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mikeyb25's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
cpalmisanod's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
While beautifully written, this book is kind of boring. Which is weird considering it’s about a treacherous train journey with mysterious creatures, deaths, and stowaway.
thebooktrail88's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
I immediately feel as if I want to list the ways I love this novel.
A novel set on board the Trans Siberian Express
A steampunk fantasy
An alternative, dark yet magical, Victorian world
This book has changed and altered me in ways I can’t yet tell. I feel different having read it and that might be because of the magic within. Let me explain:
Picture yourself on board this very mystical and magical train. You fly past the landscape between Bejing and Moscow so you can imagine the scenery and the distance. A wonderful journey from the start. However, this is no ordinary journey – it’s fraught with danger and strange other-worldly things. There are walls at the start and end of the track and along the way the train is protected by outside forces. Certain cities are protected by giant walls and there is a distinct difference between outsiders and insiders.
Now this is where you can read so much more into the novel than first appears – walls being built to keep people out of a country for starters. Then there’s the idea of belonging to another territory and what happens when that link breaks. What about the walls and barriers we can’t see?
Even with those serious layers, there is nothing heavy about this book. There’s nods to Agatha Christie’s Orient Express and I got Night Circus vibes too given the world building and the link between the real world and that which we cannot see.
I enjoyed every magical part of this book but the setting – oh the setting!- was out of this world. I want to go to the Wastelands and board that train. It lives on in my mind but I have been back many times in my dreams.
That’s when you know a book has you hooked!
abbie_reads_books's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
alannajane's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Solid 4.5 stars.
Very well-narrated audiobook.
Step aboard this train ride, for a both tender and creepy journey through the changes that have been shut out of dignified society! This book starts with a bit of a chug-chug-chug, but then really gets rolling at a good medium-paced clip. The characters aboard the train are varied, and many have hidden agendas and/or identities. Certainly, they have all signed up for an adventure. Those who continue to peer out of the windows (against advisement) may even fall prey to "the wastelands sickness", at a cost of their own sanity. The crew do their best to maintain brave faces, despite knowing that unfathomable changes are taking place outside. Plus, they are being constantly scrutinized by the train company's two profit-maximizing representatives.
Great world-building and great writing are hallmarks of this wonderful book. The creepiness level (and persistently waning normalcy) of this book is super reminiscent of something T. Kingfisher would have created - making it an absolute delight. And, it is all brought to life so well by the narrator of the audiobook.
I have one qualm. Geographically, I may understand why the author chose to set this story where it is (and I knew from the synopsis where it takes place) .... That said, I honestly believe that we need to stop romanticizng Russia in our stories. Given the vast world-building and imaginative writing that this book incorporates, surely it wouldn't have been much more work to set this adventure somewhere else? Given Russia's ongoing oppressive, colonizing violence against Ukraine - plus the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped in the last two years from war-torn areas and forced to repress their heritage/culture and language in Russian foster families - we need to STOP glamorizing their existence!! I am still giving this book 4.5 stars because it deserves it, BUT setting any new book or story within this evil empire is an insult to the resistance of all Ukrainian people everywhere.
Huge gratitude to Netgalley and the publisher, Macmillan Audio, for an AudioARC of this book, in exchange for my (too) honest review.
Very well-narrated audiobook.
Step aboard this train ride, for a both tender and creepy journey through the changes that have been shut out of dignified society! This book starts with a bit of a chug-chug-chug, but then really gets rolling at a good medium-paced clip. The characters aboard the train are varied, and many have hidden agendas and/or identities. Certainly, they have all signed up for an adventure. Those who continue to peer out of the windows (against advisement) may even fall prey to "the wastelands sickness", at a cost of their own sanity. The crew do their best to maintain brave faces, despite knowing that unfathomable changes are taking place outside. Plus, they are being constantly scrutinized by the train company's two profit-maximizing representatives.
Great world-building and great writing are hallmarks of this wonderful book. The creepiness level (and persistently waning normalcy) of this book is super reminiscent of something T. Kingfisher would have created - making it an absolute delight. And, it is all brought to life so well by the narrator of the audiobook.
