Rating: 
Summary: A Bleat from the Author
Review: A note to apocalypse fans:1) Starting on January 15, look for my Web site at www.apocalypseprettysoon.com, where I'll be providing ongoing "interactive" news about the End. 2) Not to quibble with the Kirkus writer, but I didn't make a mistake about the number of people killed at Oklahoma City. (I know how many people died there.) In the passage cited by the reviewer, I was talking about Timothy McVeigh's mindset before he touched off the bomb, about what he *intended* to do. He fully intended to kill as many people as he could, and he no doubt knew that the number could have been in the "hundreds." O.K., I'll stop whining now.
Rating: 
Summary: Heard's take on the coming millenium is perfect.
Review: Alex Heard is from Kansas by way of Mississippi. This background makes him an expert in primitive people and their mores. His book captures the spirit of the weirdness which pervades modern America. However, I am somewhat suprised that Heard did not write about the cult in Garden City, Kansas which believes that Jimmy Hoffa was buried under Garden City's infamous cement slab and that his spirit will arise in the Year 2000 and "take out" capitalists like the CEOs of Microsoft, Exxon and Morgan-Quitno Press.
Rating:
Summary: Joyride to the Future
Review: Alex Heard's adventures in the borderlands of culture remind me of the joys of listening to radical idealists of any stripe. I could feel the presence of each of his subjects, whether dreamer of a new Atlantis or channeler of benevolent, alien intelligence, or cross-bearing transcontinental walker. Each individual is a revelation in the spectrum of humanity, and most of them are endearing in distinct and peculiar ways. Heard is not unkind to either his subjects or his readers. He is a translator between "here" and "there," whose writing is so fluid and flawless that these strange world views slide into one another leaving the reader wondering how preferrable his own reality is in comparison. Read this book and be, by turns, amazed, entertained, touched, and more eager to engage the world and try out other lenses on reality.
Rating:
Summary: Joyride to the Future
Review: Alex Heard's adventures in the borderlands of culture remind me of the joys of listening to radical idealists of any stripe. I could feel the presence of each of his subjects, whether dreamer of a new Atlantis or channeler of benevolent, alien intelligence, or cross-bearing transcontinental walker. Each individual is a revelation in the spectrum of humanity, and most of them are endearing in distinct and peculiar ways. Heard is not unkind to either his subjects or his readers. He is a translator between "here" and "there," whose writing is so fluid and flawless that these strange world views slide into one another leaving the reader wondering how preferrable his own reality is in comparison. Read this book and be, by turns, amazed, entertained, touched, and more eager to engage the world and try out other lenses on reality.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining look at some bizarre world views
Review: An entertaining, funny and often sad look at some of the various personalities that make up the cultish world of millenial apocalyptic groups. The common thread here is the belief in imminent apocalyptic change by the groups through different means (alien visitation, return of Jesus, cataclysmic Earth changes, etc.).
Heard, it seems, tries to be objective and open-minded about each group at first. But when faced with the absurdity of their belief systems and after getting to know the people that form the leadership of these groups, he can't help but present a slightly more skeptical opinion. By the end of each chapter, after Heard has presented his study of the group, it's leadership, tactics, and beliefs, it's hard to not think these people are out of their minds.
The book is also a fine study in the unusual aspects of the human psyche. From the egomaniacal and seemingly deranged leaders to their willing and needy followers, Heard gives us a hard look at some of the personalities that make up these fringe groups.
Rating: 
Summary: Whining, revenge-seeking
Review: By his own admission, Alex Heard's first chapter (deemed his "best" by reviewers) seems to be a personally motivated, whining, and revenge-seeking diatribe against a New Age nonprofit organization that caught him stealing files and photocopying them from a private back room. After he was discovered and tongue-lashed by the organization's director, Heard, in his own words, "whined and pleaded" but could not understand why members of the organization didn't seem to "like him" after the incident! He goes on and on about wanting to be accepted and liked, and the cooler his reception, the more hurt he seems to be-and bent on revenge. The book seems to have been motivated by his resulting ego deflation, perhaps to salvage some self-esteem, or to prove to himself that, despite his lapse in ethics and law-abiding manners, he was still a "reputable journalist." But he tells on himself: (a) he never met the (deceased) founder of the organization, but that doesn't stop him from lobbing at her the caliber of insults one would think twice about hurling toward a hated enemy; (b) he never read any of the books upon which the organization's beliefs were founded; (c) not finding anything sinister to report, he digresses into a tale about a totally unrelated, extremist organization from the 1950s, whose behavior and beliefs bear no resemblance to the subject of his chapter. By this juxtaposition, he tries to imply some artificial similarity. When this fails, he uses the same tactic to imply parallels to the notorious Heaven's Gate organization-again, completely unrelated in beliefs and behavior. Perhaps because of Heard's affiliation with supposedly reputable periodicals, his unethical "reporting" on this subject has been published in book form. The fact that the subject organization of Heard's first chapter did not immediately telephone police after his break-in, or at the least, ask him to leave the premises and not return, may demonstrate that he might be right on one count, if such extreme tolerance can be called "crazy"! But Heard's chapter goes on. Still not satiated because he is unable to find any "dirt" to dish (beyond criticizing the founder's fashion choices), Heard digs up an article by another writer that he quotes extensively. It features an individual who left the subject organization under a cloud, after his alcoholism and promiscuous homosexuality had come to light (he was soliciting sex from young male members). This quoted former member (now also deceased) had a grudge to avenge after his public exposure, so Heard finds in him a suitable compatriot willing to ladle up enough fabricated slander to curdle anyone's pudding. After that, I put Heard's book down. I hate to think what his other chapters have done to other organizations. Real, reputable, sincere, or out there, I guarantee that Heard's reporting is slanted to his own objectives and therefore not the "objective" tour the book's cover promises. In fact, the book seems to be nothing more than an attempt to cover up for Heard's own lapses of manners and professional ethics. He can whine all day, as artfully as he wants to, and he'll still be the kind of journalist one should never let in the front door. If I wrote about my neighborhood church using his approach, you'd think every God-fearing American was some kind of wacko waiting for pie-in-the-sky "salvation" who should be locked up for "worshipping golden crucifixes gruesomely affixed to the wall"! I could paint the same kind of picture about any group, organization, belief system, or political organization. Let's don't encourage this kind of pre-biased, revenge-seeking "journalism."
Rating:
Summary: lost between deerfield and lakin
Review: don't forget to check out the feature undertones of this masterpeice. the chicken hawk and the field mouse will be the next one to come
Rating:
Summary: I loved it. This copy is for my best friend!
Review: Funny and incisive, this book was a delight from start to finish. I've started a few arguments (what we in Washington call "open and honest debates") at the dinner table by quoting some of the more outrageous stories, and then bringing in the book to prove them. Can we look for a sequel on the post-Millenial hang-over?
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reading.
Review: Funny, sad, and endless food for thought. Excellent satire and although not completely objective, a necessary read for anyone interested in the millinneum complex. Just finished reading the bestselling conspiracy thriller, 'Alien Rapture' by Brad Steiger and understand why they are going to make a movie of the novel. This author has cut to the root of our obsessive journey to understand cult fever and the paranoid circus that is being stirred up across America. Although, as most Americans, I DO BELIEVE, after reading 100s of documents released by the Freedom of Information requests on UFOs, that there is INDEED a COVERUP by our government.
Rating:
Summary: Bring it on!
Review: Having read Heard's book, I am fully ready for the new millennium (if not the apocalypse). It's a trenchant and smart and fully entertaining look at what happens to people's brains and souls and hearts when the last 9 on the calendar gets ready to flip.
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