Wanderers

by Chuck Wendig
782 pgs

When I hear a book is being compared to The Stand, and favorably no less, I have to check it out. In the case of Chuck Wendig's new book Wanderers, I'm really glad I did. There's just something about a good post-apocalyptic, dystopian story that makes me happy for some reason. So, I'm always excited when a good one comes around.

The story begins when Shanna, a 17-year-old girl, wakes up to find her young sister Nessie is missing from her bed. That in and of itself isn't unusual or alarming, but when she finds Nessie a few minutes later, just how unusual and alarming the situation is, quickly becomes apparent. She finds Nessie walking alongside the road outside the house, barefoot adn unresponsive. At first, she thinks Nessie is merely sleepwalking, but when nothing she does will wake her, and when her attempts to physically stop her and take her back to the house cause Nessie to scream, shake violently, and act as if she's about to explode--literally, Shanna quickly realized something serious is going on.

By the time she goes back, wakes her father, adn the two of them catch back up to Nessie, she's wandered even further away from the house, and still shows no sign of waking nor stopping. Within a few minutes, Mr. Blamire, Shanna's math teacher, walks out of the morning mist along side of the road and approaches Nessie. Shanna can tell he's in the same state Nessie's in, adn when he gets to her, he turns direction and begins slowly walking right behind her. Gradually others join the group one by one, usually being followed by frantic family members or friends trying to "wake" them with the same results Shanna had. It doesn't take long for the local news to get word of the strange phenomena, and very soon, the "sleepwalkers" become a national headline.

Right around this same time, the CDC identifies a strange and deadly new fungal disease. The disease infects the host's brain, initially causing cold-like symptoms, but within weeks, the person begins experiencing hallucinations, often leading to suicide. Eventually the person dies and his or her whole body releases millions of spores into the air, potentially infecting thousands more.

As the story goes on and the group of sleepwalkers and their shepherds continues to grow mile after mile, Wendig gradually and expertly lays out the scope and magnitude of the story he's telling. Government agencies become involved, along with religious zealots and white supremacists. All trying to figure out what's going on, whether it's the apocalypse, and what ethnic group is to blame for it, respectively.

I had never heard of Chuck Wendig before seeing this book at the bookstore, so I didn't know what to expect, but I was very impressed. The story is fantastic, and his characters are well developed. A lot of books this big take a few hundred pages to build up and set the stage before they set their hook. That's not the case with Wanderers. The story grabbed me right from page one, and it didn't let up until the end.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Dracul

by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker
493 pgs

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading Dracul, Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker's prequel to the iconic book Dracula., written by Dacre's great-granduncle Bram Stoker. But before I say anything about the story, I think it's worth mentioning that the backstory of how the book came to be, which is outlined in the Authors' Note at the end, is fascinating and should not be neglected. It adds significantly to the story and explains ho anyone could have the audacity to try to add anything to Uncle Stoker's tale.

The backstory outlines Stoker and Barker's research of Dracula, which included the discovery of a lost journal of Bram Stoker's and the rare opportunity to review the book's original annotated manuscript. The manuscript interestingly begins on page 102, a fact Stoker and Barker deftly use in explaining the origins of their prequel. The story they were able to piece together from the journal and the notes is a great addition to the book and the vampire genre in general.

In the story, Bram Stoker himself plays the role of one of the main characters, and it begins in 1868, with a then 21-year old Bram hiding in the tower of a castle one night trying to ward off Dracul with nothing but holy water and some crucifixes. He's frantically trying to write down and record the events of his life, which led to this point, hoping that even if he dies, or something worse, his story will have a chance to be told.

From there the story goes back in time to Bram's early childhood and the mysterious woman named Ellen Crone who tended to him and his sister Matilda. Ellen took particular care of young Bram, who from birth had been a sickly child who spent almost all of his early childhood confined to his bed. IT wasn't until Ellen arrived and mysteriously healed him that he was able to begin living a full life. Ellen mysteriously disappeared from their lives ad Matilda made it her life's mission to find out what Ellen did to change Bram like she did.

Numerous times in her search for Ellen over the years, she would catch a fleeting glimpse of a woman in a crowd she was sure was Ellen because she looked like she hadn't aged a day since she left, but as soon as she was seen, she'd disappear again.

The story sunk its teeth into me (sorry, I tried to resist) and didn't let go. It's a vampire story that stays truer to the original character than probably any of the hundreds of other vampires stories that it inspired, and it's well worth the time it takes to read it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The City in the Middle of the Night

by Charlie Jane Anders
366 pgs

The City in the Middle of the Night is a science fiction story big on ideas, heavy on social commentary, and light on fun and enjoyment. It's a story that takes place on a planet called January, on which humans settled and established a civilization many years ago, a civilization now waning. January itself is a planet consisting of two extremes. Half of the planet continually faces its sun and is too hot to inhabit, and the other half faces deep space, and is too cold. Nevertheless, humans built two cities there, Xiosphant and Argelo, right along the edge of the daylight and the darkness.

Sophie and Bianca are college roommates at a privileged university in Xiosphant, who just like January, exemplify two extremes. Bianca comes from the light side of Xiosphant, and a family of wealth and means, and Sophie, who comes from the dark side of the city, comes from little and had to essentially force her way in to the school.

Sophie is in love with Bianca and when Bianca one day steals a small amount of money to buy her and her friends drinks, Sophie takes it upon herself to take the fall when the police get involved and is "executed" for her crime. Her form of execution is to be thrown out of the city and left to die of exposure outside its walls. But instead of dying as was intended, Sophie is able to survive.

She survives with the help of the crocodiles (stay with me a little while longer), which are the native species on January. They're intelligent, telepathic, resemble large furry lobsters, and unsurprisingly, are feared and hunted by humans. They have their own city in the middle of the dark side of the planet and it's there that Sophie finds refuge and learns to communicate with, and ultimately love the species as a whole.

Sophie would be content to live out the rest of her days with the crocodiles, but she's destined to play a larger role on January, one that ultimately could determine the fate of the whole planet.

I had such high hopes for this book. I really enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky, the only other book by Anders that I'd read, and so I was hoping this book would grab me and hold me the way that one did. Unfortunately, it never did. I never found myself caring about Sophie, or anyone else in the story, nor the revolution she ends up leading. I also found the social commentary, which the book is clearly providing, a little heavy handed and unappealing.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