Caliphate [Mass Market Paperback]

Tom Kratman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 2010

“Slavery is a part of Islam . . . Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.” —Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, author of the religious textbook At-Tawhid (“Monotheism”) and senior Saudi cleric.

            Demography is destiny. In the 22nd century European deathbed demographics have turned the continent over to the more fertile Moslems. Atheism in Europe has been exterminated. Homosexuals are hanged, stoned or crucified. Such Christians as remain are relegated to dhimmitude, a form of second class citizenship. They are denied arms, denied civil rights, denied a voice, and specially taxed via the Koranic yizya. Their sons are taken as conscripted soldiers while their daughters are subject to the depredations of the continent’s new masters.

            In that world, Petra, a German girl sold into prostitution as a slave at the age of nine to pay her family’s yizya, dreams of escape. Unlike most girls of the day, Petra can read. And in her only real possession, her grandmother’s diary, a diary detailing the fall of European civilization, Petra has learned of a magic place across the sea: America. But it will take more than magic to free Petra and Europe from their bonds; it will take guns, superior technology, and a reborn spirit of freedom.

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tom Kratman, in 1974 at age seventeen, became a political refugee and defector from the PRM (People's Republic of Massachusetts) by virtue of joining the Regular Army. He stayed a Regular Army infantryman most of his adult life, returning to Massachusetts as an unofficial dissident while attending Boston College after his first hitch. He has practiced law in southwest Virginia. In addition to Caliphate, Baen has published his novels, A State of Disobedience, A Desert Called Peace and its sequel Carnifex, and three collaborations with John Ringo in the Posleen War series, Watch on the Rhine, Yellow Eyes and The Tuloriad.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Baen; Reprint edition (February 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439133425
• ISBN-13: 978-1439133422
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #179,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dystopia created by Old Europe, Fascist America, and Radical Islam, August 2, 2008

By 

Philip Schoenberg (Flushing, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Caliphate (Hardcover)

Tom Kratman's Caliphate would have been the novel that Bruce Bawer of WHILE EUROPE SLEPT: HOW RADICAL ISLAM IS DESTROYING THE WEST FROM WITHIN could have written. Like George Orwell's 1984 or S. M. Stirling's DRAKA novels, this dystopian world exists in which an imperialistic United States, a Czarist and socialist Russia, the celestial kingdom of China, and the two Islamic caliphates are totalitarian or authoritarian in nature with little to choose from. The Christian minority in Europe is treated as second-class citizens under the strictures of Islam. The infrastructure under Islamic sway suffers from technological decline in which the Caliphate's purchase some military technology. The USA has a dictatorship that has evolved in response to a surprise Islamic terrorist act that destroyed three American cities: Boston, Los Angeles, and Kansas City. In fighting the Islamic terrorists, the USA has reached the same moral level as the enemy engaging in genocide and nuclear warfare to win. The race war between the Japanese and Americans in the Pacific theater of World War II was civilized in comparison. No quarter is given by either side.

Tom Kratman creates a believable, dark future world as seen through the lives of several people. In Germany, nine-year old Petra is sold into slavery to pay the taxes that her parents owe. She is first the companion of a young girl who becomes her friend and protector before being sold into a life of prostitution. Her brother is drafted to serve in the military to serve his oppressors. The device of having Petra reading the diary of her grandmother explains how old Europe has become the victim of an oppressive Islam. Meanwhile, John Hamilton, of the Imperial Military Academy at West Point graduates to serve in combat actions that massacre Muslim Moros in the Philippines before serving in the intelligence service. He engages in evil actions on behalf of a greater good but his conscience won't let him rationalize what he has done. Life in the 22nd century USA is pretty grim in which the privileged few have automobiles while civil liberties are unknown. President Pat Buckman came into power in which he exercised the power of pardon for those who assassinated his political opponents. He dies in bed after nuking hundreds of millions of Muslims.

In a non-fictional afterword, Tom Kratman explains that he has reached the same observations as Bruce Bawer although he does not refer directly to this author's work:

1) An intellectual ideological blindness by the elite that ignores the consequences of its intellectual pretensions. It rejects American humanism in favor of tolerating Islamic extremism. In return for being enablers, they will be the first to suffer consequences when their ideas don't work in practice.

2) The failure of Europeans to defend the values of democracy, individualism, secularism and toleration as part of a just society. Tolerating or "understanding" efforts at censorship such as the Danish Islamic cartoons or honor killings has opened the way to defend humanistic values whether through word or deed. In some European nations, the vast majority of rapes are committed by a small Muslim minority. The victims are blamed for causing the wrath of their attackers.

3) Appeasing the demands of a minority without getting anything return which allows the radical Muslims to set the agenda. A perfect example that the author does not give himself was the recent decision by British government no longer to teach the Holocaust in its school system because it offends some Muslims...

