"The important stuff in life is black and white, kid. Good guys, bad guys. Winners, losers. Us, them. Ones and zeroes. Everything else is just shades of grey."
What happens when the fates of a lovesick VR programmer, a disgruntled support technician, and a market-dominating software vendor collide at the dawn of the new millenium? In Douglas Smith's New Year's Eve: a Y2K bug to rival even the worst predictions.
The story is told elegantly in black and white. Literally. At first there is only a mention here, a hint there, but as the story progresses, Douglas Smith paints for the reader a more complete vision of a monochromatic world: stark, refined and beautiful.
This growing sense of the visual landscape provides an effective backdrop for the events of the story. Personal and corporate agendas play out with Bogey's comment from the opening scene (quoted above) echoing in the background. Black and white? Or shades of grey? New Year's Eve keeps these questions on the reader's mind.
Y2K has come and gone, but this story remains relevant in its portrayal of all-too-familiar corporate ladder-climbing, the very current questions we face today regarding the effects of exposure to "virtual" realities, and the timeless quest to find love.