ARSLAN

by M.J. Engh ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1987

A notably uneven but often genuinely frightening science fiction what-if, describing a modern-day Asian conqueror. (The book made a brief appearance as a paperback in 1976.) Narrator Franklin Bond, the Kraftsville, Illinois, school principal, watches in numb disbelief as a horde of Turkestani soldiers marches into town; at their head is the young, intelligent, cruel, passionate Arslan, who has bloodlessly conquered the world. Having chosen Kraftsville as his capital, Arslan sets up his headquarters in the school, and proceeds to enforce his authority with a brutal display: kids are raped, beaten, enslaved; anyone who shows resistance is shot. Arslan, grinning, hands Bond a revolver and challenges him to shoot: knowing that Kraftsville and perhaps the entire country will be devastated if Arslan dies, Bond refuses. But, forced by Arslan to become Kraftsville's governor, Bond learns of Arslan's ambitions: he intends to break the world up into small, self-sufficient, pre-technological communities as a means of stamping out war and other ills. Later, it emerges that, under the pretext of giving mass immunizations against typhoid, Arslan has had all the females sterilized. Five years later, with Kraftsville's economy and technology now on a medieval level, Arlsan considers his work done and prepares to leave; a plot lo assassinate him, organized by Bond's very circumspect resistance group, fails. The rest, unfortunately, loses headway, what with switching narrators, implausible reversals, and incongruous purple passages. But the most nagging difficulty is how Arslan came to be world dictator in the first place--Engh's feeble outline fails to convince. Something more than half a book's worth of a provocative, disturbing portrait of a conqueror, then: worth a try, flaws and all.

Pub Date: May 15, 1987

ISBN: 0759226695

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arbor House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION