A review by ginnad
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

1.0

I had tried one other Wendig book before - the first Miriam Black. I didn't love his style with the onslaught of stream of consciousness run on sentences wall of text writing. I heard Wanderers was a little calmer, so I gave it a try.

The writing style was easier, but easily 50% of this book could have been cut without any real problems. It was loooooonnnnnng. Way too long. But after all that, it really didn't go anywhere, and concept was phenomenally dumb. And elements of it were really awful, the more you think about it.

Spoiler First of all, rogue AI kills most (but not all!) of the human race to save the planet is not really a new or unique concept. I guessed that immediately upon 'meeting' Black Swan. But, with all that, the Wanderer's concept with the nanites was useless. Why do that at all if 1% of the population is going to survive anyway? No, seriously! The whole concept falls apart with that revelation. If it's all a numbers game, then building a whole virtual world for these people is a dumb waste of resources.

Also, the idea that nanites could keep a human body going without any fuel, or, you know regular workings of the human body is just ridiculous. I assumed we were getting a supernatural answer, but nope, nanites. Nanites who can somehow refuel a body out of nothing and turn it into a perpetual motion machine! For years! Cool!

Additionally, the time spent with Matthew trying to understand why a racist, sexist preacher would come over to the side of good was rage-inducing. (Because the bad guy RAPED HIM AND HELD HIM CAPTIVE!) What was the point of that? White supremacists are not all bad? They can be 'turned' with a little of their own medicine? Finding redemption through suffering? Gross.


Usually I can read a book and say, that wasn't for me. But I genuinely can't understand what other people see in this book. The more I think about it, the more angry I am that I wasted so many hours on this garbage.