It’s been years since I’ve read a book I would consider calling “epic,” and now Wanderers has finally checked that box. This book is epic in every sense of the word. The scope is mind boggling, the heady combination of future tech and a terrifying fungus plague provided hours of entertainment, the cast of characters is huge and diverse, and finally, Wendig’s vision of a possible future-end-of-the-world scenario scared me to death! Add in plenty of violence, a tantalizing mystery, and a chilling look at the future of politics in America, and you have a big, brash, ballsy book that, despite its blockbuster appearance, is well crafted and carefully thought out.
And before I go any further, I have to mention that if you are a reader who reacts negatively to triggers—murder, graphic violence, suicide attempts, rape, torture, racial slurs, etc—then this book is probably not going to be for you. I think Wendig includes every single trigger out there in his story, which worked for me, but it’s not going to work for everyone. You have been warned.
As for the plot, I’ll give you the bare bones version. One day in June, something strange begins to happen. A young girl named Nessie from a small town in Pennsylvania wakes up one morning and walks away from her home, barefoot and in her pajamas. Her sister Shana tries to stop her, but Nessie keeps walking, oblivious to her surroundings, intent on going...somewhere. It’s as if she’s sleepwalking with her eyes open. Terrified and confused, Shana decides to follow her, and by doing so becomes the first of the shepherds. Later, other walkers join Nessie as they inexorably make their way west, and Shana is joined by other shepherds, family and friends of the walkers who simply want to protect them.
At the same time, a deadly fungal infection is starting to spread throughout the United States. Slowly at first, with only one or two cases identified, the CDC is brought in to try and stop it from spreading. The first symptoms of the disease are cold-like: stuffy nose and watery eyes, followed by the appearance of a white, powdery substance around the mouth and nose. Eventually symptoms similar to dementia emerge, and the afflicted person goes crazy. There is no cure, and preliminary calculations by scientists are alarming: the entire human race is at risk.
Benji Ray works with the CDC and is brought on to help with the outbreak. Working with a predictive machine intelligence called Black Swan, Benji and Black Swan’s creator, a whip-smart woman named Sadie Emeka, delve into the mysteries of White Mask, the moniker for the disease. Are the walkers somehow connected to White Mask? And how does Black Swan fit in? As the ranks of walkers keep growing, and White Mask continues to spread, Benji and his team must find some answers fast—before things fall apart for good.
Wanderers is a sprawling, multi-character story that takes its time developing. When the sleepwalkers start walking (and keep walking), you get the sense that this isn’t going to be a fast-paced, action-packed story. And in the beginning, it isn’t. Wendig has lots of moving parts that he not only has to introduce, but eventually connect together, and I thought he did a bang up job of it. The story never felt slow, even though it took some time to introduce all the characters, tell their backstories, and drop hints about what's going on. The mystery of the walkers isn’t revealed until way into the story, but that was OK, because there is so much good stuff that comes before that reveal. And by the time things go bad—and they do—you’re truly invested in the characters and what’s happening to them. That makes some of the less savory events even worse because you like these people.
Wendig has always been open with his fans when it comes to his opinions about such things as social media, right wing politics, and other touchy subjects, and he definitely takes this opportunity to inject those opinions into his story. One of the characters is a thinly-veiled Trump-like presidential candidate who is trying to unseat a woman president in the upcoming election. Trump fans are not going to like this portrayal of far right values and political beliefs, although it certainly made for a fantastic—and scary!—story element. In the world of Wanderers, the United States (and much later, the rest of the world) is literally falling apart, and while Wendig’s story might seem fantastical and ridiculous, there is an eerie feeling that our society is heading in that direction, and maybe this should be read as a cautionary tale. (And aren’t all dystopians cautionary tales, after all?)
Lots of reviewers are comparing this book to Stephen King’s The Stand, and for me it was the way Wendig wrote and developed his characters that most reminded me of King’s style of storytelling. He’s got nearly 800 pages to work on those characters, and by the end of the story I was practically yelling at the book when bad things started to happen to them. Some of my favorites were Benji, a black man who not only struggles for respect in his field, even after he’s proven himself, but his faith in God is also tested, as things start to go downhill and he sees how truly evil people can be. I also loved Marcy, a tough, ex-cop who suffered a terrible head injury on the job and now has a plate in her head. Marcy has a different reason for being drawn to the walkers and joining the shepherds, and boy she goes through a lot in this story! Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned Pete Corley, an aging gay rock star who nearly steals the show, or Matthew Bird, a mild-mannered pastor who is seduced by fame and fortune and gets caught up with the wrong people.
There were a few things in the story that were never explained. Marcy has a special connection to the walkers that no one else seems to have, and I don't think the reason behind it was ever revealed. There's also a weird section near the end that had a Matrix-like, alternate reality feel to it. It does give the reader much more explanation about why the walkers are walking and where they're going, but it almost felt like the story took a weird turn into fantasy at that point. And I was confused by something that happened to Shana at the end as well. But honestly, these unexplained elements didn't kill the story for me, obviously. I'm still giving the book five stars and chalking it up to the mysteries of science!
My review has barely scratched the surface of this book. There’s just too much to talk about without this evolving into a Wanderers-length book review. Bottom line: I loved this book, and I'm excited for Chuck's next one!
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.
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Popular Highlights in this book
“I heard that if you complain it reprograms your brain like a computer virus and it just makes you more and more unhappy, so I’m going to stay positive because I bet the opposite is true, too.”Highlighted by 381 Kindle readers- They called it Black Swan after Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s black swan theory, which suggested that some events were utterly unpredictable; only after the events happened did we rationalize their occurrence as something we should have expected.Highlighted by 370 Kindle readers
- 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.Highlighted by 347 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
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| The Book of Accidents | Aftermath: Star Wars | |
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| Price | $13.99 | $8.51 |
| More from Chuck Wendig | A family returns to their hometown—and to the dark past that haunts them still—in this masterpiece of literary horror by Chuck Wendig. | The Emperor may be defeated, but the war isn't over as the fledgling New Republic hunts the remnants of the Empire. |
About the author
Literal Boomer Karen says read this book!
Literal Boomer Karen says get this book and read it or I’m going to call your manager. Or maybe your mom. Seriously, I could not put this book down, stayed up hours too late for several nights in a row to read it. Then turned right around and read it again. Thank you, Chuck Wendig, I hope we get a part 2.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2019
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2019
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Top reviews from other countries
Rob E!
Wonderfully immersive, terrifyingly prescient
Reviewed in Canada on March 24, 2020
Agustín Galván
What a enjoyable end of our world!
Reviewed in Mexico on July 27, 2019
Agustín Galván
Reviewed in Mexico on July 27, 2019
And also you will chill, and enjoy and have a nice time with all the characters, the story, the writer.
A classic? Time will (surely) tell...
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Xavier Hugonet
Apocalyptic story in a social media age
Reviewed in France on December 30, 2019
