The historical novel “A Cruel Age” is a colorful tapestry of the lives of Mongols at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Lightning-fast steppe crossings, the smoke of nomads’ camps, unrestrained free living—where deadly danger and fortune are inseparable… The army of a brilliant commander and the monsters of Genghis Khan swept away everything in their path like fire-breathing volcanic lava: they annihilated tribes and peoples and turned flourishing civilizations to ash. Genghis Khan’s desire—this ruler of the most brutal absurdity—to become the only ruler of the entire world drove him toward new and more bloody campaigns of conquest…