Wanderers

Locations
Call Number: Science Fiction / Wendig, Chuck, Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Wendig, Chuck
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Science Fiction / Wendig, Chuck	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Wendig, Chuck	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Wendig, Chuck	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Wendig, Chuck	4-week checkout	Due 05-13-2024

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.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

So many parallels to our current pandemic submitted by LVDS on July 16, 2020, 11:45am An interesting mix of sci-fi, CDC medical detective work, family relationships, artificial intelligence, a presidential election and white supremacy extremes. O yeah, did I mention a virus that is killing most of humanity!
I had to check the date when this was published, it was 2019. Creepy between today's news and this story.

Poor sci-novel that falls short. submitted by sns101 on July 27, 2020, 1:05am This is simply not a good book.

It’s meant to be an apocalyptic, sci-fi thriller, but it plods on for 800 pages and finally ends not with a bang or a whimper but a “meh.” The actual story— a wandering flock of sleepwalkers— becomes dull a few hundred pages in after too much exposition and too little action.

The real nail in the coffin though is the lack of character development. The author employs the same folksy manner of speech for each character’s internal dialogue, from the African-American scientist to the redneck white nationalist to the angsty teenager. Worse still are the characters’ parenthetical asides, with awkward, “wink wink nudge nudge” cultural references meant to convince the reader that they belong to the particular race, class or religion they’re supposed to represent. I find this a little tokenizing and disingenuous as far as character development goes. Really, would a black man in America have so little to say about racism that it can fit in one parenthetical aside, not to be mentioned again in 800 pages? Because of all this, the characters come off as stereotypical and pandering to reader’s assumptions of who they should resemble, rather than actual people.

By the end of the book, there are some grand but unclear statements attempted here (Human determination? Climate change? Artificial intelligence?) Ultimately, it’s not worth the time and effort to reach them.