Rating: 
Summary: Out of the Coma, Into the Night
Review: Coupland's latest novel is by far the best of his later books. I have been a devout reader of Douglas Coupland's work and have been disappointed with basically everything since Microserfs. Hey Nostradamus! has changed all of that. Hey! is a critical look into modern fanatacism and the consequences of being a teenager in a world filled with guns, God, and video games.The novel is divided into four parts each narrated by a different character. The connections between the characters are at first, not obvious. Coupland threads these misfits into a disjointed narrative that works. The first part is narrated by Cheryl, who has been killed in a Columbine-style massacre in a Vancouver high school in 1988. Cheryl's account reminds me of Susie Salmon's in The Lovely Bones--She is telling the story from a "space" not heaven, not hell, not earth. As macabre as the plot is, the style works. Her husband's (Jason's) account is not as seamless, but his disillusionment shows well through the narrative. I would have liked to have read more about Reg, Jason's religious fanatic father, but his portion of the book was cut short, I felt. There is no obvious resolution here, but in today's world, there seldom is. This, I believe, is Coupland's intent, or part of it, anyway. For those looking for critical insight into post-Columbine, post-9/11 North America, Douglas Coupland's latest novel does not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: Confront your own feelings of human expiration.
Review: Douglas Coupland is certainly a Canadian gem. In this book Coupland, through the minds of four main characters, takes the reader on an amazing path through spirituality, human understanding, great loss, and big turning points--all while maintaining his gift of beautifully pointing out obviousness in this world that many of us miss. What I enjoyed most about this book was not only Coupland's wicked sense of humour, but his ability to tell four different views of the same event(s) through four men and women. It is not every day that one comes across a writer who can effectively capture the mind of a male and a female like Coupland has done so effortlessly in "Hey Nostradamus!". I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone looking to explore sides of love, loss and understanding on the spiritual and human fronts. It's a fantastic page-turner, too. And I loathe using that term, so I sincerely mean it.
Rating: 
Summary: Coupland's Getting Back on Track
Review: For many Coupland fans, myself included, he's never been able to top "Microserfs," and its characters, humor, emotion, and his overriding philosophy about seeking something better and the realization about what that something better really is.
After the alienating characters of "All Families are Psychotic," where the reader was practically dared to care about any of them, we find Coupland again returning to a basic theme with a handful of characters. Each part of this book looks at the Columbine-like shooting, its aftermath, and the long-range effects on the characters.
The father character is the most problematic, but the final chapter, written from his perspective, is the key to understanding what this book and Coupland's message is all about. The spiritual themes that Coupland has explored in each of his books (especially "Girlfriend in a Coma") is once again brought front and center. The final paragraph of the book and its apochryphal nature make you stop and re-consider the Biblical themes that have been carried through the course of the overall story. Rather than rejecting religion, Coupland once again, appears to be presenting in a modern context, very debates about Christianity, and what its preachings really are about, as opposed to the way many of its detractors---and some of its most-ardent practitioners---understand its message to be.
Rating:
Summary: Cuttingly Original
Review: Four different voices with staggered time periods tell a compelling story that echoes the recent high school shootings we've seen so often in recent years. I read this book in 24 hours, all the while wondering what the next narrator would add to the tapestry. Time well spent, highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Nostradamus says another great book from Coupland
Review: Hey Nostradamus! deals with themes that are common in Coupland's previous works; relationships, love, cultural alienation, death and the self. Here he has branched out a little further, looking at these concepts on, what feels to be, a broader, more encompassing scope. Whilst his earlier work doesn't consider God in relation to these themes, Hey Nostradamus! puts faith, religion and a sense of God towards the forefront, and whilst the book is easily more spiritual than its predecessors, it is by no means a book doused with spiritual cues.
It is written from four seperate points of view, stretching in time from 1988 to 2003. Each character brings something new to the table in terms of angle and perspective, and helps to give the reader a well defined picture of the characters.
Spiritually speaking, all the characters have different beleifs and concepts of faith raging from Jason's (the novel's main character) antediluvian father Reg to the religiously disinterested Heather, who herself claims to be "weak on religion". It is through these religious differences that Coupland focuses on interpersonal relationships, a common theme of his and ultimately what the book falls back upon. He paints a strong, rather emotional, picture of how religious persuasions can influence and be influenced by, major events in our lives.
The book is certainly well written, Coupland is no doubt one of the better pop writers of the time, although it did leave me wanting a little more. Whilst the subject matter is rather emotional, I was expecting to be a little more overwhlemed by the book, quite possibly a flaw in my expectations rather than the novel itself. Having said that, it is a highly engaging book that will entertain you and make you think, if not about your own beliefs, then about how you consider other people's.
