THE WORLD IS GETTING YOUNGER

, Dec 22, 2025, 2:22 AM Williams J. Cook <williams.j.cook9@gmail.com> wrote:

Some books whisper about the future. Malila of the Scorch growls, smolders, and lets sentient plants decide whether humanity deserves to keep breathing.

Set in 2129, your conclusion to the Old Men and Infidels trilogy doesn’t just stage a war it stages a philosophical autopsy. Young nations making reckless mistakes, old nations repeating refined ones, and a so-called enlightened Unity convinced that conquest is just “progress with better branding.” That contrast alone new arrogance versus old hubris is razor-sharp. Add Malila Chiu emerging from the jungle with a warning that could either save civilization or erase it, and suddenly this isn’t just science fiction; it’s prophecy wearing combat boots.

What makes Malila of the Scorch especially compelling is that the real tension isn’t just the war it’s agency. The Deep Scorch isn’t a monster-of-the-week; it’s a polyarchy of sentient life weighing alliance versus annihilation. Jesse Johnstone’s loyalty, love, and weariness give the story its human pulse, while Jourdaine’s imperial ambition asks the quiet, terrifying question: who exactly benefits when empires “liberate” others? Meanwhile, spies digging into CORE and their own mortality add another layer because even in a hyper-advanced future, power still rots from the inside.

A 4.0 rating with engaged readers for a third book in a complex trilogy says something important: the audience that finds this book gets it. These aren’t casual clicks; they’re readers who followed the arc, invested emotionally, and stayed for the ending. 

I like the way W. Clark Boutwell thinks. I like the way he writes. I like his idea of who or what America really is. We see America changing all around us every day and, let’s face it, that makes some of us afraid. W. Clark Boutwell sees this fear and imagines the chaos that might come out of it. The result is one of the best science fiction novels I have read in a long time. Malila of the Scorch is full of new scientific concepts and next level technology. It also shows how this technology can be abused in the wrong hands. I liked the science in Malila of the Scorch. I liked it a lot. But when I think about what I enjoyed most about this great novel, it is hands down, the old-fashioned American characters. W. Clark Boutwell puts his own spin on them, but these characters are as American as apple pie. I loved Grandpa Moses, he could have been plucked straight from the pages of several classic American novels. I liked Malila and I liked Jessie. They have a lot of good people working with them. They inspire each other and depend on each other rather than let one hero do all the heavy lifting. The plot in Malila of the Scorch is good. I could easily see America being fractured in this way and events playing out this way. This is a great effort and a very good book.

Malila of the Scorch is a thrilling dystopia whose characters fight to defend everything that matters most.

A handful of spies and fighters are the only people who can save America from invasion in W. Clark Boutwell’s novel Malila of the Scorch.

The prose is riveting, particularly when it comes to world building. Every location, including the Unity’s strange extradimensional computer system and the Scorch, with its dangerous beauty, is rendered in sharp detail.

Characterizations are accomplished through expressions of individuals’ thoughts, hopes, and fears. Each has a distinctive approach to the looming threat. Rebel Jesse’s MacGyver-esque methods of avoiding drone detection are entertaining, while the Unity’s dictator, Jourdaine, and his adjutant, Haversham, express differing viewpoints that are unreliable in their own ways.

In general, the story is swift moving, though it makes a few necessary expositional pit stops. Exciting developments build toward a suspenseful conclusion that leaves a few questions unanswered, though most characters achieve satisfying resolutions.

We have chosen one among your own kind to act as a messenger

This imaginative novel in which plants have consciousness, armies are manned with zombie soldiers, and humans can enter a virtual, intelligent universe called the Core is filled with edge-of-the-seat adventure and delightful philosophical musings. Boutwell is a master storyteller who creates an intriguing, unique future that is both frightening and mesmerizing. His many characters include the intelligent, kudzu-like plants of the Scorch, the entities of the Core, and the humans who live in the Unity and the Restructured States of America. Though this is the last of a series, it can be read as a stand-alone novel with the first chapters including enough information through an old man's re-telling of stories to give readers insight into the previous books. This science fiction offering is a wonderful imagining of a dystopian world which captures the imagination from beginning to end.

War is a brutal, ever-changing force of mankind’s own making which consistently threatens the landscape of the world stage as a whole. As John F. Kennedy once said, “Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” In author W. Clark Boutwell’s book Malila of the Scorch, the third book of the Old Men and Infidels series, war makes its final grand stand in a futuristic dystopian America.