Disco Sour

Digital breakups. An epic journey. A fight for democracy.

Bastian Balthazar Bux is a space-lover, a smartphone addict and a leading member of The Federation®, the European network of civil society and local governments. In the aftermath of a continental civil war, nation states have collapsed, the European Union™ holds on preventing anarchy and it’s mandatory to include branded trademarks in common language. Bastian has just been unexpectedly dumped by his boyfriend through an app, the BreakupShop™ service.

Heavy hearted, he just wants to drink, work and forget his romantic woes. However, he discovers that Nathan Ziggy Zukowsky, the alleged illegitimate son of Roman Polanski, is planning to sell plebiscitum®, a tinder-like app that is meant to replace elections, at the same conference he is invited to attend in Chile. Haunted by his past relationships he embarks on a mission to save democracy.

This is a compelling and hilarious novel that explores how technology is changing why we vote, who we love and how we live.

About the Author

Giuseppe Porcaro is a Political Geographer and Head of Communication for Bruegel, one of the most influential think tanks in the world. He is an expert in the intersection between politics and technology, a subject that haunts our headlines every day, and has recently published a series of scientific articles about how the internet of things and algorithms will change policymaking.

“Disco Sour is a hallucinatory trip through a future which feels just a phone-swipe away. There are notes of Pynchon, Stross, Heller and Stephenson here, but this is very much Porcaro’s book. It’s wildly inventive, scarily plausible, and it’s also very, very funny.” – Dave Hutchinson