Wild Jack is a 1974 young adult science fiction novel written by the English prize-winning author John Christopher.

[1] Set in twenty-third century England, the plot concerns the young aristocrat Clive Anderson, who lives in decadent isolation within one of many walled-in hierarchal city-states, whose walls keep out the dangerous wilderness of the Outlands, and the barbaric savages known to hide there.

Clive is accustomed to luxury; his is a world of pleasure gardens and holiday islands, of nuclear-powered airships and "energy towers" powering the lights of the city.

While attending a party along the river, Clive overhears a schoolmate, Brian, questioning the role of their society's servants, asking "What right do we have to make them serve us?"

It is a far cry from the comforts which Clive is accustomed to—sleeping upon the hard ground in a ramshackle tent crammed with twenty other miscreant boys, awful food, labor and the threat of the stockade.

The island is a "training school" intended to beat out of the boys the "corruption" which has placed them against the will of society, which has made them "put self before citizenship."

Days pass, his condition worsening, and with the guards uncaring Clive and Kelly fear Sunyo might die should he not be rescued.

Clive and the other boys are terrified that they will be discovered by savages and horribly murdered, or eaten alive by wild beats, but they've no choice other than to trek into the forest in search of civilization.

The bearded man is unsympathetic to Clive's recent troubles, for running away because “life was hard.” And he introduces himself as the infamous Wild Jack.

Made prisoners yet again, under Wild Jack's men now, Clive, Sunyo and Kelly look to perform another escape, but are unable even to get out from the log-walled hut they spend their night in.

The green-clothed men treat them all with derision, calling them “city boys.” In the morning Wild Jack makes fun of their efforts and brings them out to take part in “the ordeal.” Clive fears what's to come as they are brought back into the forest, then to a ravine with a flimsy rope ladder slung across it.

Wild Jack explains that this place is called “Taipan Canyon,” for the deadly snakes which inhabit it—descendants of zoo animals escaped during the Breakdown.

They all make it across; laughing, Wild Jack congratulates them, and from the bottom of the canyon the “dead man” stands as well; there were never any snakes within the ravine.

They will not hold the boys any longer, if they do not want to stay; men “are all free in the Outlands.” Clive and the others partake in something of a feast back at camp in honor of their success, and afterwards talk with Jack as he feeds his homing pigeons.

Wild Jack also reveals that most of the people making up his “merry band” are not true denizens of the Outlands, but rather men from the cities who had good reasons to leave.

Mr. Sherrin sought, through deception, to involve Clive with a subversive group and have him imprisoned so that his father would be forced to undertake rash action to save his only son.

Clive is caught listening in and finds himself yet again locked away—he looks out towards the Outlands and thinks himself foolish, for walking right back into imprisonment when he'd at last, for the first time, experienced true freedom with Wild Jack and his band.

But the heavier the odds, the braver he has got to be.”[3] Clive is saddened at the thought that he may never again see his parents, but at least now his father is safe from Mr. Sherrin's deceptions.

His imprisonment on the prison island allows him to start grasping that his comfortable life had hidden costs, and he is left to decide whether he is now willing to pay them.

He was taken to the island after organizing something of a “guerilla” group against the authorities as vengeance for the death of his father, which culminated in a raid on the police building itself.

Wild Jack - The titular futuristic "Robin Hood," bogeyman of the Outlands who runs an outlaw band in opposition to the whims of the city-states.

"[5] The foremost idea of the novel Wild Jack appears to be freedom, a message which Christopher has explored before; perhaps his most well-known series, The Tripods, also features rebel fighters going up against a force of vast technological superiority and strength.