If there is one novel I couldn't wait to read this year, it's doubtless Benjamin Liar's debut, The Failures. Hailed as a cross between Stephen King's The Dark Tower and Tad Williams' Otherland, given that the two series are among my favorite speculative fiction reads of all time, how could I not be intrigued? The concept of the Wanderlands themselves piqued my curiosity and the blurb made this look as though it would be one of the SFF titles to read this year.
Perhaps my expectations were too high for an author's debut? Comparing Liar's creation with those of King and Williams likely raised the bar higher than it should have been. In any case, structurally and stylistically, Benjamin Liar made decisions that ultimately prevented
The Failures from ever truly taking off.
Here's the blurb:
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.
One aspect of
The Failures that leads to some confusion is that there are a number of timelines involved. This remains undisclosed for no reason I could fathom. There is no big reveal when the fact is unveiled, which makes me wonder why the author elected to go down that route. If not revealing that most of the storylines don't occur during the same period doesn't add plus-value to the tale when the secret is finally divulged, why do it in the first place? It's not a deal-breaker per se, but it does leave you scratching your head more than once as you go through the book. As things stand, I feel that it should have been made clear from the get-go.
What is more of a deal-breaker, however, is Liar's choice of narrative voices. At times, it feels as though the novel is narrated by Stifler from American Pie. It's as if this is a self-published work that doesn't take itself seriously. Some kind of a joke, even. And it's not just the narration. The dialogue is puerile and vulgar. I mean, I'm no stranger to obscenities. If you know me in real life, you know that I make a liberal use of them. Trouble is, if your characters can't string along ten words without using profanities or dropping the f-bomb, then I think we have a problem. Benjamin Liar tries so hard to make them edgy that he turns them into caricatures instead. His attempts at gallows humor also often fall short. More often than not, you feel like your reading the script of a B-movie that tries to emulate Bad Boys, but failing miserably. The author is like a comedian that tries too hard, striving to end every sentence with a punchline. Sometimes it works, yet for the most part it doesn't.
One would be tempted to simply write him off, thinking that Liar just doesn't have what it takes. But that would be a mistake. Indeed, the Convox/Cabal and Deadsmith parts of
The Failures seem to have been written by a completely different person. In those chapters, Liar appears to be in complete control of his craft and creation. These portions are told in a totally different narrative voice, one that channels the Dark Tower and Otherland in a glorious way. Had the novel been written entirely in that style, it probably would have been the SFF debut of the year and one of the best debuts ever. For the life of me, I can't understand how/why two such paradoxically different narrative voices were allowed to make up this work. It makes no sense. . .
The worldbuilding appears to be fascinating, but Liar keeps his cards way too close to his chest in that regard. It looks as though the author came up with heaps of cool concepts and ideas, yet in the end we learn very little. Even worse, each answer raises more questions, so it would have been nice had Liar been less parsimonious with his revelations. We discover more about the world of the Wanderlands in the few Asides than in the 500+ pages of the tale itself. Given that this is a debut and you're hoping that readers will enjoy it enough to buy/read the two forthcoming sequels, I would have expected Liar to provide more information and disclose more secrets about his creation. I figure that, like me, what intrigued most readers were the Wanderlands and why they're going dark. Still, little do we learn, it's nevertheless the worldbuilding that kept me going. There is something quite refreshing about never knowing what this universe will throw at you next. That was my favorite facet of Otherland. The fact that the only limit was the length and breadth of Tad Williams' boundless imagination. It's impossible to tell whether Benjamin Liar can even come close of King and Williams in that regard, but it would have been nice to get less obscenities and more revelations within the pages of
The Failures.
There is no way to sugarcoat this. The characterization leaves a lot to be desired. I thought that the Convox/Cabal sections would act as some sort of cipher meant to hide lots of clues in plain sight, what with it featuring a bunch of immortal/long-lived godlike figures from the various worlds of the Wanderlands. In a way, this is exactly what they are, but there is something missing. Again, what we discover about the Wanderlands and their histories have more to do with the Asides than the plotlines. Still, it's the Convox that gets the story going and I have to admit that I was hooked from the start. What ultimately killed the tale for me, even though the Deadsmith chapters restored some of my faith in Liar later on (but by then it was too late to save this one), were the chapters dealing with the Killers, the Monsters, and the Lost Boys. The closest thing to a main protagonist would be Sophie, leader of a band of misfits known as the Killers. Supposedly edgy degenerates operating on the wrong side of the law, they look more like posers, all things considered. The author keeps trying to make them look badass and witty, but they're just annoying for the most part. Sophie does redeem herself a little after her encounter with the Queen, but the damage is already done by then. The Monsters are two people from our world (I believe) who have crossed over to the Wanderlands following a strange dream. Known as Behemoth, they are well nigh indestructible. Most of their chapters turned out to be superfluous and whatever information they were meant to convey could have been put in another Aside. That would have prevented us from having to follow two immature offworld dumbasses who basically complain about boredom the whole way through. Moreover, it's hard to simply accept that they will change the course of history just because they were bored and decided to go along with the plan just for shits and giggles. Unless you're Stephen King, Robin Hobb, Robert R. McCammon, or George R. R. Martin, making a young boy one of your POVs is always tricky. And that's what hurts the Lost Boys chapters. James' perspective always felt off to a certain degree. I was considering quitting when the Deadsmith chapters were introduced about halfway through. As mentioned, these seem to have been written by a much more competent and serious author. They also are our brief windows into the disparate worlds of the Wanderlands, and for that they make for fantastic reading. For me, the journey turned out to be more important than the Deadsmith's hunt of its prey. Just wished he hadn't been called the Deader. . .
After an excellent start, the pace quickly becomes an issue. Very little of importance takes place in the chapters dealing with the Behemoth and they become a chore to go through. More occurs in the Killers' chapters, but I found it impossible to like/root for them, so they did drag. As I said, James' perspective made it more difficult to get into the sections featuring the Lost Boys and I feel that these could have been shortened. The sections featuring the Convox/Cabal and the Deadsmith were better balanced as a whole. Overall,
The Failures is too long and would likely have worked better as a shorter novel. Removing a lot of the superfluous dialogue and some of the profanities, as well as tightening up the Monsters' chapters, I figure that you could have trimmed it down by a good 50 pages or so without losing anything important. I realize that everyone's mileage will vary on this book. Not liking most of the cast didn't help me in the least, no doubt about it.
Another aspect that ultimately hurts the novel is its lack of endgame and finale. As the timelines converge, you just get a "to be continued" sort of ending. With
The Failures being a debut, I found this to be more than a little risky. Debuts are usually, if not standalone, then at least more self-contained. Yes, a first volume is meant to act as the introduction that lays the groundwork for what comes next. But I feel that a debut should be that and still tells a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, that leaves the door open for plenty more. It will be interesting to see if Benjamin Liar managed to wow readers enough that they'll want to discover what he has in store for his universe and his characters.
Will I be reading the next installment? Hard to say, as I have mixed feelings about
The Failures. I'm fascinated about the Wanderlands and want to learn more about them and what caused the Dark to come and expand across the myriad worlds. I want to discover who the members of the Cabal are and learn more about their respective backstories. I want to discover more about the Giants, the Mother, Silver and Gold, and everything else. And yet, just thinking about having to see it all unfold through the eyes of Sophie and the Monsters gives me pimples. So we'll have to wait and see. . .
The final verdict: 6/10
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