Name: Howard Greller's review of Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
Item: Wanderers
Rating: 3.5
Author: Howard Greller

Chuck Wendig

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. From the mind of Chuck Wendig comes “a magnum opus . . . a story about survival that’s not just about you and me, but all of us, together” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Kirkus Reviews • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Polygon Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other “shepherds” who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead. For as the sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America, the real danger may not be the epidemic but the fear of it. With society collapsing all around them—and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them—the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart—or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world. Praise for Wanderers “This career-defining epic deserves its inevitable comparisons to Stephen King’s The Stand.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic.”—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Run Away “A true tour de force.”—Erin Morgenstern, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus “A masterpiece with prose as sharp and heartbreaking as Station Eleven.”—Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M “A magnum opus . . . It reminded me of Stephen King’s The Stand—but dare I say, this story is even better.”—James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Crucible “An inventive, fierce, uncompromising, stay-up-way-past-bedtime masterwork.”—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World “An American epic for these times.”—Charles Soule, author of The Oracle Year

A Novel

Wanderers

Howard Greller

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world's last hope. In the tradition of The Stand and Station Eleven comes a gripping saga that weaves an epic tapestry of humanity into an astonishing tale of survival. Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and are sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead. For on their journey, they will discover an America convulsed with terror and violence, where this apocalyptic epidemic proves less dangerous than the fear of it. As the rest of society collapses all around them--and an ultraviolent militia threatens to exterminate them--the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart--or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

Sarah Sammis

Ultimately this novel comes together as a series of recognizable puzzle pieces. Read enough, watch enough, and you'll catch the twist well before the main characters do. Essentially Wanderers shares narrative elements with Immortality, Inc., Simulacron 3, The Santaroga Barrier, War Games, and Person of Interest.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2020/comm...

00CC99 (privileged uhoria labyrinth)

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world's last hope. In the tradition of The Stand and Station Eleven comes a gripping saga that weaves an epic tapestry of humanity into an astonishing tale of survival. Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and are sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other shepherds who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead. For on their journey, they will discover an America convulsed with terror and violence, where this apocalyptic epidemic proves less dangerous than the fear of it. As the rest of society collapses all around them--and an ultraviolent militia threatens to exterminate them--the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart--or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

Hailey Rae

This was a marvelous book regarding the end of the world, but in the best way possible. Every chapter was itching for more, and I love that each chapter was a different characters point of view from what was going on, and in other states around the world. The plot twist at the end of this book, I was not prepared for at all! Well written, and well captured and I never got bored throughout any of the story!

altlovesbooks

Maybe not the best book to read in 2020, but I read it on a whim and I'm glad I did it when I did it. It made the book feel like it carried a bit of extra weight, or baggage, or something when I could compare it to what's going on around me. You have a disease sweeping the world. You have a small group (the Flock) immune to the disease, walking like a sleepwalker to an unknown destination and guarded by a group of family and friends (the Shepherds). Then you have society unrest all around them, as fears and hatred become front and center. (view spoiler)[Things end for America, poorly. (hide spoiler)]

This was a hard book to review. I really wanted to like it, to the point where I caught myself trying to rationalize myself to even just 4 stars "just because". In the end though, while I liked the journey and the concept, the ending was...really lackluster to me. Not a lot really happens over the course of the book, and while you get some really intimate pictures of the walkers and the shepherds painted for you, it's a lot of window dressing on a tire fire of society commentary. There's some red herrings thrown out for the ultimate cause of the disease, but despite that I still managed to not be surprised at all at where it led. 

If you like the idea of end-of-the-world diseases, societal collapse, and all that sci-fi dystopian setting, maybe still give this a try. There's lots to like here. The ending didn't click with me though, but maybe it will for you.

Cindy McKee

This is a great story! I had to keep checking it out of the library so I could finish it, which is why it took me so long. But it is worth it!! Drama, suspense, even romance, action, and great dialogue make this a must read. It is unfortunate that it’s timely, but it is. Still, I loved it!

Adam

I will admit once the book arrived I fealt a little threatened by the size of it! At 800+ pages its a fair size (for me anyway) and normally it's like how a huge plate of food actually robs my appetite. However...

Once I got about 3/4 chapters in I managed the cliche of 'cant put it down'. A really addictive read I carried this around with me like it was another limb and was reading every chance I got. It actually made me have a full hours lunch break everyday at work which is pretty much unheard of for me. 

Between the main plot, many side plots and stories and the gradual entanglement of them all there is plenty going on to keep your mind turning over.

