Arslan
by M J Engh
A third world dictator conquers and rules a dystopian America in this "wonderful and terrifying" work of political science fiction (Samuel R. Delany). By the time General Arslan brings his army from Turkistan to America, he has already conquered the rest of the world, using strategy and craft rather than bullets and bloodshed. The modern-day Genghis Khan sets up headquarters in tiny Kraftsville, Illinois, and when he asserts his power by violently assaulting an eighth-grade girl and boy—onstage, before a cheering audience of his soldiers—the townspeople know that no one is safe. Forced to open his home to the despot, Franklin Bond, the school principal whose students were publicly violated, finds himself strangely drawn to the world's new master and privy to his quirks and mental machinations. In fact, only one other person in town will have a closer connection to Arslan during the long, hard era of his reign: Hunt Morgan, the boy...