The novel and its author have been deemed "prophetic" or "prescient", as the last part depicts an Islamic terrorist attack which bears strong similarities with the bombings in Bali in October 2002, about a year later (and the novel was published on 27 August 2001, a few days before the 11 September 2001 attacks). A similar eery coincidence, involving Houellebecq, Islam and terrorism, would occur 13 years later, when his novel "Submission", dealing with Islam again (although in a more nuanced and less confrontational way), was published on 7 January 2015, the day of the Charlie Hebdo shooting.