Customer Reviews

Deadline Y2K

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Since I work in the computer industry and have for the past 15 years, I am well aware of the Y2K bug. For someone who knows nothing about computers, this book is like reading a horror story. Everything that has a computer in it, will have massive problems (at least according to this book). While many of the problems are exaggerated, the Y2K issue is presented in a very enjoyable story. I really enjoyed this book, as long as I took the impending diasasters (planes falling out of the sky, nuclear reactors shutting down, etc.) with a grain of salt. Still a very good, fast paced read.

I finished reading this book just to see how bad it could get by the end. Released in September 1999, the author should have known that Y2K was already big news, even with the Everyday Joe. He writes about embedded chips (that have no need for any date or time information) failing and causing massive systems failure. He has nuclear reactors failing or being taken offline. In perhaps the most egregious error, he suggests that the NY subway could fail due to computer error -- when in reality, it is well-known that the display board at Jay Street was never correctly wired, and all switches and signals are mechanically controlled.

The plot is severely lacking. Four geeks rewrite the entire city infrastructure in two years -- and are stuck on some control passwords! A multi-billionaire wants to cheat the bank whose systems his company is rewriting!

This book has no basis in reality. Any similarity to Planet Earth as we know it is coincidental.

The book Deadline Y2K is about what might have happened on January 1st 200. It describes two interesting characters. One is a computer programer who wants to find a solution to the Y2K computer bug, and the other is a successful businessman who's only interest is making an ungodly amount of money. The story is very well written and some of the events described are very realistic. However I think that this book was prompter by some public fears that the Y2K computer glitch would do an extreme amount of damage to peoples lives. Maybe the author could have taken a more realistic approach to the situation. Overall I think it was a good book and it certainly was very interesting to read, it was hard to put down.

Having first hand knowledge of the Year 2000 computer problems, especially involving the banking industry, will definitely lead to a different scenario than this book.

There will be no cataclysmic events, just a minor blip here and there. Granted, there may be minor power disruptions, but midweek, things will be back to normal.

Planes falling from the sky, riots, and countries going belly up, doesn't even merit a mention in the true scenario. The plot of this book is so off the mark, the author seems to be cashing in on millenium-hyped sensationalism of the unsuspecting.

Learn how to spell "buses" (rather than "busses"), and don't waste your time on a sequel.

This book has a very good explanation on Y2K and how it could effect us all. This was a very interesting book. A must read !!!!!

this book was facinating, the ploy was full of many twists and turns, i would recommend this book to everyone

Deadline Y2K is an okay thriller. Some parts of it doesn't make sense at all but it was a nice novel.

As good as Lucifer's Hammer. But, geez, some whoppers. The anti-hero wants money sent via electronic blips, never asking how he'll get it back, post y2k.A store at Broadway and 96th with 80,000 sq. ft.? I think not. And it has "linoleum" on the floor? Is this the l930's? Worst, the author never deals with the fact that saving NYC from the y2k "bug" means nothing. In 48 hours, that non-producing, dependent-on-the-rest-of-the-world city will go as dark as the rest of the globe. Good dialogue.

The book is the best book I have read in this area of exploration. Although it has a little unecessary language, it's still very easy to follow and you don't have to know anything about computers or stuff like that. You just have to realize that this is fiction (you get so involved that you may forget!).

After reading Joseph Massucci's "The Millennium Project," I was eager for another page-turning Y2K thriller. Unfortunately, this isn't it -- in fact, I couldn't help wondering how much of this material was "borrowed." Plotwise the two books share a lot in common, but the excitement quickly ends here. Joseph's "Deadline Y2K: A Novel" stretches credibility to the limit, and his stereo-typical characters are recycled from a dozen movies (Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix in "Sneakers" -- unfortunately they're not as clever). Joseph acknowledges his agent for giving him the idea to do a Y2K novel. Obviously he wasn't sufficiently inspired to doing something original with the subject. Too bad his agent didn't do the writing too!