Something About Y2K
is Bugging This Guy

By James D. Watts Jr., World Entertainment Writer, 8/15/99

Y ASK Y

Joe Massucci is the author of THE MILLENNIUM PROJECT, a work of fiction about an apocalyptic computer bug. It’s definitely not for the squeamish,” said Massucci.
Photo by MIKE SIMONS/ Tulsa World

It could almost be a scene straight out of a technothriller:

Time is running out for our hero. The city in which he lives is on the brink of disaster, in spite of our hero’s very public warnings.  But, just in the nick of time, a way of escape opens up, and he and his loved ones steal away to a city of refuge, safe from the devastation the approaching apocalypse will bring.

OK. Perhaps the circumstances that brought writer Joe Massucci from Chicago to Tulsa weren’t quite so dramatic. But the principle is the same.

Massucci is the author of THE MILLENNIUM PROJECT (Leisure Books), one of the first works of fiction that used the computer glitch known as the Millennium Bug as the starting point for a suspense thriller.

Massucci’s novel covers the final few days of 1999, beginning with the crash of a commercial jet on its way to Washington, D.C. All the computers on board the plane crash and cannot be rebooted, leaving the pilots helpless to control the craft.

The computer failure points to a more deadly scenario — the possibility that the United States’ defensive capabilities, in particular the net of monitoring satellites circling the globe, has been compromised because of the Millennium Bug.

THE MILLENNIUM PROJECT story moves from Washington to Colorado to Chicago and grows to encompass a bizarre villain worthy of a James Bond adventure, a well-armed militia convinced that the end of the world is near, a hijacked train, a stolen helicopter, an assault via computer upon the world’s financial markets, kinky sex and a rather staggering number of violent deaths.

“It’s definitely not for the squeamish,” he said.

The idea for the novel grew out of Massucci’s work as a communications consultant supporting information technology for BP Amoco. He had been assigned to work on the company’s “Project Millennium,” and as he learned about the potential problems of Y2K, he realized he had the makings for a thriller.

“I had recently published my first book (CODE:ALPHA, another techno-thriller about terrorists obtaining a biogenetic weapon), and my editor was wanting me to come up with another, to build on the momentum,” he said. “I mentioned doing a book about the Millennium Bug. He said he had never heard of such a thing. When he asked the people in his office about it, only one had heard of it, and he didn’t think it was all that big a deal.

“Then, that same week, Newsweek magazine had as its cover story ‘The Day the World Crashes,’ about Y2K,” Massucci said, grinning. “I sent my editor a copy of that article. In two weeks, he called back saying they wanted to do the book and were doubling my advance.”

The only problem was, they wanted to book in stores by the fall of 1998, which meant I would have to deliver the book early that year. That meant I had eight months to write the thing.  My first book took me five years.”

Massucci found that the fastest way to work was to dictate, and have his wife, Patricia, transcribe his recordings into the computer. Massucci then would rework the transcribed pages for several more drafts.  He managed to meet the deadline, and THE MILLENNIUM PROJECT was in stores in November 1998.

“I’m pleased with the book,” he said, “but I was writing it so fast that I never really knew what I had until it was finished. I would have loved to have had another year to work on it, but that’s just the way things go.

“And I’m fairly certain that THE MILLENNIUM PROJECT was the first novel by a major publishing house to deal with the Y2K problem,” he said. “There’s a bunch of them out now, of course.”

Massucci said the book is selling well, in bookstores and through Internet booksellers such as Amazon.com.  “Usually sales have a tendency to taper off after a while, but for this book it really hasn’t let up,” he said. “I suppose people haven’t yet gotten tired of hearing about the Millennium Bug.”

Massucci moved to Tulsa in May of this year, when his wife took a job with the Williams Companies.  But he was also very pleased that he was able to get away from a major metropolitan area like Chicago before the end of the year.

“I was in Chicago the last time the Bulls won the championship, and the whole city was a zoo — looting, rioting, people just going nuts,” he said. “And that was because something good happened. Imagine what it would be like if these same people are confronting an imminent disaster. That’s really the biggest danger — panic. There are definite things to worry about — how Y2K is going to affect banks, for example — but as long as people don’t panic and turn on each other, I think things will go more or less smoothly.

“And that’s the main reason why I think Tulsa is about as Y2K ready as anywhere,” he said. “There’s a radically different mind-set here — it’s not the every-man-for-himself attitude you find in the major cities. People are friendly here. They’re willing to help each other in a crisis.”  n

But Tulsa writer Joe Massucci is taking a different tack when it comes to the book he calls his “labor of love,” an adventure fantasy called THE RESURRECTION OF ANDREW FINSBURY.

Through his website, Massucci is offering his fans and interested Internet surfers the opportunity to serve as a “test reader” for the novel.

“Every novelist needs some kind of unbiased feedback on his or her work,” he said. “I thought this would be a unique way of obtaining some new perspectives on my novel.”

Massucci sends prospective readers the complete printed text of the novel, and will take the readers’ suggestions into consideration as he retools the manuscript.

“It’s in a finished state — I always say you should never show anything you’ve written to people until you’ve got it as good as you can get it,” he said. “But there is always room for improvement. I’ve gotten some suggestions and insights that are just priceless in helping me improve the book.”

Massucci has sent copies of THE RESURRECTION OF ANDREW FINSBURY as far away as Canada and Germany, and his “test reader” method has caught the attention of creative writing teachers at some major universities.

“I wouldn’t hesitate to do this again with another book,” Massucci said. “Although it is a lot of work. I’m getting three to four requests a week.”  n