The Games
by Izai Amorim
356 pages· 2013· ISBN 9781493711567
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About
The Games is a humorous but dark, even mean, political thriller. This mother of all conspiracies starts slow but the action accelerates quickly. Good guys don’t win in the end because there are none. It’s a battle of evil against evil involving environmental protection organizations operating extortion rackets; terrorism without a cause; secret services running amok; global television networks manipulating the news; politicians and profiteers hijacking major international sport events; etc.
More than just humor and action in an international setting, this thriller exposes a dark side of our information age and reveals a serious political threat to our democracies: conspiracies to use information, communication, and storytelling to establish power structures not accountable to anyone.
Power without accountability undermines the principle of representative government by the people and for the people. Therefore, the relevant question in The Games is not “who did it and why” but “what if these things come to pass.”
PRAISE FOR THE GAMES:
“I was thinking about the book beyond the end of my read. Izai Amorim has written something that makes me want to hear more of his voice.”
“This is a well-written and fun book, as well as a cutting commentary of European social politics and big business in general. An enjoyable, unique read.”
“This is the funniest book I have read in a while and the author has a style I haven't seen before. I haven't laughed out loud with a book in quite a while and did so throughout the book. Very refreshing and very appealing in my opinion. One of the things I love is the way he uses politically correct language to show how wrong some of it is. It so stupid it is funny. Well done!”
“There are many things that will test perceptions and make the reader reflect on it afterward and that's what makes a good story (at least for me!) in any genre. Definitely worth a read!”
“The Games asks important questions about the power to shape the story – either by forcing events to happen or by interpreting them to suit one's views and agenda.”
“What the author portrays is frightening and would create a power structure that would take away our freedoms and lead to a totalitarian government and society.”
“This is a novel full of satire, sarcasm, and possibly prophecy. It almost seemed to me that this storyline was a parody of so much of the current chaos in the USA.”
“This book is like the script of persuasive and eye-opening film that reveals the decadent politics of the 21th century in Europe. A really enjoyable reading!”
“Izai Amorim knows how to write and keep the reader very involved.”
“Has real history been also made up as shown in this book?”
“Money, power, greed, corruption, lies. The setting for The Games is in Berlin, but could have easily been in the USA. So while I did not feel any love for the characters, it was an interesting read.”
PLOT SUMMARY
It’s January 2013 and the Frenchman Claude Tegel, the first president of the just-five-year-old United States of Europe, wants to get reelected. He badly needs the German vote, but his German political allies will only support him if he helps bring the 2021 Games to Berlin.
Claude will hire Madeleine Orly, the ultimate operator, to organize Berlin’s bid. Back in 1994, when Claude was mayor of Paris, Madeleine won the bid to stage the 2001 Games there. Can she pull it off again, twenty years later? Maybe, if she can bring GreenKraut on board.
GreenKraut, headquartered in Berlin, is the biggest of the four environmental protection organizations operating in the U.S.E. Its CEO, Dr. Hans von Adelsberg, has one big dream: to build a global empire. But first he must take over all his competitors in the U.S.E. A bloody Green War has just started. Getting involved in the bid could accelerate GreenKraut’s victory.
Berlin’s bid will make one person in particular very unhappy: Graham Gatwick, the owner of Liberty International Broadcasting League Inc., better known as LIBL-TV, based in London, who is backing London’s bid. If London wins, he will be a powerful insider, able to influence decisions, especially the one about who gets the exclusive broadcasting rights. And he really wants these rights.
LIBL-TV, with an audience of three hundred million English-speaking people worldwide, has a lot of power to make friends and influence people. Mr. Gatwick will use this power to convince the world that London is the best choice for the 2021 Games. LIBL-TV will start a smear campaign to discredit Berlin.
This campaign will be a gift from heaven for Eliza Heathrow, a young American journalist living in Berlin. A plumber will help her – without her knowledge – to obtain the damaging information LIBL-TV needs. Eliza will be hired by LIBL-TV and will start reporting from “Berlin, the War Zone.”
Eliza will never know it, but this plumber is a plumber only in the figurative sense of the word, since he “fixes things that are broke” and “stops leaks.” He will use Eliza and quite a few other people in his plan to sabotage Berlin’s bid.
The only person with absolutely no interest in the Games is Rainer-Werner Sprengberg, a former terrorist now on parole after twenty-five years behind bars. In his prime years, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, Rainer-Werner Sprengberg was the most dangerous, the most efficient, and the most hunted terrorist in Europe. Now he is an analog person lost in a brave new digital world. A loner, he spends his days walking around Berlin and photographing lace curtains.
Rainer-Werner’s analog ways will attract Marianne Wissensberg, a young historian researching twenty-first-century terrorism. She needs his help to create a fake terrorist group for the sole purpose of studying people’s reactions. Anti-terrorism agencies are not prepared to deal with old-fashioned guys like him anymore. Rainer-Werner will fall for Marianne’s seduction games and together they will set up the Atomic Outcasts. The city of Berlin will be threatened with total destruction by atomic explosion if it doesn’t drop its bid for the Games.
Someone else will create a terrorist group: Ismail Kahnahkah, a third-generation Turk demanding civil rights for all “foreigners” living in Berlin. Being a member of the German-Turkish mafia, he has all the manpower and the firepower he needs. The only thing missing: a few tips from Rainer-Werner. After all, Rainer-Werner has been there, done that...
Berlin's bid will bring together all these people. Each of them knows only a few of the others. They will play games, crossing and double-crossing each other, each of their actions provoking multiple reactions. Things will get out of control, culminating in Berlin’s destruction by atomic explosion on Summer Solstice day, June twenty first, 2013.
