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.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★