The Failures (Wanderlands #1) by Benjamin Liar
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC
Published on: 2nd July 2024
ISBN: 0756415284
Goodreads

In an unparalleled blend of apocalyptic science fiction and epic fantasy akin to masterpieces like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, debut author Benjamin Liar presents the first gripping installment of The Wanderlands trilogy. The vast machine-like expanse of the Wanderlands, crafted by long-lost gods, is teetering on the brink of eternal darkness. Amidst this decaying behemoth, a diverse group of heroes, driven by prophetic dreams, embark on a perilous journey. Their mission? To mend their crumbling world—or witness its irrevocable end.

Benjamin Liar masterfully weaves intricate tales across time and space. With unique world-building, this tale plunges readers into a mechanical planet-sized realm abandoned by its divine creators. It’s a tale of second chances and redemption, for these heroes have once tried—and failed—to salvage their home. Now, they’re presented with another shot at salvation or doom.

What sets The Failures apart is not just its genre-defying narrative but also its ingenious fusion of humor, charm, and profound depth. Liar’s debut, though dark and twisted, sparkles with witty prose, keeping readers riveted and eager for more. As you traverse The Wanderlands, you’ll uncover a multitude of interlinked stories, an intricate puzzle that begs to be pieced together. This is not just a book—it’s a captivating experience.

Benjamin Liar—writer, musician, filmmaker, and game designer—ventures into the literary world with The Failures as his first published novel. With accolades in music and short filmmaking, and a recent foray into virtual reality game design, Liar proves to be a multifaceted talent. Though his pseudonym might hint at deceit, one thing is certain: his storytelling prowess is undeniably genuine. Dive into this compelling epic, and lose yourself in the vastness of The Wanderlands.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Highlights

~a mountain the size of a world
~bring back the trees
~dreams are dangerous
~a suspicious number of immortals
~I have more questions than I started with and That’s Okay

What the fuck even did I just read???

I don’t know, but folx, it fucking rocked!

There’s no neat little summary I could write that would come close to doing The Failures justice, or give you any real idea of what you’re getting into when you pick this book up. I can’t cut this into bite-sized pieces for you. I can’t simplify it. Any attempt would water it down and be so completely misleading anyway.

So how to tell if you should pick this book up, if no one can describe it properly?

GOOD QUESTION.

This is not the book for you if you desire something light or sweet or easy. But despite the vibes of the cover, I wouldn’t call it grimdark; it’s certainly grim in places, but there’s none of the despair or bitterness I associate with grimdark. (Well, maybe not none. But it’s not fundamental to the story or its world.) If you enjoy stories that juggle multiple plotlines, some of them very far apart from each other, prepare yourself to be challenged keeping up with all the ones Liar weaves; on the other hand, if you get frustrated by major questions going unanswered (and bear in mind this is the start of a series, so we will presumably get answers eventually) Failures might not be your cup of tea. There is an annoying dearth of female characters (one of our POV leads is a woman, and one of the Major Players pulling all the strings is too, but the vast majority of the cast is made up of men); however, all the characters are impressively human (even the barely-human ones), and I was delighted by how often many of them rejected tropes, tradition, and The Way These Things Always Go. Boredom and fuck it are just as likely to be motivators as the desire to save lives or seize power; the wooed absolutely know they’re being played; and one scene in particular had me yelling ‘FINALLY SOMEBODY SAID IT’, because yeah, that is not how love works, actually, you utter twit.

There’s something indescribably epic about the contrast – or combination? – of these really, intensely believable characters in a setting that is so utterly vast and mysterious and full of as many monsters as wonders. The two play off of each other; the characters feel more human by contrast, and the epic scope of this world is underscored by how very relatable most of the leads are. Because the world of the Failures is not relatable. It’s not incomprehensibly alien, either – at least not the parts we see in this first book – but…

