THE SHORT OF IT:
In the mid-twenty-first century, a high-level conspiracy brews to suborn the American democracy to a modern apartheid. White people have long mastered the republic but have now shrunk to only the nation’s largest minority. Some, supported by racist extremist groups and the funds of conservative billionaires, decide that white people made America, white people have ruled America, and now white people will not have America wrested from their grasp. All that stands between them and the at-long-last promise of true equanimity is a renegade faction of the Fourth Estate, a team of journalists who believe that justice cannot be had unless justice is for all.
THE LONG OF IT:
America in the year 2056. Still no flying cars, still no personal jetpacks. The iconic phenomenon of the age is, instead, demographics. For 400 years, white people have dominated the political, economic and cultural landscape of the united States. They have always had the numbers and thus the power to control the nation’s resources, and therefore its direction. Now, white people have decreased their numbers to the point where they are only the largest minority in America. The republic stands at the frontier of that imagined dream of our forefathers, the age in which one man really has one vote, and that vote is powerful.
Stephen Tallman is the producer of a media news empire, See It Now. He is also a war hero. In the Sino-American War of fifteen years earlier, Steve launched a nuclear strike against his enemies that ended the war but killed millions. Though he knows intellectually that he did the right thing, the act wounded the Native American spirit that dominates his multi-ethnic heritage.
Now Steve discovers a high-level plot to impose a modern apartheid on the United States. Disguised as a move to bring greater equality to representative government, the EOG bill before Congress will ensure that white people maintain political control of the country despite their loss of a population majority. The plot to pass EOG is backed by some of the highest, most strategically placed public servants, by conservative millionaires, and by a shadow network of racist hate groups. Worse, since EOG actually would raise the level of representation of some minorities, even groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus work toward passing the bill.
Steve sees the bill for what it is and shoulders all his media power toward informing a passive electorate of its dangers. But Steve, haunted by the last time he used great power to effect great results, chooses a careful, circumspect path toward enlightening the American people. Will hesitation give his new enemies room to maneuver, a chance to silence or even destroy him? Which will serve Steve best, the technology and ethics of his adopted secular Fourth Estate, or the heart of his native spiritualism.
Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear: this is a conflict between faith and fear. Steve’s faith is a bulwark against the fear-driven acts of a dying incumbency. But, does Steve hold faith in journalism and the People’s Right to Know, or in his personal capacity to avoid stains to his living soul? He is as unsure of his footing as a man on shifting sands. This doubt alone could mean his downfall, and with him, the American experiment.
Stephan Michael Loy, who brought you the socially controversial epics of Last Days and Times and Shining Star, now presents a stone-hard parable of the American Dream gone nightmare. Conqueror's Realm is a deft warning that there can be no justice if justice is not for all.
Speculative Science Fiction - Language - Violence