Book Review: Arslan by M. J. Engh
Jul. 15th, 2011 10:18 pmI read M. J. Engh's alternate history novel, Arslan (pub. 1976), on the ambivalent recommendation of ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sixish and an equally ambivalent reception on Amazon: some call it a work of genius; others are lukewarm. I went in with lukewarm expectations and emerge duly impressed.
Arslan is the story of the conquest of the modern world by a charismatic dictator from Bukhara (in Uzbekistan, though I think the borders are different in the novel). The novel is narrated from the perspective of two Midwestern Americans who are among his conquered, Franklin Bond, a former middle school principal, and Hunt Morgan, one of the students from Bond's former school. While the early part of the novel is much concerned with the ideology of world conquest, the later part emphasizes the interrelationships among Franklin, Hunt, and Arslan. The narrative is not entirely even or flawlessly plausible; however, it is thought-provoking, creepy, different, and emotionally moving.
( Spoilers Follow )
sixish and an equally ambivalent reception on Amazon: some call it a work of genius; others are lukewarm. I went in with lukewarm expectations and emerge duly impressed. Arslan is the story of the conquest of the modern world by a charismatic dictator from Bukhara (in Uzbekistan, though I think the borders are different in the novel). The novel is narrated from the perspective of two Midwestern Americans who are among his conquered, Franklin Bond, a former middle school principal, and Hunt Morgan, one of the students from Bond's former school. While the early part of the novel is much concerned with the ideology of world conquest, the later part emphasizes the interrelationships among Franklin, Hunt, and Arslan. The narrative is not entirely even or flawlessly plausible; however, it is thought-provoking, creepy, different, and emotionally moving.
( Spoilers Follow )