What has stayed with me most clearly in the weeks since I finished reading this is the sheer IMMENSITY of this world. Worldbuilding is hard, and complicated, and you can often tell when a sandbox is one an author has been building for years and years before they ever started writing. This is definitely one of those times, as Liar lays out for us in the author’s note (but then, can we trust anything said by a man who calls himself Liar???) This world is sprawling, massive, with many moving pieces. It has a rich history, having gone through multiple Ages that we know about (and probably plenty more that we don’t), all of which have left their mark. There are far more factions than ‘us vs them’, which is what most stories ultimately come down to, whether it’s one country vs another or rebels vs the empire, etc. There are multiple magics. Everyone has their own goal or goals and most directly go against everyone else’s. There are entire civilisations that don’t know about each other’s existence! Which I guess is something that happened in our world too, but is more noteworthy here because the setting is a mountain. Singular. All these characters, plotlines, and kingdoms exist on one mountain.

But it’s a mountain the size of a planet. Hence why most of them have no idea the rest exist.

The Failures isn’t Weird Fantasy – there’s nothing experimental about the writing style, the prose isn’t arranged in spirals and other strange shapes on the page, and there’s no mind-fuckery à la Vellum by Hal Duncan or Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. But it is brilliantly, delightfully weird, with something new and unexpected everywhere you look. A mountain the size of a planet! A world without a sun! A maybe-goddess sending dreams to children because…why? Howling rabid monster-babies. Silver fire. Assassins whose souls have been torn in three. Machines made by the ancients. Two idiots from our world who’ve unknowingly become priceless prizes to be won. Unkillable giants. Magic mechas. Failed (or are they?) chosen ones. Underground kingdoms that know nothing of the world/s above. Dirt magic. I could keep going and going and going, and it would barely scratch the surface of everything Liar has poured into this world and its story.

Don’t be fooled by the book’s opening, wherein a number of strange and mysterious people gather around a fire for a secret meeting. Don’t be disappointed by how cliche some of them seem. Don’t trust how stereotypically over-the-top it feels. If you hold on for just a minute, The Failures unfolds like a Kamiya Satoshi origami; complex, breathtaking, impossibly imaginative. Unpredictable as fuck; seriously, don’t even bother trying to guess where any given plotline is going to go, because you will get it wrong, you are not going to see the twists coming. And I loved that so much; I was (and am) so impressed with how all these dazzlingly disparate pieces ended up fitting together; with how there was never a plotline I wanted to skip over, or character I wasn’t interested in (bar West, right at the beginning, but look how that turned out!); with how deliciously intricate and labyrinthine each skein of story was. And with the fact that Liar never made me feel stupid or overwhelmed (or frustrated by all the mysteries); sometimes big huge doorstopper books make you feel small and idiotic, like you’re the failure for not knowing what’s happening, but I never got that here. It was always clear to me that I didn’t know everything that was going on, but in a way that was deliberate, intentional. I could keep up – I just didn’t know, don’t know, all of Liar’s secrets yet.

Which is fair. We’re only on book one of a trilogy, after all.

That being said: this is not an easy read. You can keep up, but you’re going to have to work for it. Liar is not out to make you feel stupid, but he doesn’t exactly hold your hand, either. There is no infodumping; there is virtually no telling. You learn by being shown, and thinking about what you’re shown, and remembering it to connect to other things you’re shown later. As I said earlier, the world here is VAST, and you need to be able to hold all of it in your head. Every detail is relevant. I think great writing, great characters, and great pacing make it much easier than it might otherwise be, but some readers are going to be overwhelmed, or feel that the payoff isn’t worth the effort. No book is for everyone!

Although personally – evidently! – I think the payoff is so worth it.

If you ask me, The Failures is the epitome of what fantasy is actually supposed to be, supposed to do: blow our minds and show us something that is nothing like our world. Fantasy is the genre of imagination and invention, but we are but mortals and inventing completely new and original ideas is hard – and also polarising, because lots of us don’t WANT completely new things, because completely new also means unfamiliar, and unfamiliar can be…off-putting? Uneasy-feeling? Hard to connect with? Impossible to fit neatly within the context of our own experiences? Some people don’t want fantasy that really, truly feels like another world, and that’s okay!

But if you DO. If you DO want that.

Then folx, this is the book for you.

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