Reviews
As a brand-spanking new author in his seventh decade, Clark had a lot to do to get noticed. Here are a few of the published opinions.
Outland Exile: (released October 2015)
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Customer Review
November 15, 2019Alabama author W Clark Boutwell is a physician who in addition to practicing medicine focusing on intensive care for newborn infants, also teaches his specialty around the world and volunteers as a physician in Kenya, India, Ecuador, Zambia and Ghana. His literary interests are on aging, medical care, drug use, cybernetics, society and faith in a dystopian America as his ongoing series Old Men and Infidels attests. OUTLAND EXILE is the initial volume in this five volume series, written in 2015. The other books to date are EXILES’ ESCAPE and MALILA OF THE SCORCH.
Dr. Boutwell’s facility with language is polished, able to capture attention within the first words of this fascinating science fiction dystopian novel – ‘As her consciousness floated in the middle depths, she felt the freedom of her movements and enjoyed the surge of her predatory impulses. For a moment, Malila rippled the chromatophores along her four-meter length in pleasure before returning he borrowed skin to the pattern of the hunt. Her appearance now flowed second by second as sensors discerned the light falling upon them and mimicked the surface opposite to match. Second Lieutenant Malila Evanova Chiu’s mind tasted the salinity, the pressure, the faint rhythmic surge and flow of the waves around her, and…her prey…’ With ease, the author constructs the atmosphere and advanced vocabulary and language of a future time, and in doing so challenges us to enter not only his finely constructed story, but also his philosophy.
As is most important in opening a journey that will continue through five volumes, the range of the plot is key and Boutwell offers a fine summary to guide us: ‘In 2051, America is destroyed, separating into the Unity and the outlands. Generations later, the Democratic Unity has become a Utopia with full employment, free healthcare, computerless-surfing and recreational drugs at quite reasonable prices. All citizens retire at forty before error and fatigue contaminate a society of youth, innovation, and vigor. The outlands, beyond the Rampart and savaged by the Scorching, are populated by savage creatures with strange bloodthirsty reputations. Seventeen-year-old, middle-aged Lt. Malila Chiu, a hero of the Unity, finds her career in tatters. Inexplicably she has been demoted and sent to repair a sensor installation at the very limits of Unity influence. Fortunately, the outlands look abandoned, and she sets her hands to restore the station and her reputation. Work is proceeding well when Malila, collapsing from fatigue, finally goes to bed. She awakens to find her entire platoon murdered and a knife at her throat, wielded by a disfigured, malicious and impossibly old savage. Jesse Johnstone, a lover of poetry, has made Malila--the Outland Exile. Stripped, bound and forced to walk hundreds of miles, Malila and Jesse survive the hostile wilderness, carnivorous plants, disease, slavers, blizzards, snipers, and each other's disdain to arrive at a new understanding.’
Not only is the book completely fascinating as a novel, but also the characters created are wholly three dimensional and well sculpted, and the philosophical postulates are at once challenging and invigorating. If OUTLAND EXILE is the seed from which the entire series will grow, the author has launched a meaningful – and magnificently entertaining – vision of what the future could bring. Very highly recommended. Grady Harp, November 19Amazon 5-star Review for Outland Exile by Grady Harper AMZ Top COntributor
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A powerful blend of post-apocalyptic fiction, science fiction and brass-knuckle social commentary, W. Clark Boutwell’s Outland Exile, the first installment of a projected series, is a towering tour de force of a novel. It’s a cautionary tale for today’s superficial, youth-obsessed culture that chronicles a young woman’s heroic journey of self-discovery as she realizes that everything she believes to be real is government propaganda designed to sedate and manipulate the sheep-like populace.
Set in the year 2128 – almost a century after the Third Iraqi War culminated with nuclear strikes destroying all U.S. forces in the region and upsetting the world economy – the storyline revolves around Malila Chiu.
BlueInk Review
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Outland Exile by W. Clark Boutwell is set in a dystopian future where the Democratic Unity rules, and the United States have been fractured. Within the Unity, Malila Chiu is a veteran lieutenant officer who seems to have it all: great friends, a successful job, and the perfect life. That is until she's demoted, and has to go to the outlands to handle a vandalism situation for herself. At first the repairs at the vandalized station go well, then everything goes horribly wrong. When Malila is captured, and her platoon is murdered, she's sure her life is over, but everything she knows is about to change.
Liz Konkel for Readers' Favorite
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Led by a foulmouthed female protagonist, this unique and entertaining dystopian adventure is full of well-drawn characters.
Clark Boutwell’s Outland Exile is a hard-edged dystopian sci-fi adventure depicting the struggles between the lower classes and the militarized government.
It’s the twenty-second century. The United States has become the Democratic Unity of America or “the Unity.” The privileged typically work for the militarized government and indulge in superficial activities like drug taking and getting their bodies altered. The have-nots live on the outskirts and are seen as ruffians by those in the Unity.
James Burt
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Boutwell tells the story of a young soldier navigating the chasm between two opposing societies in this sci-fi debut.
In the 22nd century, the United States has been replaced by a number of successor states. The Democratic Unity of America is a military-controlled dictatorship of the young, fueled by drugs and implants, in which people over 40 are forced into retirement (and often worse than that). West of the Unity are the outlands, a low-tech wilderness where the Sisis (senior citizens) still live. Malila Evanova Chiu, a foulmouthed 17-year-old officer in the Defensive Unity Forces for Security, is sent out to take control of a troublesome station deep in the heart of outlander territory.
