| Language: | German |
| Subject: | Power outage |
| Genre: | thriller |
| Publisher: | Black Swan |
| Pub Date: | 2012 |
| English Pub Date: | 2017 |
| Pages: | 350 |
| Awards: | Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2012[1] |
| Isbn: | 978-1784161897 |
| Isbn Note: | (first edition in English) |
| Followed By: | Zero – Sie wissen, was du tust |
Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late is a disaster thriller book by the Austrian author Marc Elsberg, described by Penguin Books as "a 21st-century high-concept disaster thriller".
Published in German in 2012, it had been translated into fifteen languages and sold a million copies worldwide.[2] The English version was published in 2017.[2]
The novel is about a European power outage due to a cyberattack. For realism the book is written on the basis of interviews with intelligence and computer security officials.
The novel starts with a collapse of electrical grids across Europe, plunging the population into darkness and disaster.[2] [3] The prolonged electricity cut causes major problems: no more petrol, no telephone, no food in supermarkets, no cash machines working, nuclear disasters, etc.[3] [4] A former computer hacker and IT professional tries to find out the root cause for this. While doing so he himself becomes a hunted person as officials find suspicious e-mails sent from his laptop and think that he is involved.
The novel is currently being adapted into a miniseries starring Moritz Bleibtreu, directed by Oliver Rihs and Lancelot von Naso and is scheduled to begin filming in fall 2020.[5]