Rating:
Summary: Coupland at his best
Review: Hey Nostradamus! is the latest novel by Canadian author Douglas Coupland. Coupland is perhaps best known for coining the phrase "Generation X" - taken from the title of his first novel. I have been a huge fan of Coupland's since that first novel - even though much of his work is spotty (for example, I thought "Girlfriend in a Coma" started very strong, then meandered away to mediocrity).
This novel, however, is brilliant from top to bottom. Similar to the atrocious Booker winner ("Vernon God Little"), this novel is a take on school shootings. But where VGL does it's best to explain the "why" of school violence (and fails miserably), Coupland wisely uses the school violence as a starting point. He's much more concerned with "what happens afterward?" This creates a much more complex novel that explores not only teen angst, but also familial emotional abuse, spirituality, religion, feelings of urban isolation, and a host of other themes.
By using four narrators, Coupland is able to take a core theme, spirituality, and absorb it and examine it from vastly different angles. Moreso than in his other work, Coupland captures the unique voice and experience of each character.
Overall, this was a fascinating read, and one that will stay with me for a long time - especially the "Heather" section. An amazing novel.
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps Coupland's Best Novel Yet
Review: Hey Nostradamus! may be Douglas Coupland's best novel yet. In telling the story of a Columbine-like massacre Coupland resists the temptation to concentrate on the whys and hows of the killing and instead weaves a story of how the massacre affects the lives of those who experienced it. The book tells the story of four people, one of whom dies in the shooting spree and the other three who have to live with its consequences. The story explores the way people deal with tragedy, but it goes beyond this. Hey Nostradamus! explores the unintended consequences of emotional support, the nature of acceptance and denial, the way people form relationships, and the way that society focuses on select aspects of events. It is not happy story, but it will make you aware that people are much more complex than they are generally given credit for. Each of Coupland's four main characters starts off as a cliche. The book peels away the public face of each character and reveals them as being different aspects of each other. The book is, in effect, a novelization of R.E.M.'s song Everybody Hurts.
Rating: 
Summary: He can do better
Review: I am a big fan of Douglas Coupland, but I found Hey Nostradamus! rather disappointing. It definitely had its moments, but for the most part was aimless and pointless, and seemed like he was just trying to meet a deadline and hurry and get the book finished. He did finish it, but with no apparent ending. If you haven't read any of his books, I would highly recommend NOT starting with this one. Try Generation X, Girlfriend in a Coma or Microserfs instead. Maybe his next effort will be better.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed in Nostradamus.
Review: I bought this book as an impulse. The cover intrigued me and the discription of the book on the back intrigued me even more. Unfortunately I feel that to book didn't have follow through.
I found all four voices in this book to be too similar. There was no tangable differences between Cheryl and Jason especially. I also found Reg and and Heather's sections to be extremely forced.
This book is timely and I think it had GREAT potential. However I feel it falls flat. The characters are trite and extremely naive to the world.
I am giving it three stars.
Rating:
Summary: Never mind the clanking narrative
Review: I read plenty of books, but few of them are novels, probably because, as I age, I can "hear the devices clanking away" (in the words of Richard Rodriguez, author of "Brown," who knows what he's talking about). Nevertheless, I remain drawn to the novels of Douglas Coupland, who like me is from Vancouver. That despite his being an extreme example of "write what you know"--his characters are pretty much all young, white, and middle class; they live in the Western United States or just across the border in Canada; when they travel, they go to Vegas or Oregon or Seattle, never to Alberta or New York (forget about Japan or Madagascar); they all talk and think in some variation of semi-ironic, simile-heavy, pop-referencing Coupland-speak; their themes are sudden loss, pointless death, loneliness, running away, and vague dread, even from the afterlife; their tales often start strong and then slowly vaporize rather than coming to a strong conclusion. Clanking devices indeed. Somehow, though, I don't care. His novels are better than his non-fiction, which (while entertaining) feels dashed-off, undisciplined, and improperly researched. In fiction, he takes advantage of those same tendencies to write with a strange propulsion, even when his characters are doing nothing but sitting and thinking. The stories are short but dense. His eye for detail evokes the true feelings of a place. Even his weakest books, such as "Shampoo Planet," "Girlfriend in a Coma," and "Miss Wyoming," have something to say, although neither the reader nor the writer might know exactly what that is. "Hey Nostradamus!," from 2003, is an extreme example. It takes place almost entirely in North and West Vancouver, and revolves around kids in high school, and what becomes of them and their families. There are many deaths, some deserved, some uncertain, some shockingly random. It's about people who want to change themselves, but can't. Only one of the four major characters does change, and only far too late, when he's irrelevant to everyone to whom it would matter. And yet, there at the end of the book, I nearly cried. I think it's Coupland's best written work since "Microserfs" a decade ago. Go read it.
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