Covenant City

This gripping speculative fiction novel edges just ahead of today's headlines, imagining a dystopic near-future that is all too plausible.

Martial law declared. Elections canceled. Congress and the Courts dissolved. The White House moves to dramatically reshape the nation. When the power goes out and neighbors grow feral, white college dropout Norman squats in a house by the James River, then joins an immigrant rebel camp, where he learns that his hometown Richmond, Virginia is being forcefully converted into a model White Nationalist city and all its non-white residents deported or worse.

Sent into the city as a spy for the rebels, Norman is greeted as a direct descendant of the First Families of Virginia and begins a guided exploration of all the opportunities - career, romance, riches -- open to him as one with such privileged genes. He learns that the populace is controlled by a generalized artificial intelligence which advises and supervises the people via communicator/trackers implanted in their jaws, and that this computer, trained to think gangsta like the President, is about to launch a final ethnic cleansing assault on stragglers in the suburbs, including his friends in the rebel camp.

Tempted by the many advantages allowed by his heritage, but wary of the dystopian city's fascist and racist character, he must choose whether to stay or go. This crisis comes to a head on Covenant Day, when the President is scheduled to visit the city for the unveiling of a huge gilded statue in his honor while at the same time a robot army eliminates the stragglers.