Who did it and why? Rainer-Werner and his Atomic Outcasts? But what about these secret service agents who keep showing up in the story? And what about the other terrorist groups operating in Berlin? What about Ismail Kahnahkah? What about GreenKraut? What about LIBL-TV? What about...
Welcome to The Games! And please don't forget to place your bets!
More than just humor and action in an international setting, this thriller exposes a dark side of our information age and reveals a serious political threat to our democracies: conspiracies to use information, communication, and storytelling to establish power structures not accountable to anyone.
Power without accountability undermines the principle of representative government by the people and for the people. Therefore, the relevant question in The Games is not “who did it and why” but “what if these things come to pass.”
PRAISE FOR THE GAMES:
“I was thinking about the book beyond the end of my read. Izai Amorim has written something that makes me want to hear more of his voice.”
“This is a well-written and fun book, as well as a cutting commentary of European social politics and big business in general. An enjoyable, unique read.”
“This is the funniest book I have read in a while and the author has a style I haven't seen before. I haven't laughed out loud with a book in quite a while and did so throughout the book. Very refreshing and very appealing in my opinion. One of the things I love is the way he uses politically correct language to show how wrong some of it is. It so stupid it is funny. Well done!”
“There are many things that will test perceptions and make the reader reflect on it afterward and that's what makes a good story (at least for me!) in any genre. Definitely worth a read!”
“The Games asks important questions about the power to shape the story – either by forcing events to happen or by interpreting them to suit one's views and agenda.”
“What the author portrays is frightening and would create a power structure that would take away our freedoms and lead to a totalitarian government and society.”
“This is a novel full of satire, sarcasm, and possibly prophecy. It almost seemed to me that this storyline was a parody of so much of the current chaos in the USA.”
“This book is like the script of persuasive and eye-opening film that reveals the decadent politics of the 21th century in Europe. A really enjoyable reading!”
“Izai Amorim knows how to write and keep the reader very involved.”
“Has real history been also made up as shown in this book?”
“Money, power, greed, corruption, lies. The setting for The Games is in Berlin, but could have easily been in the USA. So while I did not feel any love for the characters, it was an interesting read.”
PLOT SUMMARY
It’s January 2013 and the Frenchman Claude Tegel, the first president of the just-five-year-old United States of Europe, wants to get reelected. He badly needs the German vote, but his German political allies will only support him if he helps bring the 2021 Games to Berlin.
Claude will hire Madeleine Orly, the ultimate operator, to organize Berlin’s bid. Back in 1994, when Claude was mayor of Paris, Madeleine won the bid to stage the 2001 Games there. Can she pull it off again, twenty years later? Maybe, if she can bring GreenKraut on board.
GreenKraut, headquartered in Berlin, is the biggest of the four environmental protection organizations operating in the U.S.E. Its CEO, Dr. Hans von Adelsberg, has one big dream: to build a global empire. But first he must take over all his competitors in the U.S.E. A bloody Green War has just started. Getting involved in the bid could accelerate GreenKraut’s victory.
Berlin’s bid will make one person in particular very unhappy: Graham Gatwick, the owner of Liberty International Broadcasting League Inc., better known as LIBL-TV, based in London, who is backing London’s bid. If London wins, he will be a powerful insider, able to influence decisions, especially the one about who gets the exclusive broadcasting rights. And he really wants these rights.
LIBL-TV, with an audience of three hundred million English-speaking people worldwide, has a lot of power to make friends and influence people. Mr. Gatwick will use this power to convince the world that London is the best choice for the 2021 Games. LIBL-TV will start a smear campaign to discredit Berlin.
This campaign will be a gift from heaven for Eliza Heathrow, a young American journalist living in Berlin. A plumber will help her – without her knowledge – to obtain the damaging information LIBL-TV needs. Eliza will be hired by LIBL-TV and will start reporting from “Berlin, the War Zone.”
Eliza will never know it, but this plumber is a plumber only in the figurative sense of the word, since he “fixes things that are broke” and “stops leaks.” He will use Eliza and quite a few other people in his plan to sabotage Berlin’s bid.
The only person with absolutely no interest in the Games is Rainer-Werner Sprengberg, a former terrorist now on parole after twenty-five years behind bars. In his prime years, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, Rainer-Werner Sprengberg was the most dangerous, the most efficient, and the most hunted terrorist in Europe. Now he is an analog person lost in a brave new digital world. A loner, he spends his days walking around Berlin and photographing lace curtains.
Rainer-Werner’s analog ways will attract Marianne Wissensberg, a young historian researching twenty-first-century terrorism. She needs his help to create a fake terrorist group for the sole purpose of studying people’s reactions. Anti-terrorism agencies are not prepared to deal with old-fashioned guys like him anymore. Rainer-Werner will fall for Marianne’s seduction games and together they will set up the Atomic Outcasts. The city of Berlin will be threatened with total destruction by atomic explosion if it doesn’t drop its bid for the Games.
Someone else will create a terrorist group: Ismail Kahnahkah, a third-generation Turk demanding civil rights for all “foreigners” living in Berlin. Being a member of the German-Turkish mafia, he has all the manpower and the firepower he needs. The only thing missing: a few tips from Rainer-Werner. After all, Rainer-Werner has been there, done that...
Berlin's bid will bring together all these people. Each of them knows only a few of the others. They will play games, crossing and double-crossing each other, each of their actions provoking multiple reactions. Things will get out of control, culminating in Berlin’s destruction by atomic explosion on Summer Solstice day, June twenty first, 2013.
Who did it and why? Rainer-Werner and his Atomic Outcasts? But what about these secret service agents who keep showing up in the story? And what about the other terrorist groups operating in Berlin? What about Ismail Kahnahkah? What about GreenKraut? What about LIBL-TV? What about...
Welcome to The Games! And please don't forget to place your bets!
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