The eponymous hero, part of a brood of bored science students, helps concoct a strategy game set in different eras where each ruler of his territory competes in Orwellian permanent war. But the KGB uncovers highly plausible and suspicious military plans and a long penance for each combatant ensues. All too late, Istemi is the first to realize the mysterious and disturbingly prophetic nature of a seemingly innocent invention. He is powerless as events long foretold for each unfold, including a hellish tour of duty in
Afghanistan, incarceration in an asylum and mindless bureaucratic drudgery but what fate awaits Istemi as communist absurdist reality turns into post-capitalism nightmare?