Kirkus Review
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In a new world that been introduced here in Outland Exile where a new society, Unity is manipulated with new advanced technology and doctrine to obey all the rules that their totalitarian government induced to their people. The setting was a new futuristic version of United States of America and quite fascinating by the hi-tech propaganda, implants, and drugs. Even with that advancement, there was also a glimpse of political interest, different ideologies, wasteland and unsuited extreme weather that may be not entirely perfect in the state they have.
I was quite impressed by how the visualization of new dystopian city sprouted and well been developed into this book.
Descendant of Poseidon Reads
Exiles’ Escape (released February 2018)
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Young warriors fight a repressive government in this dystopian vision of America.
Boutwell’s (Outland Exile, 2015) sequel, which begins immediately after the events of his debut, plunges readers back into the high-stakes fight between the Democratic Unity of America and the Restructured States of America, two nations that emerged following the collapse of the U.S. in 2051. Seventy-five years after the great war, tension between the two countries is increasing. Seventeen-year-old Unity soldier Malila Chiu has faked her death and is on the run from her commander, Eustace Jourdaine, who’s engineering a coup that will put him in charge of the nation.
Kirkus Review
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As Malila is beginning to recognise, faking her own death was the simple part. Actually getting away from the Unity, with an incensed Eustace Jourdaine bent on capturing her to tie up the last loose ends of his own power coup, not so much. On the far side of the Rampart, Jesse Johnstone has his own troubles; being a legend in his own lifetime was on thing, but being a legend in several generations thereafter has earnt him fame, limited rank, and a host of well-connected enemies bent on making his life unnecessarily complicated - and consequently damaging his stocks of good whiskey.
By Rite of Word
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The year is 2129 and America has dissolved into a dystopian society divided into two factions. The Unity is in control of several major cities, providing employment, tracking devices and forced retirement at age 40, while the rest of America is known for its turmoil, killer plants, slavers and Ageplay, a technology used to extend human lifespan. In Exiles’ Escape, Book Two in W. Clark Boutwell’s Old Men and Infidels fantasy series, the story follows Will, Hecate and Malila, as they are brought together trying to escape the oppression of the Unity.
Online Book Club
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As Malila is beginning to recognise, faking her own death was the simple part. Actually getting away from the Unity, with an incensed Eustace Jourdaine bent on capturing her to tie up the last loose ends of his own power coup, not so much. On the far side of the Rampart, Jesse Johnstone has his own troubles; being a legend in his own lifetime was one thing, but being a legend in several generations thereafter has earnt him fame, limited rank, and a host of well-connected enemies bent on making his life unnecessarily complicated - and consequently damaging his stocks of good whiskey.
J C Steel
Malila of the Scorch: (released November 2019)
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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.
Ray Simmons
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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.
Clarion
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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.
Kat Kennedy
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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.
Anthony Avina
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Reviewed By: Ray SimmonsReview Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed By Ray Simmons for Readers’ Favorite
Malila of the Scorch is Book Three of a series called Old Men and Infidels. I did not read the first two books in the series, but I intend to remedy that as soon as I can. 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.Reader's Favorite Review 5-stars
After the Fall Was Over, Book 1 of Silence and the Gods
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After the Fall Was Over is Book One of The Silence and the Gods series, an epic story of war, loyalty, and the perils of human interference in nature.
The Democratic Unity should symbolize order, but instead, it delivered slaughter.
Captain Blanche Woods holds command of a rifle company, though command has little meaning when her soldiers are CRNAs: men stripped of memory and grafted into service as nameless rank-and-file. Their obedience is unbending, and their humanity is non-existent, something which Woods has long since made peace with. She tells herself she is the sharpened edge of Unity’s sword, stretched across the frozen outskirts of Aytlana, anchoring the flank while generals choreograph their grand victory.
Hundreds of kilometres away beneath Philadelphia’s streets, William Butler, America’s first spy in the Unity, lives in a ruined Roundhouse among scavenged machines. His reality is reduced to passing scraps of information into a homeland he can only imagine still exists, his sole companions being the love of his life, Hecate, and the gelatinous intelligence known as Frog.
Then, everything descends into madness. Woods makes her rounds to find her defenses empty, rifle-pits slick with frozen blood, weapons abandoned in the ice, and the CRNAs, once mechanical in their discipline, tearing each other into ribbons of flesh, roaring like beasts. In Philadelphia, Butler receives a dear friend’s final message: a time, a place, the key to the invasion itself. Butler must now risk exposure to deliver the intel, knowing the Unity’s eyes are everywhere. Both officers, one from the Unity and one from its enemy, confront the same realization: what was stable is now untenable.
If Butler and his team don’t make it in time, the Unity will smother America beneath its machines. But even if they succeed, will they be able to rid the world of the irrepressible CRNAs who no longer obey their makers? As for Woods, she must choose whether to bind her fate to a conniving senior officer or sever herself from the Unity entirely.
After the Fall Was Over is Book One of The Silence and the Gods series, an epic story of war, loyalty, and the perils of human interference in nature. The novel’s plot is an intricate exploration of both the personal and global costs of war, framed by two compelling characters who represent the struggle between duty and humanity. Boutwell’s originality shines in his portrayal of the CRNAs, individuals stripped of memory and agency, which serves as a powerful metaphor for the dehumanizing effects of conflict. Themes of sacrifice and the blurred line between morality and survival resonate deeply throughout the narrative, as Woods and Butler are forced to confront their own complicity in a world gone mad. The contrast between the frozen, desolate landscape of Aytlana and the crumbling underworld of Philadelphia adds a haunting depth to the story, highlighting the novel’s exploration of both physical and psychological warfare. A powerful, thought-provoking read.
Fall Was Over