My first read from Chuck and certainty won't be my last.

Janice Hopper

10/21/19: Well, I finished it. Not really my kind of horror.

It's very Stephen King-like. That's fine. Some of it's creepy. That's (mostly) ok.

Some of it is really ugly and violent. That, for me, was not ok. It's entirely possible that, given our current political realities, I may be a little oversensitive to any book where violent white supremacists figure prominently, even if they're The Bad Guys.

Honestly though, I never really got over the part that stopped me reading in July. (no spoilers here). It really colored how I felt about the rest of the book.

But I'm old and kinda over-sensitive these days. YMMV.
_______________________
7/14: I was rocking along pretty well in this book till I hit A Certain Chapter. 

Now it's in time-out for a while. #nopenopenope

Ewan

Honestly it's a four point five, but rounded up. Yeah there were a few characters I didn't care for and it was a bit baggy in the middle but really picked up towards the end.

Also I may have slightly over compensated my score to counteract the people who marked down a book about an apocalypse caused by climate change because it dared mention climate change.

Celeste Richardson

I really wanted to like this book. I tried so hard. But I just ended up actively disliking it, which makes me sad.

Wendig bit off something really vast with this novel, and he actually executed it very well. It’s been billed as an epic saga, and that’s a fair description. Wanderers is as large in scope as the novel it is most commonly compared to, Stephen King’s The Stand, and mirrors the novel in other ways, specifically in its inclusion of an apocalyptic epidemic, its varied cast of characters, and its cross country journey on foot. However, Wanderers was far more hopeless, to the point of nihilism. The elements that should have been hopeful ended up being among the darkest and most disturbing. Don’t get me wrong; there were moments of loveliness. But overall it ended up leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. I also deeply hated the ending, and that further impacted my view of the book.
“I love you in the future tense: I will love you, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that until there are no more days left for us.”
I’m aggressively optimistic, so I have a very hard time dealing with bleakness, especially when hope is portrayed almost as a weakness. The Stand sounds like a book that would bother me, but there was a good bit of hope to be found there, and you could tell it was written from a deistic worldview. Wanderers was its opposite in that respect. Believers in God were often portrayed as naive, and faith was something to be overcome in most cases. I know realistically that many people, if faced with the types of situations in which these characters found themselves, would question God and possibly lose their faith. But there was just something about how that loss was handled in this novel that seemed as though such crises and the denial of God were something to be praised instead of pitied. It just really bothered me.
“That is how science and medicine are practiced best, though—we are best when we admit our ignorance up front, and then attempt to fill the darkness of not-knowing with the light of information and knowledge.”
Wanderers was also far more political that I was prepared for, and the politics present in the novel were thinly veiled versions of America’s current political climate. When asked about my political views, I bill myself as moderately conservative, though I try to just steer clear of politics as much as possible. Mostly, I just see myself as an egalitarian, and believe all people should be treated with dignity. That’s how Jesus lived His life, and it’s how I try my best to live mine. In this novel, almost everyone with a conservative view point is not only portrayed as wrong and small-minded, but as downright evil. It’s a portrayal that I can understand, as there are indeed many people like this in the world and our nation in particular, but I strongly disagreed with the implications that all political conservatives are evil, and that the vast majority of religious individuals only have faith because said faith has never been tested, and that it will break at the first sign of hardship.
“You didn’t change anyone’s mind about politics by hammering away at them—all that did was drive the nail deeper into the wall of their own certainty.”
The plot of the book was interesting, and I found it compelling enough to continue reading even though I disliked the implied worldview. Wendig did a great job of slowly building on the plot, and including multiple twists along the way. I’m a fan of slow burns, and Wanderers definitely qualifies. While I didn’t love the book, it never felt like it dragged, which is quite an accomplishment for an 800 page book. The portrayal of a world under siege by a disease, and the resulting breakdown in societal infrastruction, was very believable. I also thought that Wendig did a great job compiling his cast, and having such varied interests and viewpoints and personality types. 
“Hell, nobody's okay. Maybe we never were, and we damn sure aren't now. But we're here. Until we're not. And that's all I find it fair to ask for.”
While I really respect what Wendig crafted in and with Wanderers, it just didn’t work for me. Our worldviews are too different. Nihilism is anathema to me, and I would never had read this book had I known it would leave me feeling so hopeless. However, I can definitely see why this book would appeal to so many, and I foresee it being very popular. I would recommend this book to fans of apocalyptic fiction like The Stand and Station Eleven (though I far prefer those two to this book), but know yourself; if you have a difficult time with nihilism, you might need to skip this one.

