Y2K: A Novel Approach

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by John Alderman

4:00am 19.Aug.98.PDT

Want to work yourself into a millennial frenzy? People have been going crazy at century marks for as long as there have been nice, round-numbered dates. Like all good apocalyptic visions, the current Y2K scenarios actually present plenty to be worried about, with the added scary bonus that no one really knows for sure what will happen.

Take a quick glance at the shelves of your local bookstore, and you will find plenty of guides for companies trying to get their act together before the final countdown: books like How to 2000, a nice-looking volume filled with professional reassurance and advice. But we're not concerned with reassurances. We're going to feed your darkest millennial fears.

Y2K: It's Already too Late (Jason Kelly Press) has made something of a stir online. Kelly's self-published novel centers on a mild-mannered nerd who has dedicated himself to solving the Y2K problem since 1990, focusing so tightly on his work that he's missed out on the time he could have spent with his two children and now-deceased wife.

As 2000 rolls around, he's at the top of the world, heading the only major company that continues to function. That world quickly falls apart around him. The manner is a little predictable: huge riots in Los Angeles with heroic cops forced into committing a massacre, stereotypically inscrutable Chinese threatening to invade, and a tech-dependent US military rendered nearly impotent against the assault.

Sadly, Kelly's prose is reminiscent of nothing so much as stories on alt.sex.stories, with heroism, family values, and wanton destruction substituted for varieties of sex. This narrowly focused view of the world is usually employed in genre fiction.

Behind the novel is a Revenge of the Nerds notion taken to an apocalyptic extreme: "He was hated, in his opinion, because they knew he was right. In less than three years the world's business and government heroes would be the laughingstock of the century. The ones that lived, at least."

Flaws aside, the book is still a page turner and works the reader into a nervous, paranoid state. It is probably scarier to true believers than the not-yet-convinced, due to its near-identical resemblance to bad pulp fiction: "He flared his nostrils to breathe mightily. His short, black hair remained neat even through the showerless days of the new century."

The Millennium Bug (Regnery Publishing) was written by Michael S. Hyatt, who claims he is not an expert and is proud of it because "it was the experts who got us into this mess." That sounds like a line from a tough guy in a futuristic novel, but Hyatt doesn't really believe it: He goes to lengths to explain his onsiderable expertise.

Hyatt offers plenty of advice on how to survive, most of which centers on self-reliance and the suggestion that you'd probably be better off living in a country town, where the people fear God and keep some guns around for those that don't. It's a good guide when you realize that the new millennium calls for a whole new you -- and that new you needs target practice.

Edward and Jennifer Yourdon, the authors of Time Bomb 2000 (Prentice Hall), seem eminently sensible. Judging from the quotes at the beginning of each chapter -- which range from John Kenneth Galbraith to Jean Beaudrillard -- they are also reasonably erudite.

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- their restraint, the Yourdons have written a scary piece of nonfiction. It's much easier to dismiss over-the-top scenarios of a would-be home commando than the measured doom of a father-daughter team of New York computer and financial consultants.

Don't let the book's mild-mannered tone fool you. Edward Yourdon really starts to cook at his site, which features passionate and personal essays about his concerns with Y2K, safety and his recent move away from New York City. Plenty of links and resources galore should have you ready to give up urban living.

In fact, for those who want to live the Y2K mania to the fullest, there's no better place to do it than online -- at least until the blackouts start.

The Cassandra Project is an online resource guide, edited by a nonprofit group of the same name, with interesting downloadable essays by contributing authors. The classifieds are full of people looking for houses in the mountains or hoping to start a "Y2K community." It's great networking for when you're finally convinced that society will fall.

Gary North seems pretty convinced. "We are facing a breakdown of civilization," says North, a PhD in history, voicing the main thread though his site, which offers long rants, discussion groups, and more links. The site also has summaries of the coming catastrophe and its causes, as North defines them.

Y2K for Women is the place to go when your husband reads the aforementioned books, dons fatigues, and announces the family is moving to Montana. The emphasis is on taking care of the family, a kind of postapocalyptic home economics.

Luckily, Y2K folks are big networkers, and no one wants to suffer a millennium bug alone. So, don't worry if none of the books grabs you by the bones. With enough pointing and clicking, you'll be buying rural property soon enough.