The apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic novel…one of the mainstays of Science Fiction for almost as long as the genre has been around and before, with some consideration given to the Epic of Gilgamesh as an apocalyptic epic. Going forward several centuries, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826) specifies a plague as the cause of humanity’s downfall. Coming up closer to our times, there’s the quiet, almost humane apocalypse of George Stewart’s Earth Abides, and of course, the big elephant in the room, the codifier of the Epic Apocalyptic novel, Stephen King’s The Stand as well as Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon. This, of course, leads to Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers, the latest (and an instant classic) entry in the apocalyptic novel category.
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).
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.
In one sense, the novel begins relatively quietly and mundanely. A young girl begins sleepwalking. But of course, it doesn’t quite continue that way as more ‘sleepwalkers’ join her and form a flock. Still a little serene and calm, until you attempt to halt the progress of these sleepwalkers. If immobile and held against their will, they have a tendency to explode. Fun stuff, right?
As this flock of sleepwalkers grows, they become more noticed for their zombie-like trance and continual drive. Problem is, nobody knows why they are walking and gathering. There’s an early interlude featuring the scion of an Entertainment mogul trying to make good on his name, who has an accident and contracts what turns out to be the first instance of a new plague that has the potential to decimate the entire human population.
While the walkers are marching and this disease (White Mask as it comes to be dubbed) spreads, a disgraced CDC scientist, Benji Ray, is brought into the fold because a super computer, Black Swan, sees/calculates something in Benji that will help humanity through the apocalypse.
Whenever the end of the world hits, religion and politics tend to ramp up and that couldn’t be truer than it is in Wanderers. Election fever is quite high and there’s a very vocal, racist candidate, Ed Creel, making waves, who is of course a stand-in for Trump. There’s a preacher, Matthew Bird, who soon becomes a growing figure in the religious right as his podcast emboldens people to vilify the sleepwalkers. Encouraging Bird is Ozark Stover, a mountainous man whose rough exterior is probably the most approachable thing about him. To say that he agrees with Creel’s white nationalist views is one of the biggest understatements of the novel.
Much of the early novel is seen through the eyes of Shana. Nessie, Shana’s younger sister, was the first sleepwalker, so naturally Shana (and soon, her father) begin following the flock across the country. Benji eventually meets up with the flock as does the attention-whore of a rock star Pete Corley. As Shana, Benji and the flock attempt to understand why their loved ones are wandering, the masses that Creel, Bird, and Stover are provoking begin to rise up in power and reveal just how long their deep-seated hatreds have been percolating.
Wanderers is also one of the timeliest books I have ever read, it speaks so powerfully, elegantly, and crassly (in an elegant way) to the current zeitgeist. The fractured political ideologies of the US, of our world, really are on full display here and come across as all the more potent because Wendig has a fantastic way of imbuing his characters with believability. Creel is viewed at from a distance, but Stover, boy-howdy is Ozark Stover a convincing figure of vocal hatred.
It would be easy to pluck a lot of what Wendig does in Wanderers into simple tropes, but goddamn does he invest so much energy in passion into every element of the novel. Tropes exist for a reason and are good guideposts for fiction, so when a writer of Wendig’s powerful narrative skill charts a story using some familiar tropes, we the reader are in for a bombastic treat. The book is just smart through and through, it doesn’t shy away from its predecessors, at one point calling out The Stand, or the characters embracing the fact that they are living in an unfolding apocalypse.
In short, between the potent politics, graphic nature, and embracing of the tropes, Wending doesn’t shy away from ANYTHING in Wanderers. As a writer, Chuck is far from a shy person, as people who follow him online and in fiction already know. I’ve read a few of Chuck Wendig’s novels and I see some pieces of those works, here, except maybe a little more refined an in your face. Wanderers is a magnum opus for him, it seems like a work of fiction he’s been working towards, and is a powerful achievement.
“The Old Man in the Cave,” an old episode of The Twilight Zone, aired when I first started reading Wanderers and my mind couldn’t help returning to that classic episode featuring Lee Marvin as some of the events of the novel were unfolding. The chaotic vibe of the novel also paralleled some of what was going on in my life while I was reading the novel, too, so I felt an even greater resonance with Wanderers.
I called out The Stand and Swan Song at the top of this review. For me, they are the two high-water marks of the Epic Apocalyptic Novel – grand events, large cast of characters, great characterization, some science that leans heavily on frightful plausibility (with the science featured in Wanderers some of the most well-thought out and chilling in a novel of this scale and nature), and underlying currents of mingled fear, dread, and horror. Having followed Chuck Wending online on Twitter and the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror community and chatted with him, he’s mentioned these two books as big influences. Knowing that, I’d say Sai Wendig has shown himself at the very least an equal storyteller/writer of the Epic Apocalypse with Wanderers. For me, it is an instant classic, an immediate Modern Masterpiece of the genre, and will probably be my favorite 2019 novel, and a book I will hold very high in my pantheon for years to come.
So yeah, go out and get the damned book and read it.
Highly, highly recommended.
© 2019 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | 782 Pages
July 2019 | Del Rey Books
Excerpt: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555273/wanderers-by-chuck-wendig/9780399182105/ | http://terribleminds.com/ramble/blog/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher Del Rey Books