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions.

elif sinem

I give up. I skipped to the very end of the book and it ended about as shitty as the rest of this novel.

My problem is that this novel starts out REALLY intriguing and manages to keep that intrigue on the sleepwalkers for a bit - until all sorts of opposite action was squandered and most of the plot advanced/stalled (mostly it just stalled) via dialogue. I think Shana's voice was very, very, very awkward. I loathed Matthew as character (more on this later). On the flipside, Benji was readable in a Karamo-POV sort of way, and Pete was very entertaining. Somebody lied to this author and told him he needed to write more and not cut some parts for a better novel. Like the plot's prose screams movie and we're getting an uberlong TV movie with 5 parts on national television! 

What I liked was the overall idea with White Mask and Black Swan. That entire reveal was... I'm not going to say it was something I necessarily would've done, OR completely adore, but I appreciate that it was gone there. Cause it's so different from everything else. Other reviews called it The Matrix, which is absolutely not true imo (maybe it changed in the last 40%, but otherwise? no) - I think it's unlike anything I've read before. I could discuss the core idea with my dad and coworkers and probably have a good discussion out of it. I appreciate it. 

So much to the technical the parts. The things that I hated were deeper in nature: mainly, I loathed every part that had to do with politics. Chuck Wendig is a known liberal-centrist, and reading this, that ideological idea was cooked into this novel's very DNA. The one character actually calling himself "progressive", Matthew (who isn't really THAT progressive anyway, but hooray for liking gay people?) winds up with nazis and later on actually says "The political spectrum is like a snail eating its tail" (which is really just a different way of the horseshoe theory really - WHICH is really just centrist bogus, cause the left wing and the right wing have zero in common lol). When politics is brought up, it's always a bad thing, and it stalls progress and science and characters think of moving around the system, but don't you dare criticise the female president either! She's doing her best! When the word revolution is brought up, it's with the right wing. Like -- these are just the snippets I caught, and it's really grating on me? I was really left wondering where somebody remotely leftist was. But the main characters are all "apolitical" (lol) or Matthew fucking Bird, or nazis. Is this how the endgame goes? IN AMERICA? I really don't think so. I'm not saying I was expecting a person to come out and say, "I'm a commie! I want everyone to have equal rights!" not at all - least of all from this novel. But that leaves this novel with a really questionable political position altogether. Oh wait - I forgot this is just the centrist nonsense people come up with. For those people, feminism is a thing, but it's only political when you tweet snake emojis at miss warmonger HRC.

Disappointing on most regards.

B.H. Pitt

The fact that this book came out ~6 months before the pandemic sent everyone into quarantine constantly sent new waves of shivers down my spine as the plot thickened. This book is, in many ways, a modern reinterpretation of The Stand, and it definitely deserves a look.

Anna Marija

Damn Chuck, you really had to do us this way, didn’t you?

Jessica Smith

I feel a bit guilty rating this so low, because there were some aspects of this book that I did like. Mostly the actual science fiction aspects: the plague, the scientists trying to get to the bottom of it, and the ultra-powerful AI Black Swan. The last 40% of the book or thereabouts is a lot more eventful (and interesting) than the first 60%. If this novel were like, 400 pages shorter, it could have been an enjoyable read.

The problem is that the things I liked were vastly outnumbered by the things I did not like. The far-right villains are absolutely the most boring pieces of shit imaginable; there is nothing intriguing or compelling about them or the fight against them. Most of the “good” characters weren't very interesting either (except Benji, I didn't mind him). Shana is just grouchy to everyone and I didn't buy the fast and furious progression of her romantic subplot. The Christian preacher guy… I mean, he's so excruciatingly dim that he gets sucked in by the far-right's chicanery (and Wendig is NOT able to suppress his contempt for them long enough to make it even remotely plausible that they, as depicted in this book, would appeal to anyone), and by being around them constantly in his chapters he forces me to have to read about them. The gay rock star past his prime is just kinda padding, he doesn't really do much (view spoiler)[except emerge from absolutely nowhere to run over and kill the villain boss (hide spoiler)]. I guess Marcy was OK, although I don't know that it was conclusively explained why being around the flock makes her headaches ease up.

So overall, no, I would not recommend this. There was a kernel of a good story in there, but it got buried under mounds and mounds of pointless subplots and cartoonishly evil villains. It is pretty easy reading if you just need something unsophisticated to fill up hours upon hours of your time in a hospital bed or something… but in pretty much any other situation there are much better choices.

