Berlin 2013: U.S.E. Power Games

by Izai Amorim

This book serves as a timeless literary soundtrack for election years, setting the stage in the fictional United States of Europe during the election year 2013, and depicting the final days of Berlin before its obliteration by an atomic bomb. Marrying cynicism with dark humor, this account reveals a world without heroes, filled with varying degrees of malevolence in a relentless battle of evil against evil. Nevertheless, this is realistic literature, not dystopian fiction.

In this alternative history novel, steeped in political and power intrigues, the least repulsive character is a former terrorist, now on parole, once the most-wanted killer of his time. This reveals much about the other characters: corrupt environmental organizations running extortion schemes; global media networks twisting the truth; secret services going rogue; politicians manipulating public opinion to gain or retain power; and other dubious entities.

While “Berlin 2013: U.S.E. Power Games” is far from an uplifting tale, it is crucial because it shows how disinformation and storytelling are used to forge power structures that answer to no one. Unaccountable power poses a severe threat to democracy and the rule of law. The central question of this story, therefore, is not who committed the act or why but rather how we can stop and reverse the ongoing erosion of democratic values — if indeed that is still possible.

370 pages, Hardcover

Published August 21, 2024

About the author

Izai Amorim was born and raised in Brazil and spent his adult life abroad, briefly in the USA, mostly in Germany. Trained as an architect and a civil engineer, Izai has worked in real estate and construction, branding and communications, and project management. At home in many languages and cultures, and with a rich and diverse work experience, Izai's fiction has depth and breadth, and his storytelling travels well, reaching a worldwide audience.

Reviews

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really strange book, especially for a Berlin resident in the year 2025. The alternative history on which it is based takes place at the moment when in reality the capital changed following the unification of the two Germanies. Berlin does not become the capital of Germany because of the creation of the United States of Europe, and a city ready to become a metropolis finds itself a suburb, with a high unemployment rate and an exorbitant number of empty houses (if only, given the now stratospheric rents!). All the forces that make Berlin Berlin are becoming more extreme: latent neo-Nazism; immigrants who are always poised between being a resource and a nuisance; environmentalist movements that often only pay lip service; an excessive love of rules that too often ends up as a way of sweeping dirt under the carpet. Into all this chaos comes the campaign for the U.S.E Power Games, which ends up literally blowing up the city. Into all this moves a former RAF terrorist who, having served his sentence, has become a sad old man who photographs windows. And I, who hate curtains, after reading this novel, can no longer look at Berlin's windows in the same way...

[Deborah MB · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a bit of a mixed bag.
On the one hand, it deals and exposes issues very relevant to today’s reality: the fallacy of Green policies; corruption; political sociopathy; journalistic immorality; or the long-term indoctrination of Western society, to name some.
On the other hand, the characters are so single-mindedly perverse and morally corrupt as to make them unrelatable. The whole book is but blunt satire, such as when using “-berg” on all German names. Even the short sentences and chapters point at a caricature of fast-paced thriller series.
I am not quite certain I enjoyed it, to be honest. I did not dislike it, and though I did get frustrated, it may have been from a sense of frustration while observing how clear of a mirror it presents to the madness of this 2024. Which brings me to the greatest mystery of the whole book, namely, that if it indeed is just a slightly adapted version of an original 1989 manuscript, then how much of the plot stems from Mr Amorim’s fantasies, and how much from predictable events.
And THAT is the scariest bit of it all.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An original and compelling alternative history set in the fictional United States of Europe during the election year of 2013. It delves into the interplay of power, politics and personal ambition, all of which feels horribly real. Manipulation, corruption, fake news, and the predatory media – it’s all here. Disinformation, the twisting of facts for venal ends, scaremongering and environmental hypocrisy – you get the idea. The characterisation is certainly nor subtle, but then nor is the plot. There’s little nuance here, but that makes it all the more disturbing, because we recognise our own contemporary world in the shenanigans going on at high level – not to mention the anti-immigration stance and racism that has become accepted and acceptable behaviour. It’s a cynical and bleak novel, realistic rather than dystopian and all the more powerful for that. An unsettling read, for sure.