If you like …. then you might like ‘The Wilderlands’
With my fantasy novel The Wilderlands coming out in a few months, I hope that people pre-order the book.
That said, since this a stand-alone novel and not a sequel to anything I’ve written before, I want people to have a sense of if they’ll enjoy the book before committing to it. With that in mind, I’ve assembled four pieces of media (a book, a movie, a video game, and a TV show) I think are akin to The Wilderlands.
If you already enjoy any of the following, there’s a decent chance you’ll enjoy my upcoming book! If you haven’t heard of any of the material below, then hopefully this offers you a chance to check out some cool media that helps you gage your interest in The Wilderlands.
Book: Grendel by John Gardner
Grendel by John Gardner, published in 1989; Vintage Books Edition.
I had a hard time picking a book not because I can’t think of books that are similar to The Wilderlands, but because they’re similar in very odd ways.
I’ve mentioned that the prose of Something Wicked This Way Comes were a big inspiration for me, but I don’t think The Wilderlands bears any real resemblance to that text. I also considered pointing to Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, but I don’t think enjoyers of that text will necessarily click with mine (at least, not in the same way).
It wasn’t until I was really racking my brain that I remembered how much Grendel does that overlaps with what I’m trying to do. For those unfamiliar, Grendel is a retelling of Beowulf told from the perspective of that old-English myth’s first monster.
Not only is John Gardner’s novel much more readable (and, these days, more read by most people) than something else I could recommend like Moby Dick or The Aeneid — I also think people who liked it will like what I do in The Wilderlands. Both books are told by voice-y narrators with a strong flourish to their narration in a text that ultimately serves to comment on myth.
Movie: The Green Knight
Okay, hang with me for a moment.
The Green Knight (2021) is a movie I unabashedly adore. It is also a movie I probably wouldn’t recommend to at least 60% of the people I know and love. Let me start with the basics.
Directed by David Lowery, The Green Knight is a retelling of an Arthurian poem of the same name. Both poem and film follow Sir Gawain — a knight of King Arthur’s court — who accepts a challenge on Christmas Day.
The challenge comes from a strange Green Knight who enters the king’s hall unbidden and proposes a game: one knight in attendance may strike him in any manner, however, in one year, the Green Knight will require that knight to travel to him and will receive the same blow dealt back to them by the Green Knight. Gawain volunteers, faces the Green Knight, and lops his head off. Gawain thinks his solution rather clever until the Green Knight’s body collects it’s head and reminds the knight of the bargain — “One year hence” — before riding away.
The movie has a decidedly more grim and grimy tone than the original poem which is fairly light and florid. That said, it’s the tone of this film adaptation that really convinces me to compare it to The Wilderlands. Both are stories of small scale where a character is journeying to complete a single, personal task and that journey takes them to awesome and terrible places.
Video Game: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
There is one particular aspect of the video game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice that I think relates to The Wilderlands. It could be considered a spoiler for the video game (though it was a big talking point during the game’s press circuit) and a potential spoiler for my book (though I also wouldn’t consider it to be so or I wouldn’t put it here).
That said, if you want to experience either of these completely fresh, it might be worth skipping to the final entry here.
So, in Hellblade, the lead character Senua is on a journey to remove what she believes to be a curse. Because of the time in which she lives, the curse she’s trying to remove is in fact just her own psychosis. Thus, many of the monsters and trials she faces in the game are not all “actual.”
While I don’t intend to depict any of the characters in The Wilderlands as having such a condition, a big part of what I kept in mind while writing is that many of the hazards of The Wilderlands are not necessarily what the characters perceive them to be. Many obstacles are the characters trying to make sense of what they’re seeing. There are some things that we might recognize to be one thing that are described in such a way that it seems much more monstrous to the people of the book’s world.
Show: Scavengers Reign
There’s not a specific story beat or character that the TV show Scavengers Reign has that resembles The Wilderlands — they’re arguably not part of the same genre.
What they do have in common is indifference.
Scavengers Reign is a science fiction show following the crew of a space ship, the Demeter, following a crash on a planet alien to them. Split between various groups, these crew members attempt to find a way to survive among unknowable flora and fauna. With perhaps one exception, the things of the world that threaten the crew of the Demeter do so for the sake of food or fear or pure happenstance. Very rarely, if ever, does the planet menace the humans of the story out of malice.
This is inline with what I tried to do with The Wilderlands. To create a world that is dangerous, but not because it had strong feelings toward the characters, rather, it is simply a world that has no real consideration for human comfort. If I managed to do that — as I feel Scavengers Reign does — then I hope that the things and moments the character do find significance and meaning in the world prove to be all the more poignant.
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The Wilderlands is available now for pre-order on Kindle here, on Nook here, on Kobo here, and on Apple here. More formats, digital and physical, will be available for purchase and pre-order soon. The Wilderlands is scheduled to release on Oct. 29, 2024.