The Failures
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Average rating3.3
From a debut voice comes a genre-breaking blend of apocalyptic sci-fi and epic fantasy about a scattered group of unlikely heroes traveling across their broken mechanical planet to stave off eternal darkness. A tightly-coiled puzzle of a thrill ride, The Failures launches The Wanderlands trilogy
Welcome to the Wanderlands.
A vast machine made for reasons unknown, the Wanderlands was broken long ago. First went the sky, splintering and cracking, and then very slowly, the whole machine—the whole world—began to go dark.
Meet the Failures.
Following the summons of a strange dream, a scattering of adventurers, degenerates, and children find themselves drawn toward the same place: the vast underground Keep. They will discover there that they have been called for a purpose—and that purpose could be the destruction of everything they love.
The end is nigh.
For below the Keep, imprisoned in the greatest cage ever built by magicians and gods, lies the buried Giant. It is the most powerful of its kind, and its purpose is the annihilation of all civilization. But any kind of power, no matter how terrible, is precious in the dimming Wanderlands, and those that crave it are making their moves.
All machines can be broken, and the final cracks are spreading. It will take only the careless actions of two cheerful monsters to tip the Wanderlands towards an endless dark...or help it find its way back to the light.
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1 primary bookThe Wanderlands
The Wanderlands is a 1-book series first released in 2024 with contributions by Benjamin Liar.
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I wish I liked this book but I just wasn't a fan. I enjoyed the first half of the book just because it was so ambitious and strange that I just had to know what the heck was going on. But after that the story seemed to not have any focus for me. You're getting pulled all over the place.
Also every single time you get introduced to a new creepy character who goes by a different name, it's alwaysss the same person just going by a different alias. Every single time I was like “oh I bet that's actually (John Doe)” and sure enough it was.
There are two female characters in this book that have the exact same personality. They both have the same style of crude humor and they both love orgies and what not. There needs to be differentiation.
This is a book that is as strange as and crude as The Dark Tower and as ambitious as The Licanious Trilogy, so I'm certain this book will be a hit for a lot of people and maybe I'll reread it one day and not understand why I felt this way but I don't see myself giving this another shot anytime soon.
What an unique debut novel!
The characters, the worldbuilding and the plot are all so very interesting. Liar does an amazing job in creating this haunting and oppressive atmosphere. There is mystery on every single page and it’s very rewarding when some of the puzzle pieces come together!
However, some of the pieces don’t come together at all and Liar makes you work for it. I liked this book, but I can imagine that a lot of people will struggle with it. It suffers from the same things that Gardens of the Moon also has, being a little bit too overwhelming or needlessly complicated at some points. There is very little explanation to anything, especially in the first 75% of the story.
Personally, I can’t wait for the next book!
