What the Critics Are Saying About
Format C:
by Edwin Black

Keep telling yourself it's fiction.

This thrill ride of a story combines current events and creepy characters seemingly modeled after the rich moguls of our era with a frightful scenario that Black makes believable. Throw in offbeat Biblical references and you have a great yarn. Format C: has to be the definitive millenium tale and one of the best high-tech thrillers I've read in years.
John C. Dvorak, columnist
PC Magazine

Format C:... will probably be the summer's hottest thriller. It should deeply disturb those who think that sinister electronic technology is taking over our lives. Readers... will be unable to resist this gripping, fanciful, fast-paced tale that has 'best-seller' written all over it.
Cleveland Plain Dealer

With Edwin Black's credentials in nonfiction reporting... to write a book like this, scares some of us... A great summertime read.
NewsChannel 8
Washington DC

Edwin Black catapults the reader into the new millennium with this allegorical thriller of technology push, Biblical pull, and the perpetual battle between good and evil. It's a compelling tale of corporate corruption that delves deep into God's ultimate gift to humanity: our ability to exercise free will. Format C: is well worth the journey.
Barbara Opall Rome, editor
Defense News

Just as Edwin Black epitomized hard-edged journalism at its best with his investigations of white collar crime, medical fraud, and Holocaust finance, now with his stunning first novel, Format C:, Black goes to the moral heart of our new world mix of electronic marvels, limitless wealth and its deep-seated corruption.
Edward T. Chase
former editor-in-chief
New York Times Books

Edwin Black's novel Format C: reminds me of an offbeat but brilliant film. This is as odd a book as you will ever see, but I think you will like it. I did.
Jerry Pournelle,
columnist, Byte Magazine
bestselling author, Lucifer's Hammer

In Format C:, Edwin Black has used his deep understanding of the technology industry to create one of the most page-turning thrillers I've read in ages. His grasp of millennium issues and his believable characters--some of whom jump straight from today's headlines, combine with a satisfying plot to keep you glued to the book from start to finish. This is the only book on the millennium bug I've read that is any good at all, and Format C: is very good indeed--a must read.
Wayne Rash,
Managing Editor/Technology
InternetWeek
author, Politics on the Nets

Loved it. Definitely a page turner. ...Just keep telling yourself it's fiction.
Z104-AM
Washington, DC

Format C: is a captivating ride through corporate America and modern Israel that takes you to a very real hell and beyond. Loved it to the last page.
Paul Wirtz, columnist
OS/2 For You

Beginning as an apparent technothriller of corporate struggles within the computer industry, Format C: evolves into an engrossing mystical allegory of the struggle between Good and Evil, fought with weapons ranging from the most modern computers to the Kabbala.
Mary Ginsburg
Inside NYPC

Edwin Black's unusual and engrossing novel... plunges the reader into a high-tech world racing through cyberspace toward Armageddon. ...The reader is catapulted... to a cataclysmic denouement. ...The cast of characters is complex and finely drawn, the attention to detail is profound and the race against time frighteningly suspenseful.
Gloria Goldreich
Hadassah Magazine

Frightening. Format C: sounds a little too real.
KSKE-AM
Vail Colorado

Awesome. A book everyone should check out.
KIXR-FM
Oklahoma City

Format C: is a brilliant allegorical thriller that takes the reader on a realistic path in which the Bible meets the information technology age. The story line is non-stop action that ultimately takes the reader from Chicago to the Armageddon climax. The lead protagonists are a wonderful team, who will gain much audience support. Ben is the modern villain, using technology to destroy his opponents. Edwin Black has written one of the best millennium doomsday novels of the decade because it seems so plausible.
Harriet Klausner
Director of Reviews
Bookbrowser.com

Massively conceived, neatly chiseled. ...Computer nerds will chew this up like the Breakfast of Champions. ...Black throughout shows great smarts and at times displays virtuoso rhetoric.
Kirkus Reviews

In this engaging and provocative novel, Format C:, Edwin Black has effectively applied his well-honed skills as an investigative reporter to confront the millennial and apocalyptic implications of the increasing presence of computer technology in our lives. We can only hope that Format C: really is a work of fiction, not a description of our present times or a prediction of our future.
Byron Sherwin, author "Mystical Theology and Social Dissent"

A Y2K-induced millennium meltdown... pits a self-infatuated investigative reporter against an even more egomanical computer mogul who is trying to implement a bizarre form of mind control through the software he manufactures. ...On the eve of the millennium in Jerusalem, the freedom of the world hangs in the balance...
Publishers Weekly

The theme of religion and computers has been explored before... but journalist Black makes the same even more real by using the current computer industry wars and the impending Y2K crisis as his backdrop. ...For the most part Format C: is an entertaining and provocative examination of our dependency on computers and the amount of information we reveal about ourselves each time we log on.
Library Journal

Technology run amok. Echoes of the Holocaust. Biblical mysticism. The eternal clash between good and evil. In his novel Format C:, Edwin Black has fashioned a literary canvas as broad and challenging as cyberspace itself. He navigates his world with power, style and grace. Millennium, here we come!
Al Erlick, editor
Washington Jewish Week

Want a good read this weekend? This is a scary book.
KVSF-AM
Santa Fe, New Mexico

...Black's millenium-bug novel is a cut above the rest of the genre: a believable and exciting read.
Time Digital

The writing is excellent. You feel like you are there: hotel rooms,privileged press conferences, executive office suites with CEO's going head to head. ...Bottom line: Format C: is a keeper for everyone. But for the socially concerned, the meaning is much deeper; this is the living illustration of the nightmare that could happen when one person controls too much.
Henry Ferlauto
Inside NYPC

Format C: brings together a lot of elements that fuel everyone's paranoia... the millennium, Y2K, and the idea of too much wealth and power in the hands of one individual or company.
KVON-AM
Napa, California

Format C: is a tribute to Edwin Black's imaginative spirit, his finely honed writing skills, his adept use of dialog and finally his ability to confer a felicitous fictional form to tomorrow's headlines. ...Format C: is thus more than a novel. It is an early warning system that contains enough realism to sound the alarm bells about the direction in which we are going hi tech-wise today.
Arnold Ages
Chicago Jewish Star



Copyright © 1999 - 2004 by Edwin Black

All Rights Reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be used in any form or by any means--graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems--without the written permission of the publisher.