Exiles, by Miles Watson: A Review

One man: an unwanted, abused orphan who found an escape in books, and in a moment of danger decides to model himself on a fictional character.

One woman: sold to a whorehouse as a child who has found her escape in the discipline and ruthlessness needed to become a captain of a smuggling ship.

A second man: convinced of his superiority, admitting no morality or laws but his own, who has sworn to destroy the despotic government known as The Order.

Eniton Champoleon, Marguerite Bain, Magnus.

Marguerite Bain, Captain of the Sea Dragon, is hired by The Order to take food and water to a tiny island on which a man is exiled. She is to make no contact with them. But Marguerite is not of a mind to do as she is told, and she leaves writing materials in one shipment. The story she is given in return tells of the unwanted orphan who becomes a wanderer and a conman, a tramp – until the day he accepts a free meal in exchange for listening to a political speaker. Caught up in the movement against The Order, he invents a history for himself and a future for the revolutionaries: one that has no basis in reality. But his lies will have a price, when a rising revolutionary called Magnus reveals his hand.

Marguerite, her own past too painful to dwell on, finds herself questioning her own choices as she reads Champoleon’s autobiography. Drawn to him, her interest in his story becomes compulsive, and dangerous.

Written in the style of a political thriller, set in an alternative future Europe, Exiles is also a psychological study of exile both voluntary and involuntary. Champoleon and Marguerite are both set apart from others by the circumstances of their childhoods and the paths taken as adults, whether by choice or by fate. Neither have anyone to trust, or love. Magnus, who believes himself an Übermensch, to use Nietzsche’s term, has no use for humanity except as tools for his vow to overturn The Order. All three have fictionalized their own lives, shaping them into an image individual to each character, but separate, alone, untouchable.

The novella, while capable of being read as a standalone, is also backstory for Watson’s earlier book Deus Ex. Much of it is told in great detail through Champoleon’s biographical writing – a technique I found palled after a while. But it does have the effect of distancing the reader from Champoleon, leading to the question of whether or not any of what he writes is true, or simply another story.  

Exiles has many twists and reversals, in good thriller style, and the tension and action builds throughout. Character voices are distinct. Watson is a writer of talent and imagination, with deeper themes beyond the surface stories of his books.

Miles Watson holds undergraduate degrees in Criminal Justice and History and a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction, and served in law enforcement for nearly ten years before moving to Los Angeles, where he has worked on over 200 episodes of television and half a dozen feature films. But his first and last passion is writing.