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Nowhere near as cheerful is M.J. Engh's brilliant but disturbing novel Arslan.

Originally published in 1976, then reissued in 1987 and most recently in 2001, there's a good reason why this novel keeps going out of print -- and then keeps coming back again.

It goes out of print because the story of an American town being chosen as the world capital of an Attila- or Genghis-like conqueror is so realistically grim that you can hardly bear to recommend it to your friends. You certainly can't give it to your children.

And yet no one has explored how power works within a community as effectively as Engh does within these pages. Do you want to get a glimpse of what it might be like if America were ruled by raw personal power? Not as evil as Saddam, the character of Arslan eventually wears a human face. But he can never be trusted, is capable of terrible cruelty, and any bargain you make with him is more of a bet, with him in control of the outcome.

Don't give this as a gift. Except perhaps as a gift to yourself, if you have the courage to look into the abyss.

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