Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wanderers | 2019 | Chuck Wendig | Buy |
| 2 | Wayward | 2022 | Chuck Wendig | Buy |
| 3 | Dunstan the Wanderer | 2025 | Chuck Wendig | N/A |
The Wanderers series by Chuck Wendig is his most ambitious work, starting with the massive 800-page Wanderers in 2019. The story begins when people across America start sleepwalking in a growing flock, unable to be woken and heading toward an unknown destination. A CDC researcher, a pastor losing his faith, a rock star, and others find their lives pulled into orbit around this mystery as a deadly fungal plague spreads across the country and American society fractures.
Wanderers was published just months before the real-world COVID-19 pandemic, which gave the book an eerie quality that Wendig could never have planned. The novel was a Bram Stoker Award finalist and drew widespread comparisons to Stephen King’s The Stand. The sequel, Wayward (2022), picks up years later with the survivors trying to build a new community while facing new threats, both human and otherwise.
Dunstan the Wanderer (2025) continues the story. The series works as both large-scale apocalyptic fiction and a character study of people pushed to their limits. Wendig fills the books with a large cast, and the scope gives him room to explore how different kinds of people respond when everything falls apart.