Valley Mayhem? Such a Surprise!

Sure, Y2K may have been a breeze, but watch out for 2025. In Caleb Carr’s new murder mystery “Killing Time,” that year sees a disastrous water shortage in Southern California.

Los Angeles is “relatively calm south of the Santa Monica mountains,” Carr writes. But “residents of the San Fernando Valley--one of the first places to feel the full effects of the region’s water depletion--[are] rioting and engaging the authorities with the same crazed determination that had consumed them for years.”

National Guard troops roam the streets. So do police who have attack dogs “specially trained to sniff out water” that had been stolen.

Alas, Carr doesn’t say whether the Valley was in this position because its crazed determination had allowed it to secede from L.A.

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NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS: At least the Valley exists in Carr’s futuristic vision. You’ll recall it’s not so lucky in the movie “Escape from L.A.,” in which a quake and a tidal wave transform it into the San Fernando Sea by the year 2013.

Nor does Carr mention any quakes. So perhaps you can stop worrying about that 8-plus magnitude shaker that strikes Southern California in 2010 in the movie “Demolition Man.”

Nor does Carr portray fuel-less Angelenos walking on deserted freeways toward Oregon as they are in the circa-2025 L.A. of Octavia Butler’s novel “Parable of the Sower.”

And San Diego can rejoice that it still has a separate identity in Carr’s novel. It hasn’t been swallowed into a megalopolis called Los Andiegoles as it is in T.C. Boyle’s “Friend of the Earth,” also set around 2025.

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OTHERWORLDLY RECOUNT: Do space aliens know something about the outcome of the election that we don’t? Ora Oscherowitz reports that on “Roswell,” a TV show about teenage extraterrestrials, one character was asked what she thought of “our new president.”

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HOW’S THAT AGAIN? This column’s readers, bless them, take pleasure in contradictory signs that seem to be posted mainly to confuse passersby. Take today’s submissions (see photos), which include:

* A sunken garden that seems to be sinking upward (Michael Locke of Huntington Beach).

* A closure with an opening (Deanne Reagan of Norwalk).

* A walkway that’s not for walking (Edward Ticktin of Thousand Oaks).

* An anti-dumping dumpster.

* And a self-guided tour with some outside guidance (snapped by Daniel Murphy).

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SOME EXPLANATIONS: While column researchers are pursuing several investigations related to today’s photos, I can tell you that Geezer’s is a restaurant that was open during a street closure. And the walkway was for workers at a fish hatchery.

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WELL, THEY SAY LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE: After purchasing “The Complete Guide to Pain Relief,” Mrs. D.M. Carlson of Costa Mesa was puzzled to receive a note welcoming her “to the wonderful world of Reader’s Digest Home Entertainment Products.”

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At a Writers Bloc gathering, Hank Rosenfeld heard author and playwright Larry Gelbart wisecrack: “They say a country gets the president it deserves. Now we don’t even deserve one.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at [email protected].