I have one qualm. Geographically, I may understand why the author chose to set this story where it is (and I knew from the synopsis where it takes place) .... That said, I honestly believe that we need to stop romanticizng Russia in our stories. Given the vast world-building and imaginative writing that this book incorporates, surely it wouldn't have been much more work to set this adventure somewhere else? Given Russia's ongoing oppressive, colonizing violence against Ukraine - plus the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped in the last two years from war-torn areas and forced to repress their heritage/culture and language in Russian foster families - we need to STOP glamorizing their existence!! I am still giving this book 4.5 stars because it deserves it, BUT setting any new book or story within this evil empire is an insult to the resistance of all Ukrainian people everywhere.
Huge gratitude to Netgalley and the publisher, Macmillan Audio, for an AudioARC of this book, in exchange for my (too) honest review.
Content Warnings
Set partially within the evil, oppressive, colonizing empire of Russia 🤮
brunchatiffanys's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
melissa_read_s's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.75
The story was very interesting, filled with mystery and wonder but it took a while to get there for me.
I think the biggest distractor for me is the POV's are not labeled, so I would spend the first chunk of a chapter trying to figure out who this is. Once I get further into the story this wasn't as big of an issue since I had learned to recognize the POV's better but it really made it hard to get into the story from the get go.
I enjoyed the original feeling of this book, it didn't really remind me of other things I have read.
Overall I enjoyed it and do recommend it, I just wish it was structured differently to avoid confusion.
Thank you Flatiron Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
I think the biggest distractor for me is the POV's are not labeled, so I would spend the first chunk of a chapter trying to figure out who this is. Once I get further into the story this wasn't as big of an issue since I had learned to recognize the POV's better but it really made it hard to get into the story from the get go.
I enjoyed the original feeling of this book, it didn't really remind me of other things I have read.
Overall I enjoyed it and do recommend it, I just wish it was structured differently to avoid confusion.
Thank you Flatiron Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
mfallon3491's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
moonytoast's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.
The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands is a unique historical fantasy that draws the reader into the struggle between the hubris of man and the unbridled resolve of nature, as the infamous The Trans-Siberian Express traverses a dangerous path across the strange and changing landscape of the Wastelands—yet there are secrets regarding the last crossing, when something went horribly wrong. Brimming with intrigue and sublime terror, this book is a twisty, breathtaking journey across a fantastical landscape perfect for fans of Annihilation.
In an alternate Victorian-era world where a vast expanse of land in Asia has been abandoned and isolated from the rest of the world after strange Changes were noticed in the land, creatures, and other lifeforms, the only way to travel from Beijing to Moscow is on the Trans-Siberian Express: an almost mythical express train that boasts luxury and impenetrable power to its many customers. The Trans-Siberian Express has made countless crossings over the decades it has been operating, but something happened on the last journey... something went wrong to the point there are questions whether the train is truly safe. Aboard the following crossing are an odd cast of characters heading for Moscow: Marya, a grieving woman with a borrowed name and a mission to uncover secrets the Trans-Siberia Company wants buried; Weiwei, a child of the train desperate to ignore the fact that everything has changed since the last crossing; and Dr. Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist who is willing to risk it all to prove his fanatical theories about the Wastelands as a new Eden.
As they each slowly begin to unravel the mysteries surrounding the last crossing and the Wastelands, it becomes clear that something fundamental has changed and that—as much as the Company ensures that the train cannot be breached by the dangers outside—they are not alone and the Wastelands may have already begun its work on them all. Despite the slow build of this book in the first half as it lays the groundwork for the status quo of the train and the character’s motivations, the narrative kicks into high momentum once the main line breaks and the Trans-Siberian Express must traverse “ghost rails” long abandoned by the Company.
I have to be frank: I adored the writing style of this book. Brooks manages to create a world flooding with life and breath and sound and color in a way that inspires a similar sublime terror and awe at the Wastelands as the characters aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. Its unique environmental horror of a strange, changed landscape removed from the influence of man and with its own natural laws was deeply evocative and reminiscent of Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, which I also love. The various imagery of mimicry, mutual observation, and a hivemind landscape felt strangely haunting, like peeling back the layers of skin and sinew on an animal carcass only to find it still alive and thrashing against its constraints.
Expertly blending fantasy, mystery, horror, and science fiction, The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands is a thrilling debut novel that will take you on a mesmerizing adventure that you won’t want to disembark after reading.
book_hound_ross's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75