Ben Nathan

I thought the ideas were very strong in this. Great characters, but not sure if we needed them all as the book felt too long. If this had been 20% shorter, it's 5 stars easy. The ending was good, but not as good as the rest of the book.

Bryan Alexander

So Wanderers is a thriller, a disappointment, and a pointer to some aspects of American life.

A thriller: Wanderers is an exciting story about disasters and a clutch of characters. It begins with an intriguing premise, a group of people suddenly start walking west, uncontrollably, and without any other signs of life. Characters appear and accrete around this, and then the plot ramps up. We encounter schemes, militias, a cryptic AI - and then things seriously escalate. Further I must restrict to spoilers. 

This makes for an exciting read. Wendig keeps the action going, ratcheting up stresses, giving us different points of view, cutting between events in mid-stream, and doling out small, teasing bits of information.

It's also disappointing. Partly that's due to the hype around the book, some of which is inside the text. Wanderers invokes Stephen King's The Stand with its themes of disease(namechecked on 539), collapse, and good versus evil struggle in the ruins. More recently, Justin Cronin's The Passage comes to mind, as does Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. But Wanderers has a much smaller, or shorter canvas. The action takes place in under a year, and really ends... without spoilers, I can only say the book is a prologue to an epic, or the opening move.

Partly it's because I felt so much of the book exiting my mind when I finished. The characters are nicely flawed (no Mary Sues here) but mostly passive and not too memorable. The "rock god" and teen girl (TM) were especially forgettable. They offer limited points of view, which can lead to a kind of constellation effect done right, but here were just blinkered and frustrating. Together they don't say much about America (the only country depicted) as representatives of a population at a given time (compare with social novels, which do this much better). Since we had a CDC character I hoped for more information about (certain plot points), but that person keeps falling out of the loop. 

(I have to say it's still weird to read pre-COVID-19 fiction where the CDC is competent.)

Yet Wanderers is actually useful as a document. It draws a bead on some aspects of American culture with implications for the future. I'll share a few, and spoilerize the ones based on finishing the book. They are all anxieties and fears:

Fearing Trump The story takes place during a presidential election. Candidates are clearly Trump and Hillary Clinton, although Clinton is the incumbent. They aren't really sketched out - neither appears as a character - but they do represent a certain political view. The Clinton is intelligent and well intentioned, while the Trump is fierce, media-savvy, and prone to violence. No real policy issues arise. The Trump has a cute name, Creel, making him a fisher of people.

Fearing the extreme right The novel's main (human) villain is a group of racist, rural gun nuts. Unlike the militias under the Clinton and Obama administrations, these guys build up into a major political force. They are clearly horrendous and monstrous - their leader is animalistic and followers are both cruel and stupid. (view spoiler)[They ultimately become something like the Taliban, or the Gilead movement in Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale knocking over the US government. They fizzle out at the end as humanity unspools. They don't seem to take or hold territory. (hide spoiler)] It's interesting that they aren't really religious. We have one religious point of view character who does go through a developmental arc, but away from the right. Racism and guns plus a side order of sexism: this is a distillation of liberal American fears.

Fear of AI The novel's AI is cryptic. There's definitely a HAL etc. vibe here. (view spoiler)[And when Black Swan ends up killing the human race, well. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[Fear of climate change Halfway through the book we learn that climate change spawned the bad disease, which is credible. Then at the very end we learn that the AI actually caused the plague to occur - in order to prevent a climate change apocalypse. So Wendig is playing with CC fears, both what it could do to us, and also to how we might react.  (hide spoiler)]. For me that's the most interesting part of the book.

There's also a quick Gwyneth Paltrow gag, which was cute (79) but never returned to.

Interestingly, there isn't much in the way of economic anxiety. Characters do not suffer financially until things get radically bad for everyone. One character is a millionaire. There is some class tension between the religious character and the lead villain, but that folds up into others. To me this reflects a certain popular dimension in contemporary American Democratic politics.

As a depiction of a society during a pandemic, there actually wasn't much to note here. We don't get a big picture view for most of the novel. What we do see is classic and unremarkable- Daniel DeFoe already did this.

Would I recommend the book? As a beach read, an engaging thriller. If you're into doom, you'll get a helping here.

Howard Greller &
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Reviews

Join the club

Howard Greller &Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Reviews

Join the club

Howard Greller &
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig