The first Leader was killed in a plane crash in November 1941 ... the Reich did not declare war on the United States ... history took an alternative course.

By 2050, Old Europe and much of the world were wallowing in the Great Chaos. After peaking at 9 billion, the world's population dropped to 2 billion. But now in 2084, flourishing in the East with its capital city of Reichsburg (formerly Kiev), is the new Reich, Artam, where generations of genetic selection have created a new human race.

This elite race, with its Black Corps, has separated itself from the rest of the population, living a life of excess in guarded settlements. Solidifying their group identity is a religion of self-worship and a perpetual defensive war against guerrilla fighters who are funded through East Asia. This upper class considers themselves so superior to the plebs that the increasingly well-organized resistance movement takes them completely by surprise.

Adrian Schwarz, Senior Storm Unit Leader in the Black Corps and employee at the Reich Genealogy Office, lives in Reichsburg with his sister wives Godela and Gundula, both blond, blue-eyed, and fertile. Yet, for years he has carried on a lustful affair with the temperamental Russian, Ludmila. The two go to great lengths to cover their footsteps, hiding from the watchful cameras of the Department of Central Conscience at every turn. If their relationship is discovered, will the current Leader send Adrian into exile for miscegenation? What will happen to their illegitimate, mixed-race son? Or will the Leader's Islamic guard, the Handschar, who know no race, seize power in a military coup before Adrian is ever found out?

In Artam, decisions are not made according to one's gut instincts; they are made based on cost-benefit analysis. At the end of the day, everything is calculable—except, of course, the surprise rebel attacks and the intentions of the Handschar. It becomes clear in Artam, as in real life, that a dictatorship cannot persist for eternity, regardless of how brilliant its scientists and generals, regardless of how pedantic and effective its intelligence officials. What happens after the overthrow remains to be seen: life seems to be a game with hidden rules. Any rules that are imposed can only hope to suppress the potential for anarchy, but can never neutralize it.

With alarming inner logic, our time is drifting toward the Great Chaos. This novel is a fascinating and realistic story that combines political analysis with a forecast for the future. Its world is intentionally reminiscent of the alternative societies created by George Orwell in 1984 and by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. But readers will have to decide for themselves at the end whether they have read a utopian or a dystopian science fiction.