Blowing financial bubbles at the end of the millennium.
After all the hype, New Year's 2000 has come and gone without a hitch. Well, almost: while Fix was working on a Y2K solution for a Canadian bank, he accidentally released a bug that gave his bank account 2000 years' worth of interest. Now he's infinitely rich, but he's on the run with his best friend Julie, framed for having stolen the money. As they're chased from town to town by a mysterious couple in a white van, the bug starts to leak. Money will become worthless if everyone is suddenly rich. Then what? That's just what Fix has to decide…
After all the hype, New Year's 2000 has come and gone without a hitch. Well, almost: while Fix was working on a Y2K solution for a Canadian bank, he accidentally released a bug that gave his bank account 2000 years' worth of interest. Now he's infinitely rich, but he's on the run with his best friend Julie, framed for having stolen the money. As they're chased from town to town by a mysterious couple in a white van, the bug starts to leak. Money will become worthless if everyone is suddenly rich. Then what? That's just what Fix has to decide…
Ahh, Y2K. I started this project without really knowing what I was working on. I’d just written a play with my best friend – the first major work of creative writing I’d put out for others to see -- and was hooked.
Of course, Y2K was a topic with the shelf-life of yoghurt in the sun. But the book is really about money, and what it means to have an economy that’s based on speculation and imaginary figures rather than things of actual value. I could feel vindicated that we’re facing exactly the same financial issues again, but it would be cold comfort.
The story asks what we truly value -- which has a way of showing up when the systems that prop up everyday life start to falter. And I had a lot of fun discovering this story in my imagination, about a bunch of geeks working for a bank on the run for having accidentally made themselves infinitely rich.
I was in talks with one publisher, but ultimately they got cold feet: the story was time-sensitive, so they’d have to sell the entire run within the year. Not content to let it sit in a drawer, I started my career as a self-publisher, designing the book myself and hiring Toronto's Coach House Press to do the actual print production. I learned a lot from the whole experience, and felt like I could finally call myself a writer: I had a book.
Of course, Y2K was a topic with the shelf-life of yoghurt in the sun. But the book is really about money, and what it means to have an economy that’s based on speculation and imaginary figures rather than things of actual value. I could feel vindicated that we’re facing exactly the same financial issues again, but it would be cold comfort.
The story asks what we truly value -- which has a way of showing up when the systems that prop up everyday life start to falter. And I had a lot of fun discovering this story in my imagination, about a bunch of geeks working for a bank on the run for having accidentally made themselves infinitely rich.
I was in talks with one publisher, but ultimately they got cold feet: the story was time-sensitive, so they’d have to sell the entire run within the year. Not content to let it sit in a drawer, I started my career as a self-publisher, designing the book myself and hiring Toronto's Coach House Press to do the actual print production. I learned a lot from the whole experience, and felt like I could finally call myself a writer: I had a book.
...........................................
Review:
Fix (short for Felix) and Julie are computer programmers working to make the software of the fictional megalopoly, First Dominion Bank, Y2K compliant... Ugh! Not another Y2K book. Wait, before, I lose you, this one's different. So, the clock strikes midnight plus one and the virus spreads through all the bank's software, and Fix becomes unbelievably rich. Fix and the rest of the world. Money loses all value. It's my kind of book, I tell you. Julie looks like a boy, but she kinda loves Fix. Fix meets Jeff while they're on the run from the bankers, and it's all over for Julie. Have I lost you yet?
Emerging writer Hamish Macdonald has created a fast-as-light book where computers are as they should be: inanimate objects used as tools by programmers with a bit more on their minds than money. There's sex, mystery, action and even a revolution of sorts. Here's the best part of the whole book: it's self-published. And it's done so well. I kept flipping it over and over to see who'd put it together. HarperCollins, surely? MacDonald should win a huge prize for his courage, or something.
- Emily Pohl-Weary
Broken Pencil Magazine
Fix (short for Felix) and Julie are computer programmers working to make the software of the fictional megalopoly, First Dominion Bank, Y2K compliant... Ugh! Not another Y2K book. Wait, before, I lose you, this one's different. So, the clock strikes midnight plus one and the virus spreads through all the bank's software, and Fix becomes unbelievably rich. Fix and the rest of the world. Money loses all value. It's my kind of book, I tell you. Julie looks like a boy, but she kinda loves Fix. Fix meets Jeff while they're on the run from the bankers, and it's all over for Julie. Have I lost you yet?
Emerging writer Hamish Macdonald has created a fast-as-light book where computers are as they should be: inanimate objects used as tools by programmers with a bit more on their minds than money. There's sex, mystery, action and even a revolution of sorts. Here's the best part of the whole book: it's self-published. And it's done so well. I kept flipping it over and over to see who'd put it together. HarperCollins, surely? MacDonald should win a huge prize for his courage, or something.
- Emily Pohl-Weary
Broken Pencil Magazine
