The Simulacra

The Simulacra tells of a mid-21st century United States of Europe & America formed by merger of Germany & the USA. The President’s an android. Government’s a fraud. Superpowers include the French Empire, Chinese People’s Republic & Free Africa. Communism exists with Warsaw as its center. A WWIII involving tactical nuclear weapons is mentioned.
There are two classes: Geheimnisträger (secret bearers) & Befehlsträger (instruction implementers). Political & media power are consolidated. Democrats & Republicans merged as the Democrat-Republican Party. NBC, CBS & ABC are the United Triadic Network. Power centers on a permanent 1st Lady, Nicole Thibodeaux, whose consorts are a series of presidents, die Alten. The current der Alte, Rudi Kalbfleisch, is an android. Tho she died decades ago, her role’s been held by four actors, the latest being Kate Rupert. This is Geheimnis. Possession of the secret insures elite membership by Ges status.
A secretive governing council controls the USEA. Karp & Söhne Werke, Der Alte’s manufacturers, hold some power. The next simulacra contract, for Dieter Hogbein, will go to Frauenzimmer Assoc. Karp & Söhne is unhappy about this new arrangement. They threaten exposure of what’s been a state secret for five decades. Nicole dislikes Kalbfleisch. Inbuilt obsolescence means he’ll suffer a heart attack & be replaced.
Egon Superb, the last psychotherapist, struggles to practice in a world full of the maladjusted. He encounters difficulties because A. G. Chemie, the leading USEA psycho-pharmaceutical drug cartel, has engineered a psychotherapy prohibition under the MacPhearson Act. The USEA allows him to treat Richard Kongrosian, a pianist performing at the White House. Kongrosian refuses to see anyone as he delusionally thinks his body odor lethal. He exhibits telekinetic abilities. Thibodeaux wants to control his abilities, as do Wilder Pembroke, Nat’l Police head, & members of the covert governance council.
Bertold Goltz, alleged neofascist, seemingly trying to overturn the government, runs Sons of Job, a religious paramilitary organisation. He’s actually head of the covert USEA governing council. Ian Duncan loves the 1st Lady, whom he’s never met. A subplot includes Charles Strikerock, his brother & a cutrate spacecraft sales firm, Loony Luke’s, involved in Mars colonisation. Mars has insectoid life, sentiently empathic papoola, while Ganymede’s inhabited by multicellular life.
Nothing is as it seems.