Reality Bytes

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but that didn’t stop Los Angeleno Jason Kelly from turning a real-life technology nightmare into a novel.

Kelly’s “Y2K: It’s Already Too Late”--apparently the first novel inspired by the year 2000 computer glitch--envisions massive failures of banks, phones and power plants that ultimately make the U.S. vulnerable to an attack by the Chinese military. The country’s hopes rest with one company, Solvang Solutions, which is able to repair Y2K problems because it has its own diesel electricity and a private satellite network.

“Jason Kelly’s novel is based on evidence from congressional testimony, military documents and reports from computer experts,” according to the book jacket. “It is a chilling look at what lies just around the corner.”

We’ll see.