Seven Soldiers: War of the Worlds

by Clark Wilkins

A REVIEW

Military weaponry, tactics and protocols highlight sci-fi non-stop battle thriller

In September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were abducted by aliens on a rural road in New Hampshire. After being taken aboard a spaceship they were subjected to a number of examinations including tissue samples, then released unharmed. The Hills informed the authorities and under hypnosis divulged the details of the events including the alien’s home star of Zeta Retiucli. This event was sufficiently genuine to be investigated by the FBI, CIA and Air Force.

Fast forward three hundred years.

The Interplanetary Defense Force (IDF) is in full retreat. They arrived on the planet to put down a rebellion and in their first encounter have taken a vicious beating. Who is this unknown enemy that turns their own weapons against them? An enemy they have yet to even see.

Their only chance is to regroup but how can they do that when the enemy is picking them off as they fall back. Once the army has withdrawn across a dam, they might have a chance but only if they can hold the dam and stop the advance. They need volunteers to make this stand. Seven soldiers step up for what is most likely a suicide mission.

Not only must they keep the enemy at bay, but the beautiful Dr. Nirawon Kaiser demands they capture one of the enemy to discover possible physiological vulnerabilities.

The battle ensues and Kaiser gets her wish only to discover an astounding link between the capabilities of the enemy and a UFO incident three centuries ago.

Once again, author Clark Wilkins excels in detailed research, this time into weaponry and military tactics and protocols. It’s well worth the read as an entertaining education into these specific areas. Seven Soldiers: War of Worlds is well structured with rising tension building to an unexpected climax.

Characterization is thin and stereotypical though thorough enough to carry the plot from one detailed description of weapons, their deployment and tactical strategy to another.

In previous works, Wilkins has cleverly blended fact with fiction adding an extra level of authenticity. However, in Seven Soldiers: War of Worlds, since the suggested link introduced by the actual Zeta Retiucli prologue doesn’t manifest itself until some three hundred years in the future the technique fails to invoke that sense of eerie intrigue.

What kind of people would choose to live in such a toxic environment,

even fight to stay there?

What’s wrong with them?

What are they hiding? 

It’s 1975 and the American military is about to undertake a two-day top-secret mission. It involves helicopter insertion of a four-man camera crew in full battle gear into a government-ordered abandoned town. Their assignment is to film any evidence of anyone still there, then return and report their findings. 

The town is Boston Mills, Ohio.

Chief Corporal Mason Wyatt and his three-man team have been cautioned that those who are left may not appreciate them coming it. In which case they could be armed. 

But as far as the unit is concerned, this mission is just routine. After all, this is Ohio, not hillbilly country or Vietnam, and it’s only for 28 hours. It can’t be dangerous. It will be a cakewalk. 

But Boston Mills isn’t just another hamlet in the rural Midwest. It’s now known as “Hell Town” and is home to a hazardous waste dump where the nearby river is so polluted it can actually be lit on fire. The poisoned environment smells like sulphur and has propagated mutant weeds that have overrun the landscape growing up through asphalt and blocking roads. 

What kind of people would choose to live in such a toxic environment, even fight to stay there? What’s wrong with them? What are they hiding? 

Corporal Mason and his team are about to find out. 

Mutane Town is Clark Wilkins at his best, blending fact with fiction creating the eerie feeling perhaps the author has some insight into these macabre actual events that are the basis of many of his stories. 

His extensive research and use of bona fide findings from government reports give this fast passed story a chilling sense of authenticity. Indeed, as Wilkins points out, what the reports don’t reveal is even more disturbing. 

As the subtitle suggests, The War of Mankind is A Dystopian Survival Thriller with copious amounts of well researched information on everything from food security to personal security. All this information is jammed into a story told by a young man as he experiences the apocalypse brought on by climate change, the results of which reactivates a recessive gene in human beings – a deadly one.

A crops fail and food becomes scarce, starvation is a reality, and not only in third world countries. Amongst all that junk DNA, there’s a sleeping gene that allowed us to consume raw meat, and it’s awakening.

The first indication that something dark and disturbing is going is the mutilation of the bodies of homeless people and others who die in parks. Their corpses appear to have been partially eaten. But as famine increases, soon it’s not only dead bodies that are being cannibalized, but also the vulnerable among the livin

g; children and the elderly.

The protagonist begins to realize there are a growing number of the population who prefer a diet of human flesh over anything else and they are on the increase. He can identify them by the subtle genetic modifications they undergo and, with the help of his father, takes steps to defend himself and escape to where pe

ople have more conventional dietary habits, at least for now.

But he has a problem. The beautiful, young woman he’s fallen in love with shows all the signs of being a cannibal, including her preference for the uncooked varieties of dog food.

Author Clark Wilkins uses a creative blend of actual media reports, pseudo-science and imagination to weave a convincing story about a gruesome end to the world as we know it. The plot unfolds realistically, and the response of the protagonist is just as pragmatic.

Characterization is minimal, and at times the plot is brought to a standstill with survival information such as how to operate a stove, home lights, and a hot water tank without electricity and details of other actual survival techniques including weapons.

However, considering the state of civilization, this information overload may turn out to be an asset to the reader rather than a liability.

Read "The War of Mankind: A Dystopian Survival Thriller" as entertainment, then save it for future reference.

When is having multiple personalities, or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), an asset? When one personality is a professional assassin and the others can cover for her. 

When former CIA assassination trainer Troy Greenbrier discovers Shinayne, a disoriented, young woman on the streets of Las Vegas, he selflessly decides to help her out. He gives her lodging; food and the following day buys her some new clothes.  He even takes her to a gun range where he is conducting training for his new government employer. 

Shinayne is a natural marksman as well as having some other personality traits Troy sees as making her a perfect candidate for a specialized career. Sensing her prospects, he makes some enquiries with his former employer, then puts her on military transit destined for a facility where she’ll begin psychological testing and training as a government assassin. 

A few years later Troy is working for the Federal Protective Service guarding Federal employees like judges and Congressmen, but he differs from others in the Service in that he does it proactively and not defensively.  He solves the problem before it shows up.  

So, when Misha Roberts, an American citizen, a known sympathizer to Iran, and a possible operative for other terrorist organizations enters the United States via Canada, Troy gets the call of duty to discover what she’s up to? But right from the start, they are bureaucratic irregularities that make him suspicious. Could someone high up in his own government be actually aiding and abetting this likely terrorist? 

So begins a game of high stakes intrigue with Troy trying to discover who or what Misha Roberts’ target is and prevent her from carrying out her deadly mission. But not only is his investigation being foiled by his own government, he’s up against a highly sophisticated opponent, and though he doesn’t know it, she’s the one he recommended for the job when he first recognized her potential. 

Author Clark Wilkins writes an impeccably researched account of how to plan, prepare, and execute the assassination of a High Value Target in America - all the while eluding the various agencies tasked with preventing it.  And he does by introducing a unique character, a young woman whose psychiatric disorder is an asset, allowing her to convincingly become different people, one of them a sociopathic murderer. 

With High Value Target, Wilkins’ provides the reader with a thrilling story, insight into Dissociative Identity Disorder, as well as a disturbing look at politics in America today.