Novel: Future Schlock

Future Schlock: 2047, by RM Krakoff, is the story of a world turned upside down in the year 2047.

The story follows two Polish laborers, three nominees for President, five Naval Admirals, an ambitious Minister of Finance for the African Union, and a beautiful Maasai woman, through a much-changed world during a cut-throat fight for the Presidency in 2047.

By the year 2047, the global landscape is ruled by world banks, Wall Street and mega-corporations. The leading world governments have merged into massive Continental Unions. Even the USA is now the Union of Federated Americas (UFA), incorporating the US, Canada and Mexico.

As such, the UFA finds that it's lost its foot-hold as a world leader, and fallen to forth power position behind the Asian Union, European Union and the emerging African Union. The three candidates for the Presidency of the UFA vie for their party’s nomination through fiercely competitive means, some honest, direct, cunning and deceitful. All carry the banner to bring the country back to #1 position.

The leading candidates for President of the North American Continent in 2047 are a 300-pound black family man, a bachelor exercise and computer geek with war aspirations, and an Hispanic Obama-wanna-be with a flair for CocaCola-like marketing.

The story portrays the world shifts in geopolitical, human and ethical reforms in the first half of the 21st century. Cars run on pig-excrement, education is delivered by Starbucks, computers regulate everything, including nutrition. The next battle for civil rights wages between the obese and the non-obese.

As natural resources within the UFA dwindle, for the first time in history, the African continent emerges as a major power. To handle demands for its resources, Africa starts a massive foreign worker program. In an effort to out-pace corporate greed learned in American graduate schools, the African ministers cut costs with their worker program. Internet rumors circulate that white slavery is alive and thriving in Africa.

Each candidate wants to use the crisis for their own campaign advantage, but each bungle in their own way. The characters are comical, poignant and imperfect as they strive for their personal power or peace.

The story is written with biting wit of author R.M. Krakoff, author of Die Laughing, with his irreverent sense of the absurd. However, as a futuristic black comedy, it weaves a finely-woven tapestry that leaves one asking..." What if this could actually happen?"