B0t

It is 2017, and the centennial of the Russian Revolution is about to be celebrated in an alternative world socialist computopia where the Marshall Plan has failed and the world is caught in a bipolar Cold War between the Soviet Super-Union and the Caliphate. Setzer's bots have been deployed. In this world, technological innovation is given a freer hand. The global soviet is gearing up for a massive celebration of the Revolution, replete with propaganda and the genetic engineering olympics of reintroducing mammoths. Computational materialism, secret freebooters, stultifying layers of bureaucracy, arctic exile, mandatory physical activity quotas, environmentalist dictatorship, great feats of engineering, Lenin-inspired shower curtains, and an ideological long-game between two geopolitical chess players feature in this jump-cut tale.

Kane Faucher is an assistant professor in media, a public sector consultant, and novelist. His most notable works include The Infinite Library (CCM Press), Professor Montgomery Cristo (Enigmatic Ink Press) and Metastasis and Metastability: A Deleuzian Approach to Information (Sense/Springer). He lives in London, Canada.