The Failures - (Wanderlands) by Benjamin Liar

About the Book

"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"--

Book Synopsis

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"Liar's writing is like the world it depicts: a finely-tuned piece of clockwork...the sort of book I could read again and again." --Christopher Ruocchio, internationally award-winning author of the Sun Eater novels

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.

Review Quotes

"The Failures reminds me of so many good things, not least Stephen King's Dark Tower stories and Mervyn Peake's arch-Gothic creation, Gormenghast. I also detected undertones of China Miéville, Roger Zelazny, Ursula Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, as well as other amazing fantasy and science-fiction writers. Most importantly, though, whatever his influences might truly be, Benjamin Liar has a new and unique voice of his very own, and this book is one of the best things I've read in a long, long time." --Tad Williams, New York Times-bestselling author of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

"What makes The Failures so gripping as a novel is that it manages to balance the heaviness and the hope at the same time, the desperate, painful battles and choices with that first glimmer of adventure." --Sasha Bonkowsky, Reactor

"Innovative and fascinating! Recommended!" --C. J. Cherryh, Hugo award-winning author of the Foreigner series

"Quirky and wondrous, The Failures presents a fantastical world filled with enigmas and magic, engaging oddball characters, exotic tableaus, and meticulous worldbuilding." --Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times-bestselling coauthor of Dune: House Atreides

"Liar's writing is like the world it depicts: a finely-tuned piece of clockwork. The Failures is the kind of science fantasy little made these days--sacrificing neither the fantastic for the scientific, nor the reverse, but offering both--and the sort of book I could read again and again." --Christopher Ruocchio, internationally award-winning author of the Sun Eater novels

"The Failures is the kind of book you find maybe once, under a blood moon, if you're lucky enough to wander off the trail...an unabashed triumph of speculative fiction. It's not exactly science fiction, not quite fantasy...deep, thrilling (I'm looking at you, Deadsmith), and masterfully atmospheric." --Daniel Cohen, author of the Coldmaker Saga

"A wonderful and gripping fantasy tale of misfits trying to save the world in their own twisted ways...engulfs the reader in a sinister yet thrilling chase where intentions, good or bad, are never quite enough. Benjamin Liar is a master storyteller who reinvents dark fantasy through familiar tropes he takes an obvious pleasure in deconstructing. If you love Steven Erikson, Patrick Rothfuss, or the early VanderMeer, you will immediately be hooked." --Seb Doubinsky, author of Missing Signal

About the Author

Benjamin Liar is a writer, musician, filmmaker and game designer. He has been writing for most of his life, but The Failures is his first published novel. He has performed his music under many names and in many places and recently published a virtual reality game. His name is clearly a pseudonym, but you still shouldn't trust anything he says.