The day after tomorrow... might only have been a movie but it has happened repeatedly in the past.
This weekend I happened upon a publisher's closeout sale at a local mall. A Tom Clancy hard cover dominated the first clearance table past the front door and his 500-page
Into the Storm was slashed to $2.00 (publisher's price $27.50.) On the next table, another thick stack of fire sale hard cover books rose above all others. It was the
The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell, Whitley Strieber for $7.00 (publisher's price $23.95.) In terms of effort and value, Clancy deserved a better break because
Superstorm is long on speculation and short on value. However, the rapidly fading interest
Superstorm is more than a failed publishing venture, because it also serves as a fitting tombstone for the cold corpse of millenniumitis.
The Decade of Millenniumitis During the last decade, the prospect of end-times catastrophes in the year 2000 plagued many with fear about an uncertain future. Yet, there was a tangible public concern that the year 2000 would bring disaster.
This fostered a consensus of fear that was aptly coined "millenniumitis" by the media and this social event was focused on a set date. As we came closer our fears escalated at a geometric rate.
In the midst of all this came books like
Superstorm, which offered a loosely structured, populist speculation that relied more on the public notoriety of the authors for credibility than upon quality research and organization. Nonetheless, the central premise of
Superstorm still remains a valid point of discussion for those interested in the process view of catastrophe, as opposed to those who prefer the populist event-driven view.
