Set in a supernatural world decades into the future, W. Clark Boutwell’s MALILA OF THE SCORCH (Old Men and Infidels) is the continuation of a series of books dealing in conflict in an almost surrealist America, based on engagement between both humankind and supernatural plant forces, and set in colorful landscapes that serve up a chaotic and vulnerable feel. The text opens with a classic bit of throwback storytelling–a fireside tale for children that sets the context for what is to follow–and a useful narrative to drive the story forward. The three sides of this new world conflict are the old-world America, a break away coastal ‘Unity’, and that intelligent, plant-like world. The titular Malila is a conflict survivor known as Malila Chiu, who early in the book is saved by a mysterious plant-like being, Splanch, in the heart of the man-eating plant world of The Scorch. As well as Splanch, there are reams of otherworldly oddities found in this text. The Speaker is a mysterious and seemingly invisible voice that occupies a lush valley. Plants evolve to repel human attacks, and zombie soldiers fight in a sometimes manic mish-mash. Jesse, Malila’s love interest, is an expert on The Scorch, and is sent together with an army to retrieve her from its dangerous heartlands, after a signal reveals to everyone’s surprise that she’s still alive. The search has a variety of weighty consequences.
This third book in the series (Outland Exile is book one and Exiles’ Escape is book two) is best read after the books that precede it, if only because the opening sections of MALILA can make for a confusing segment in the absence of the stories that preceded it (indeed, an early text is even directly referenced at one point). Once caught up though, the book offers up an incredibly imaginative world with complex layers and lots of intrigue. It’s presented from numerous angles, their various links to Malila largely unveiled fairly early, and the segments slowly begin to draw together and interact. Each has an air of the slightly unreliable narrator, a factor that adds depth. The mangled and manipulative politics, which includes some comic propaganda, is a nice dimension, too. The subtler elements, both the manically otherworldly, and the delicate and haphazard politics of a society preparing for a first war in several decades, collide beautifully. All in, MALILA OF THE SCORCH is a fascinating piece of futurescape world-building, enhanced by its subtle references to our own past and its unexpected twists and turns. It’s at times dark and dystopian, and at others brightly and engagingly crammed with personality. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, given this is part of a series, there are a couple of plot points left unresolved, but perhaps these are to be continued.
W. Clark Boutwell’s third book in an wildly unusual series, MALILA OF THE SCORCH (Old Men and Infidels) sits at the dark end of the science fiction genre in a future world full of sorrow and danger, featuring vivid descriptions and complex world-building.
~James Hendicott for IndieReader