My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the sequel to Wendig’s 2019 “Wanderers”. “Wayward” takes place five years after the events of the first book, and we find Benji, Marcy, Shana, and the rest of the sleepwalkers and shepherds living in Ouray, CO, the town that they were led to for safety from the global pandemic and collapse of the world as they knew it. They are building a community and a new life. But the rest of the world is still out there, and it’s not all pretty. Self-proclaimed president Ed Creel is calling together his supporters to an army of insurrectionists. They rely on violence, cruelty, and terrorism to push their claim to become the new order. And Black Swan, the AI intelligence that envisioned and executed the pandemic and subsequent world order collapse, is still in Ouray, and has its own agenda for the future. Benji and Shana are sure that what Black Swan wants is not what the world needs, any more than Ed Creel’s dictatorship is. They discover a possible “cure” for Black Swan, and set out on a quest to make sure that the future of humanity is truly human.
At around 800 pages, this sequel clocks in even longer than the first novel. And there are points where I felt there could have been some paring down of the story and wordiness, but never to the point that the plotlines got buried. After some initial set-up, the story tends to alternate along several plotlines, switching back-and-forth along the way. This can tend to get confusing and even annoying when a favorite character’s journey is paused to make way for another. But Wendig manages to keep the flow moving well. It helps that the majority of his characters- the ones we really care about- are all rounded and, if not all likable, they are, at least, able to keep the reader invested in all their stories. There’s a lot of bleak and darkness here, but it is post-apocalyptic horror-ish, so that should be expected. But there are glimmers of light and goodness sprinkled in, as well. This isn’t a complete doom-and-gloom future. There is possibility and hope if everyone can somehow manage to work together.
There’s violence, loss, and desolation a-plenty, and fans of post-apocalyptic stories with strong characters and twisting, interweaving plotlines should find these two (yes, you need to read “Wayward” first) to be quite good reads.
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My latest book is a collection of very short stories, half science fiction and half fantasy, called “Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. I have also written a few other short pieces, another collection, two novels, and an urban fantasy series. You can find most of them at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. A few are also available from Amazon in paperback. My novel, “Circle Unbroken” is also on Kindle Unlimited, if that’s your reading preference. You can find out about all of them here.
There are also some stories you can read here on my site, mostly the yearly Halloween short I write, but there are a few others. You can read them from here
And So On... 