In 2092, Venice — rebuilt by a Beijing-based multinational corporation after a devastating flood — has become the European equivalent of Las Vegas. It is already hot at seven in the morning on 25 December in the African climate, and a new bloody spectacle is about to begin. The city is an Orwellian playground where a crowd of nouveau riche people indulge in every vice while watching gladiatorial combat in St Mark's Square, which has been transformed into the Colosseum of the third millennium. Nations are dissolving and carnival is approaching, while the last Venetians, sterilised and confined to a ghetto, live bent and destitute. However, two men rise up against the orgy of power: the Master, a combat veteran, and Spartacus, his pupil. The ancient path of revolt leads them to the city of women. This is a novel set in the future that looks to the future, where only struggle can give birth to new hope.