‘The Millennium Project’

By Cindy Wojdyla Cain, Herald News

Joliet writer produces technothriller about computer glitch

Just in time for 1999 is a book by Joseph Massucci that will give you something to ponder for the next 360 days.

The Joliet author has penned a thriller based on the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitch that some fear will bring civilization to a screeching halt.

He got the idea for the book, The Millennium Project, at work. Massucci, 44, is a senior communications consultant for Amoco Corp. in Chicago. The author started taking notes when Amoco created a team to reprogram computers to recognize the two-digit year designation “00.”

The planners told Massucci all the things that could go wrong. Not all the Y2K bugs could be found. Computers could be liable to viruses or sabotage. The writer in him knew good material when he heard it.

"I thought, 'What a great premise or backdrop for a technothriller.'"

Massucci sent a book proposal to Leisure Books, the company that had published his first novel, CODE: ALPHA. The new novel isn't really a sequel to Massucci’s first book, but it includes some of the same main characters, most notably Julie Martinelli.

In CODE: ALPHA, Martinelli is a doctoral candidate in biological engineering who proposes the creation of a lethal toxin while doing her thesis. The fun begins when the formula is stolen by terrorists who plan to use the toxin in biological warfare.

In The Millennium Project, Martinelli is drafted by a special branch of the U.S. military to work on a highly classified project. She's sealed away with several of her colleagues deep in a high-tech military bunker in Cheyenne Mountain.

There she learns that the microprocessors controlling America's top-secret strategic defense satellite network have failed, rendering the network useless.

Martinelli has only days to fix the system prior to the last tick of the clock in 1999.  Meanwhile, a mad genius and his small army of doomsday mercenaries are using this window of opportunity to commit the ultimate crime – the crime of the millennium.

Getting the book sold back in 1997 was the sales pitch of the millennium, as far as Massucci is concerned.  At first his publisher wasn't interested in a book on something no one was talking about.  But Massucci lucked out.  Shortly after his proposal was rejected, Newsweek published a cover story on Y2K fears.  He mailed the magazine to his editor and he got a contract for a second book.

Massucci’s first book took five years to write.  But he picked up the pace for the second book, and The Millennium Project hit store shelves in December.

To save time, he worked part time and dictated the book into a microcassette recorder.  His wife, Patricia, a Joliet native, transcribed his tapes.  "We were like an assembly line trying to get this novel written," he said.

"It worked out so well, I got rid of writer’s block and staring at a blank screen," he said.  "It's very deliberate and very tedious typing into a computer.  If you take the paper away, all that's left is your imagination and thinking process."

His next book will be a medical thriller based on cloning. Though he writes in the technothriller genre, Massucci said he tries to keep the jargon to a minimum.  "I'm more interested in writing action and thrills and chills and leaving the hardware as the backdrop."

Yet he finds himself attracted to technical material.  If he had it to do all over again, Massucci said he'd probably have majored in computers in college.  "My alter ego is Julie Martinelli – the quintessential computer wizard," he said.

Massucci had intended to feature a male as the main character in his first book, but Martinelli was strong willed.  "She ended up just taking on a life of her own," he said.

As for the Y2K fears, they, too, seem to have a life of their own, Massucci said.  He doesn't expect airplanes to fall out of the sky.  But he thinks perhaps Amoco should shut down the refinery a few days before the new year, just in case.

"You don't want a refinery on line during a highly volatile process," he said.  "You can afford to lose a day of production to mitigate the risks."

It's clear that fixing the Y2K problem isn't as easy as some people think, he added.  "For every one bug you find, there are going to be five others out there you haven't found," he said. "The thrilling thing is waiting to see what's going to happen."  n

Massucci’s book is available at most major bookstores and some grocery and discount stores. For more information, check out his web page at www.massucci.com

— Cindy Wojdyla Cain