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January 2, 2007

Fans of the 25th letter will add it to Y and Ys on their year's best lists

teaiki_cover_lg.jpg The blog you're reading now would pretty much not exist without the technical skills of Mr. Kevin Shay, implementer, troubleshooter and, not least, inventor of the plug-in that keeps my comments spam free. But it turns out that Kevin doesn't just have skills (skilz), he also has talent. Last week, Doubleday published his first novel, The End As I Know It. Watch your back, Guilfoile.

I haven't gotten my copy yet, but I love the premise.

It’s 1998. Or, as Randall Knight sees it, Y2K minus two. Randall, a twenty-five-year-old children’s singer and puppeteer, has discovered the clock is ticking toward a worldwide technological cataclysm. But he may still be able to save his loved ones—if he can convince them to prepare for the looming catastrophe. That’s why he’s quit his job, moved into his car, and set out to sound the alarm.

There's much more at Kevin's new site. In addition to all the usual book promo stuff, he's created an on this day pre-Y2K blog to resurrect hilarious pre-2000 Internet comments from Y2K doomers.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

Comments

My back is under constant surveillance. Kevin's book is great, by the way. It's hard to describe the relationship the reader develops with Randall. You're a little bit embarrassed for him, but you're also a little bit embarrassed for yourself because we all bought into that hype, even if only a little bit. The fact that you can remember that time so vividly, and that it now seems so innocent, creates this instant nostalgia for everything in the story. And it's funny, too.

KShay and I were just trading emails yesterday about how many of us knuckleheads who were goofing off on the McSw web site back in 1999 suddenly have books out or about to come out. Kevin, you, me, Hodgman, Pollack, Warner, Pruzan, Sean Wilsey, Dan Kennedy, John Moe. I'm sure I'm missing a couple. And almost no one was reading at the time. It's crazy. It's especially cool that Kevin's written a book set back then.

For the record, I scored a 47 on that quiz. Shatner auctioned off his kidney stone? How did I miss that?

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