Simplified Series - The Wastelanders

WITNESS ME!

My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free, but, you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week:

The Wastelanders Duology by K.S. Merbeth

Background Info: Not a lot really, K.S. Merbeth published her debut novel, Bite in 2016, and followed it up with Raid a year later. They're a couple of fun (depending on your definition of the term) sci-fi novels set in a Mad Max-ian post apocalyptic wastleland. Only the twist is, instead of seeing this world through the eyes of a heroic figure who tries to bring order or rebuild society, we're seeing it through the eyes of people who are thriving off of the chaos, bloodshed, and cannibalism of the new world disorder. So yeah, if you've ever seen movies like The Road Warrior,  Mad Max Fury Road, A Boy and His Dog, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, or played games like Borderlands, Borderlands 2, or any of the Fallout games, or, you now what, we don't have all day. You get the idea. Our characters live in a lawless wasteland, dotted with scattered settlements and patrolled by off-roading bandits, raiders, and cannibals.

Bite (2016): It's a pity that I already made a reference to the "Get in, loser" scene from Mean Girls in my Macbeth Oddaptations. Because that's essentially how this book starts. Our protagonist, known only as "Kid," is offered a ride by Wolf and Dolly as she walks alone though the wastes. Who are Wolf and Dolly? Just a pair of badass raiders. He's a be-dreadlocked wildman and she's a blue-haired bombshell, and their backseat is packed with suspicious packages of meat of, shall we say, unknown provenance. Kid decides she'd rather take a ride from sketchy strangers than die of exposure, but she's in for more than she bargained for once she realizes she's taken up with raiders. When a scheme to sell a town some of their suspicious meat goes sideways, Wolf, Dolly, and Kid barely escape with their lives. When they meet up with W & D's partners, the hulking Tank and the gorgeous Pretty Boy, Kid finally realizes that she's traveling with Sharks (wasteland jargon for cannibals) and is faced with the choice of starving or breaking the taboo. Anyhow, our fearsome fivesome are put in an even tougher spot when they hear that some do-gooder by the name of Saint is cleaning up the wastes and offering bounties for sharks. Will Kid succumb to the twin temptations of survival and peer pressure? Will a brief stay at the bordello of the Queen of the Wastes end in easy to predict disaster? Will the mysterious Saint turn out to be something other than he appears?

Raid (2017): So, this is a little awkward. Sure, Raid is technically a sequel to Bite, but it follows different characters in a different part of the wastes. Don't worry, we meet up with our buddies from Bite and find out what happened to them following the climactic events at the end of that novel. So Clementine has two things that distinguish her from other inhabitants of the Eastern Wastes: 1) a big burn scar on one side of her face, and B) she's really good at killing people. Don't worry though, as a young girl she turned that talent for murder towards helping protect her settlement. But she's also always known that it made her an unwelcome presence. So as an adult she's become a bounty hunter. And she's really good at it, too. However, in her quest for her latest bounty she may have bitten off more than she can chew. The good news is that she's nabbed Jedediah Johnson, the scourge of the Eastern Wastes. He's the man whose gang burned down her town and killed her father. The man whose very name strikes terror into everyone in the Eastern Wastes. The bad news, she's actually captured Jedediah Johnson, Jr. The son of the most terrifying man in the Eastern Wastes. And boy is he a pain in the ass. However, unlike Clem, he seems to have mastered the art of ingratiating himself with strangers and he isn't particularly eager to be reunited with his dear ol' dad. Which is good because she'll need all the help she can get to evade the massive raider army out to retrieve their leader's son. Meanwhile, she also has to dodge competing bounty hunters like Cat and Bird who are riding hard on her trail. Will Clem and Jed be able to sneak their way to the Western Wastes where Saint as supposedly wrought order from chaos? Will there be yet another twist reveal about Jedediah's identity and life goals? Will Clem's reluctance to embrace a raider lifestyle endanger her cover when she and Jed meet up with Wolf, Kid, et al, from Bite?

Why should you read the Wastelanders? So, it's pretty clear that there's nothing groundbreaking here, right? The standard post-apocalyptic wasteland scavenging tropes are all apparent from my descriptions, right? Well, even if there's nothing exactly new here, these books are still fun to read. Merbeth captures action well, conveying frenetic motion cleanly to the reader. She also makes the characters' inner lives the focus of these stories. Clem struggles with the dichotomy between her violent urges and her need for companionship, Kid wonders what she's willing to do to survive. Again, maybe not new ground, but these books are fun reads with a bleak sense of humor and plenty of thrills for readers who enjoy the genre.

Why shouldn't you read the Wastelanders? Are you squicked by cannibalism? I mean, seriously, are you? Because if the idea turns your stomach, you probably should look elsewhere. There's plenty of Cannibalism to go around in these books. Also, like I said, they are somewhat derivative of other works in the genre. So if you're one of those people who demands something novel out of the novels you read, you may be disappointed. But like I said before, these books are pretty satisfying examples of their genre. 

Links:

K.S. Merbeth's website, if you're into that kinda thing.

Also, apparently she's written a prequel short story about Dolly (entitled "Pretty Vicious") that's available in e-book format.

Next year will see the release of Fortuna, the first volume of her new space opera trilogy.