4) Europeans failing to reproduce themselves while tolerating or encouraging an Islamic immigration that does not share the same values of and respect for the individual. Women are treated are treated as second class citizens, suffer from honor killings, and are not free to choose their husbands or to get an education.

5) A false multiculturalism in which efforts made by Muslims to assimilate are rejected and Muslims reject efforts to assimilate. There are sections of European cities in which native inhabitants cannot roam because the clothing is not "modest" or homosexuals risk their lives. The police or society is unwilling to secure safety of people.

6) A false toleration in which anti-tolerant acts of the Muslims are rejected. Radical preachers calling for the overthrow of Western civilization are allowed to spread their ideas and intimidate non-radical Muslims. There is the false expectation that allowing tolerating non-tolerant radical Muslims when they are in the minority, the favor will be returned when they become the majority.

7) A generous social service system that cannot be sustained by a declining native population while attracting a foreign population that does not share the values or what remains of the work ethic. .

8) The failure to believe in something is to lack the will to defend the Western way of life. Christianity is passé. The result is the unwillingness to use force to defend the society. In the novel, the author shows he is not racist because immigrants from a declining Europe that reject American values are rejected in favor of immigrants from non-Islamic areas that share American values or are willing to embrace them.

9) A rationalization that Western civilization is always at fault and to blame instead of bringing the culprits to justice or demanding the conformance to civilized behavior. When misbehavior occurs by Muslims, Petra's grandmother is quick to rationalize that somehow Western civilization, especially the USA, has caused it until her daughter is raped.

After all, this is a novel of what could have happens. Nicholas Sarkozy of France may be a sign of Europeans are waking up to this danger. But all it takes is the failure of good people to defend their society. The Europeans fail to realize that the radical Islam that they are nurturing in their midst has no desire for dialogue and understanding but demands the acceptance of Sharia and their inferiority as dhimmis. Peace at any price has become the new mantra and the West Europeans will have the peace of the grave they have dug for themselves if they fail to heed the warnings of this

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Frightening picture of a dystopian future torn by religious war, May 26, 2008

By 

Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caliphate (Hardcover)

Many muslims, by no means all of whom are extremists, will consider this novel Islamophobic. I definately do not share that view but I do understand it.

The book begins in 2103 AD, in a dystopian future in which the world is split into two warring power blocks, in both of which freedoms and rights which we take for granted have been removed. The Caliphate, an empire which includes continental Europe, is run by Taliban-style Islamofascist extremists who treat the christian minority like dirt. The USA has become a militaristic empire which wages a cold war against the Caliphate and a hot one against Canadian "rebels" (e.g. those who have resisted the forcible annexation of their country) and any other country which might allow Islam a foothold in the Americas.

The story revolves around two victims of the Caliphate's tyranny: Petra, a german girl who is taken from her family and sold into slavery to pay a tax levied on the Christian minority, and her brother Hans, who is conscripted as a Janissary.

One of the few Muslims who shows Petra kindness teaches her to read, enabling her to understand the one family posession she has been able to keep: the diary which her great-grandmother, Gabrielle von Minden, began to keep in 2003 and which explains how the ghastly world Petra is living in came into being.

There are two reasons I do not agree with those who will consider this book Islamophobic. First, although it presents the Islamic dictatorship in the book as a ghastly tyranny, the history in the book also has the United States grossly over-react to Al-Qaeda atrocities with terrible crimes of its own, and there is no suggestion in the book that the author would encourage those actions. Rather it clearly suggests that both ignoring wicked behaviour by individual Muslims and punishing an entire communities are alike mistaken and wrong, not least because both policies sell decent muslims down the river.

Neither does the book suggest that either Christians or Muslims have a monopoly of good or evil. (There are no atheists in the book, partly because the Caliphate has exterminated them in the area it controls.)

Secondly, while Kratman is not suggesting that a future history like the one in this book is inevitable, he is probably right that if we are stupid enough to let it come true, much worse religious strife could indeed form part of our future - and it is worth thinking about how to avoid that. If this book makes people think about how to stop anything like it coming true, that's a good thing.

Alternatively you can read it just as an exciting fantasy.

46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unable to put it down, March 28, 2008

By 

Elliott (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Caliphate (Hardcover)

I read the book in one day, it was just so compelling. The scenes of slavery under Muslim rule were reminiscent of a book I read in the '70's(I think) written by(IIRC) Kyle Onstott, which is why those scenes were so realistic(other people writing the same kind of thing would reinforce the descriptions).

I really got into the characters' heads, and could understand them. The plot moved and didn't get bogged down in details.

The contrast between the US as we are today, and what we (will) become under such an attack is one of my worst nightmares, and I hope, but am not very confident, that we can avoid it. I guess that will require a big change in our current political culture(not very likely at this time).