Living All In

Anyone remember the Y2K scare?  Bueller?  Anyone?

Since the year is drawing to a close and we’re going from Y2K6 to Y2K7, it seemed appropriate for USA Today to review a new novel that pokes fun at the Y2K prophets that so many have long forgotten.  In Kevin Shay’s first tome, The End As I Know It: a novel of millenial hysteria, Shay follows the travels and tribulations (pun intended) of Randall Knight, who travels the USA urging friends, family, and anyone who’ll listen that doomsday is coming.

From PW:

Randall Knight, a former elementary school teacher, quits his job and tours the country as a roving puppeteer, hoping to make others believe in the impending computer-related doomsday.

Shay puts the reader in the quixotic situation of rooting for a protagonist whose every action is in the service of a supremely puerile cause; as Randall crisscrosses the U.S. in search of allies, running headlong from his own problems into the maw of an imagined global catastrophe, it’s hard not to feel his pain (in the words of another presence whose then-current impeachment trial haunts this book).

If the book ends with more of a whimper than a bang, perhaps that is only to be expected in a novel about an impending but never-arriving tragedy

A very funny read coming from someone that doesn’t take time to read much fiction.  Out of curiosity, I went to Amazon and by simply typing "Y2K" the search yields three pages of results.  The greatest surprise of the search?  That most of the titles are still in print after seven years (or maybe just remaindered but still in stock?)  The second biggest surprise was the number one listing in the search was from Christian publishing’s very own Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers.  Talk about six degrees as I recenly posted about the overblown editorial standards flap.

I remember the books The Y2K Personal Survival Guide and The Millenium Bug coming out in the late 90s, but never put together that Hyatt authored them both.  Since they’re both amazingly still in print, I’m going to add them to my collectible library.  I encourage you to do the same!  And if you can, don’t buy a used copy, find a new one.  You know you want to!  Plus, the royalties couldn’t go to a nicer guy.  I know, not exactly a tattered copy of Spurgeon’s sermons, but I have a soft spot (and room on my shelves) for both technology, kitsch, and unique cultural phenomenons.  These books hit all three. 

Do I really have to remind you of the anxiety of the times?  Look at this Amazon.com editorial review excerpt from The Millenium Bug:

The author presents a range of possible developments, from mere annoyance with consumer services to widespread starvation as a result of infrastructure breakdown. Hyatt also foresees a plague of lawsuits filed by shareholders, the families of deceased patients, and swarms of other people harmed by Y2K failures.

Hyatt’s advice: move to a small town with a volunteer fire department, stockpile food, secure access to a reliable source of fresh water, and buy a gun and ammunition for fending off looters. The winter of 1999-2000 will be a hard one, Hyatt predicts, and the crisis may last a long time indeed–have reading material on hand. –David Wall

Oh and don’t forget to pick up a copy of The End As I Know It.

And since it’s my birthday today (along with Denzel and Woodrow Wilson), would it really hurt to pick up a copy of my book All In?