The People's Republic of Absurdia Author:Ed Spencer FRED McVELLY, womanising confidante to the drug-addled President TERRY HAIR, is having the time of his life. With Britain languishing in the polluted hangover of consumerism gone mad, energy sources all but vanquished and economic meltdown, his elaborate practical joke has created an ecofascist nanny state. Parliament and the Royal Family have b... more »een disbanded and each Citizen's every move is regulated and recorded. Even posting a letter on the wrong day can mean getting banged up. With unrest afoot and the President convinced rivals are out to get him, Fred and media mogul SIGNOR OLI GARQI hatch a plan. Their ruse is to make heavy-drinking PONTIFF a tabloid sensation and national hero, to demonstrate the government winning the battle for hearts and minds. But exasperated by the nation's collective idiocy and engaged in a spot of terrorism himself, Pontiff is no mood to play along. Especially now he's implicated in the arrest of a revolutionary comrade... Inspired by the best bits of the last decade (anti-terror laws, creeping surveillance, rampant consumerism, increasing social disparity, foreign misadventure) this state-of-the-nation satire melds jet black comedy with political thriller.« less