"EXILES" IS A READER'S FAVORITE FIVE STARS

As I write this, it is raining again. It has now been raining almost continuously for the last three days, very heavily at times, and indeed, the convenience store across the street was just rendered "unfit for human habitation" by the local department of health after its ceiling caved in. This weather matches the internal weather I've endured since I returned from California: in addition to the fact it's tax season, that my cat Spike is clearly nearing the end of his earthly journey after almost eighteen years at my side, well, evidently I bear all the stigmata of stage two of clinical burnout. I'm tired, I'm anxious, I'm distracted, I find it difficult to concentrate, I get irritable -- or enraged -- over trivial setbacks but feel numb toward the real problems of my life, et cetera and so on. Most writers are generally depressive in and by nature, but throw in a job, victim advocacy, where you take the full brunt of vicarious trauma for thousands of people each year, and you can imagine how I get sometimes.

Every now and again, however, amid the showers of bad news and black humor, a ray of sunshine gleams. This cliche is annoying but it persists because it is true, so here is the gleam:

You may remember, and if you don't I'll obnoxiously remind you, that late last year I went down to Miami to receive the Readers' Favorite Gold Medal for my third novel, Sinner's Cross. Well, that venerable organization has just posted its review of my fifth, Exiles: A Tale from the Chronicles of Magnus, and here it is, word for word:

Reviewed by Pikasho Deka for Readers’ Favorite

Exiles is a gripping dystopian thriller by Miles Watson. The story follows Marguerite Bain, a smuggler and captain of the Sea Dragon, who gets an unusual assignment to provide supplies to an exile living on the remote island of Beausejour. But Marguerite doesn't adhere to the strict instructions of the Employer, and when she gets her hands on the journal of the exiled Enitan Champoleon, she delves into his story. Champoleon was a tramp, deserter, and masterful liar who inadvertently spawned the influential revolutionary group Solution to fight against the Order's ruthless regime. However, he soon realized that by doing so, he was offering Europe to a complete megalomaniac with grand plans to set up his own totalitarian regime. Meanwhile, someone from the Watch has infiltrated Marguerite's crew.

Mystery, espionage, and political intrigue lace the pages of Exiles. Miles Watson has built a believable futuristic dystopian world featuring authoritarian regimes, likable rogues, and revolutionaries with flexible morals. The setting is fascinating and immersive, while the plot is full of surprises and unexpected twists and turns that you never see coming. Watson moves the plot at a brisk pace, with compelling characters who have layers to unpeel beneath their outer personas. The narrative features a story within a story, and I enjoyed Champoleon's backstory almost as much as Marguerite's action-packed adventures. Their brief interaction toward the end was immensely satisfying to me. The author also excels in building suspense, tension, and intrigue through the narrative, which is absolutely captivating. As a fan of dystopian tales that mirror real-world issues, I loved this book and can't recommend it highly enough.

Not bad for a rainy Wednesday, eh? Of course I must confess that Exiles holds a special place in my heart, because it was at once the most fun I've ever had on a writing project and also, relatively speaking, the easiest big literary job I have ever undertaken. No book or story writes itself, but this came as close as one can come to such an experience, where the writer himself stands aside and merely encourages and conducts the flow of ideas into words. I believe I slammed out the first draft in something like four months, and scarcely needed revisions: compare that to the nightmare that was the still-unpublished Something Evil, which took six and a half grinding years to break the tape, and must now undergo a lengthy and tedious drafting process! But my enjoyment and affection for Tales go deeper than that. Never before had I attempted world-building on anything close to the scale which I attempted here, and by all (preliminary) accounts I have succeeded in my aim: but whether I have or I haven't, I cherished the process of building, and the host of new ideas which followed each small epiphany about this new world I had made.

So if you haven't already, I encourage you to give Exiles a try, and see if you agree with Reader's Favorite's five star review. While you're at it, why not read the preceding novella in the same universe, Deus Ex? I won't claim that it can't hurt -- these books dig deep into the psychology of power, sometimes in a way that is a bit painful, as bright light is painful -- but any discomfort you experience will be more than compensated for by the resulting illumination.