Pan Wayward

Nicely written

Chegou antes do prazo, bem embalado

I bought the first book of this series for my boyfriend. He blazed through it in a week, so I decided to read it too. After that I bought the second book (Wayward) and third (The Last Town) for him to read over the holiday season. I am a big Stephen King fan, and I find the story to be both accessible and super entertaining. This is a good series to start if you are looking for something fun and crazy interesting.

梱包もしっかりされており、本も綺麗でした。 約２週間でのイギリスよりの配送。 満足です❗

Welcome to the town of Wayward Pines, Idaho—population: 461 (maybe). It is a place to “work hard, be happy, and enjoy your life.” It is a place “where paradise is home.” It is also a town that is surrounded by a high voltage fence. To keep people in or to keep something out? It is a town where surveillance cameras and listening devices cover nearly every square inch of the town, including inside of peoples’ homes. It is a place where people are given assignments: where they will live, where they work, who they will marry, etc. Wayward is a place where the residents do “much more thinking before speaking… like living in a novel of manners.” It is a town no one can leave and where anyone who doesn’t fulfill instructions given to them may become subject to a fête (reminiscent of events in Shirley Jackson’s immortal story, “The Lottery”) and brutally (sometimes eagerly) killed by their colleagues, friends, neighbors, and townsfolk in general—in the city square where all can witness the killing. It is a town created by, cared for, and controlled by a “god,” or perhaps by a “megalomaniac and a psychopath.” Wayward (2013) is writer Blake Crouch’s second novel in a trilogy—The Wayward Pines Series—which has met with enormous success and has been the basis of a TV mini-series. In the first novel of the series, Pines (2012), Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines in search of two colleagues who have gone missing. Following a sudden accident and waking up in a hospital, Burke finds himself at a lost—his phone, papers, his very reason for being in the town are either gone or left murky in his mind. His is a long journey of discovery and the revelations are all terrifying. Crouch brings to this sequel the same suspense and incredible plot twists of the original with one key difference—this time instead of being a victim, Ethan finds himself, sometimes reluctantly, in a position of authority—the town sheriff. He also is the confidant to the town’s creator, David Pilcher, serving at the man’s pleasure, charged with discovering who is responsible for the grisly murder of Pilcher’s daughter. In allowing Ethan to get so close to him on a personal and professional level, Pilcher is taking a huge risk: knowing what Ethan has learned from his earlier experiences since arriving in the town while yet eager for Ethan to prove himself. Pilcher hopes Ethan will join him and his other co-conspirator, Pam, to share their wealth of knowledge and plans for the town’s future. Wayward as a novel (as well as the town itself) is a fantastic creation which defies any single label. It has aspects of an adventure thriller, parts of a police procedural, occasional elements of horror, and splashes of science fiction all running through its veins. Crouch’s story-telling is first rate throughout. Paragraphs can be as short as a single word, ricocheting from the page like gunfire. Events move at a rapid pace with an occasional illuminating flashback while Crouch also delivers numerous characters the reader can believe in and care about. There are exceptions regarding liking the characters. Along with Pilcher, who displays moments of sanity along with moments of sheer mad scientist-like genius, his second daughter, Pam, is, at times, an over-the-top, nasty, sadistic piece of work knowing no boundaries and filled with blood-lust, glorying in her power. There is also a minor character who the reader only gets occasional glances of in the novel who gets placed in the most ironic of positions by the novel’s conclusion and whose fate is left unclear. Realistic dialogue often carries the plot of Wayward forward and Crouch peppers Wayward with vivid details that bring the town and events to life while either appealing to or appalling the reader’s senses. Touches of genuine humanity amidst all the chaos give Wayward some truly emotionally moving moments. What lies outside of the town’s electrified fences, the history of the town’s actual creation, and how the residents find themselves in such an untenable and merciless position lies at the beating heart of Crouch’s dazzling innovation and hovers over Ethan and the novel like a damn waiting to burst and release its pernicious tide of rot. Chapter by chapter, revelation after revelation, Ethan Burke burrows closer to the truth about Alyssa’s death. While doing so, he also learns more about some of the residents of the town and about Pilcher—things he is not meant to know. In so doing, Ethan places himself, his wife Theresa and his son, Ben, in enormous danger and, especially for Ethan, in a growingly impossible situation. Wayward is gripping story-telling at its best. There are a couple of brilliant plot twists with the novel’s climax as well as its frightful denouement which many readers are likely to foresee, but that does not reduce the intense impact of the final pages of Wayward. The novel’s end also prepares the way for one more novel in the series: The Last Town (2014), which many may find almost irresistible to start after finishing Wayward.