Format C: [Hardcover]

Edwin Black (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 1999

Two Millennial fears haunt most Americans: the sense of Armageddon, and the pending Y2K crisis. Both are woven together in Edwin Black's Format C:, a tense and compelling mystic techno-thriller about the final battle between good and evil fought against the race to fix the Millennium Bug.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A Y2K-induced millennium meltdown is the subject of Black's over-the-top first novel, which pits a self-infatuated investigative reporter against an even more egomaniacal computer mogul who's trying to implement a bizarre form of mind control through the software he manufactures. Dan Levin is the independently wealthy freelance journalist who learns that Windgazer CEO Ben Hinnom has assassinated one of his corporate competitors, allowing the Windgazer operating system to dominate the market as the race to beat the Y2K bug picks up steam. After landing a book deal to expose Hinnom, Levin is assisted in his investigation by his girlfriend, Park McGuire, a programmer whose teenage son also happens to be a computer prodigy. When Park is transferred from Chicago to Israel to assist in a top-secret effort to break Windgazer's stranglehold on the market, Dan accompanies her and finds that deep within the holy city lies the key to his rival's defeat. After rummaging through a series of ancient scrolls, Dan uses dodgey biblical archeology to hunt down Hinnom. The battle between journalist and executive remains fairly believable for the first half of the book, but Black goes off the deep end with the mind control subplot. On the eve of the millennium in Jerusalem, the freedom of the world hangs in the balance as the equally unsympathetic Levin and Hinnom struggle over a formatting solution for the year 2000. Hinnom's fraudulent fix will give him terrifying power, while the "format c:" of the title will save the day. The potential of Y2K as a storytelling device gets lost among Black's many detours to remote desert spots, leaving readers to wade through pages of clich?s as this erratic yarn veers toward a preposterous conclusion. 150,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The theme of religion and computers has been explored before by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash (1992; Bantam Spectra, 1993. reprint), but journalist Black makes the issue even more real by using the current computer industry wars and the impending Y2K crisis as his backdrop. The richest man on earth, owner of the world's biggest computer company, uses Y2K to make a play for global domination. What results instead is a battle between good and evil, fought in the Holy Land as the millennium turns. While at times this first novel is bogged down by geographic detail, for the most part it is an entertaining and provocative examination of our dependency on computers and the amount of information we reveal about ourselves each time we log on. Though the appeal of this work may fade once the Y2K crisis passes, it is still worth adding a copy to your collection.ADebra Mitts, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 386 pages
• Publisher: Brookline Books/Lumen Editions (May 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571290788
• ISBN-13: 978-1571290786
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,489,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A thought-provoking shift for the humanist sci-fi genre, May 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Format C: (Hardcover)

Having just submitted a full review of this for the Providence Journal, I will point out only that Black follows the tradition of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. He provides a new form of Big Brother for us to speculate about and gives a few intriguing insights into Jerusalem and Judaic tradition that are worth exploring.

I object to the stereotypes and the blockbuster quality of the final chapters, and when the red Del Sol was smashed I nearly walked out. (I began to wonder about halfway through if Black began this manuscript as a film script.) But Black has potential, and I anticipate a good read when his next production appears.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dont' wait for the paperback, don't waste your money, April 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Format C: (Hardcover)

Someone loaned me this book and I am certainly glad I didn't buy it. It is the most ham-handed, overly dramatic prose I have read in a long time. I read about 50 pages and decided I didn't have enough time to waste reading anymore. Reading this book is like experiencing an episode of the 1960's Batman TV show in print.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is a moronic book., May 26, 1999

By 

Hiroo Yamagata (Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Format C: (Hardcover)

There's this bad guy, modeled after Bill Gates, who monopolizes all OSs on the planet. His Windgazer99 was supposed to fix the Y2K problem, but it also had a feature that makes people confide in it and give out private info. Oh my, this guy is trying to bring everybody under his control! It's an evil plot!

The good guys realize this, and then realizes an even deeper conspiracy. Get this, by doing some Kaballah number stuff, you realize that computers are 666! AHHHH! So this was all a masterplan of the devil! And this OS auto update in 1999/12/31 midnight is the final piece! In order to prevent this evil plot, you must persuade people to do Format C: and erase the hard disk!

So, in 1999/12/31 midnight the god worshipping good guys and this Bill Gates devil fight it out in Jerusalem (of course, of course)...

(But do you realize that by that time, half of the world is already well into the year 2000?)

The ending gets even better, but I won't spoil it for you. Shallow thoughts, thin plot, technological nonsense babble, cheap style... Huxley? Orwell? Ah, come on. Don't drag them into this. These people had real concerns that are still valid even today, where as this cheap shot is a hack job, with no content at all.