★★★★★ Fools on the mountain

The Failures

Benjamin Liar

Benjamin Liar's (a pseudonym, of course) debut novel The Failures is a big book, the first novel in the planned Wanderlands Trilogy. It has been a long time in the making. In the author's note "A Round of Applause, A Round of Shots", he tells us

I started writing— not this book, exactly, but exploring the place that I would eventually name The Wanderlands— over thirty years ago.*

The Wanderlands are a dark and broken world without a sky. Most of the story concerns the actions of five people or groups of people:

The Lost Boys
The Convox/Cabal
The Monsters
The Deadsmith
The Killers

Most chapters have two titles. The first is one of the five above, telling you who the chapter will be about. Then there is a second title that refers to the events about to be recounted. In addition to these chapters, there are five chapters named "An Aside: ..." -- these are (very welcome) brief infodumps about the history of the Wanderlands.

The chapters are not in temporal order. Events separated by many years often occur in adjacent chapters. The order in which I have listed them is roughly their temporal order, as well as I could work it out.

The title is nowhere explained. You will, however, quickly guess where it comes from. These people are losers. They're losers in different ways. Some are kids who never grew up, some will remind you of Bruce Springsteen's song "Glory Days", and some -- these are the most pathetic -- believe themselves to be gods and puppeteers, directing the fates of all the lesser beings who surround them. The events take place on top of, around, and under a huge mountain. Aside from the mountain we see only a little of the Wanderlands.

The Failures is a world-building story. By the time you reach the end, you will have some grasp of what the Wanderlands are, how a part of them works, and what is likely to come. There is more than a hint that one day some of the Failures may be Glorious. I will certainly read the whole trilogy.

Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of The Failures. Release date 2-Jul-2024.

*Quotes are from an advance reader copy and may change before publication. This review will be corrected if necessary on the release date.

The Failures on Amazon

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