The Wayfarer

By: Zachary Kekac

Narrated by: Stephen Dalton

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

"Burying sorrow is like burying water; it simply seeps into the soil and up into everything that grows from it."
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The Wayfarer stands on the rim of insanity. Forgetting everything. Everyone.

He doesn’t know when the forgetting began, but the Shadow does. A doppelganger wreathed in darkness; a figure only he can see; it claims to know both why he is losing his mind, and the way to restore it. Wary, desperate, with what seems no other way open to him, the Wayfarer submits himself to the Shadow, its warning compelling him forward:

Move on.

Or wither.

As the Shadow leads the Wayfarer through sentient forests, the graveyards of dragons, and realms between realms, so too does it lead the way into his forgotten past, restoring fragments of memory throughout the journey. Only the memories are distorted, nightmarish. In them he sees his friends, his family — dead. Impossible. His friends are alive, aiding him on his journey. His family is safe, awaiting his return.

Disillusioned by these perversions of past, the Wayfarer decides the only way to salvation is within himself. Aided by a psychoactive mixture, he descends into his subconscious, seeking the truth of his unravelling mind, the memory of his madness' beginning.

You are not ready.

Though the Wayfarer can sense the truth lurking within the abyss of his subconscious, something in the Shadow’s words waylays him. Something in the Shadow’s words holds a truth of its own, warring with the truth within himself.

Frustrated, fearful, his mind fraying at its seams, the Wayfarer stands now on the rim of a choice: to trust the Shadow, to hope on a fool’s hope that its way was the way to remedy; or to forsake it, to do as he willed and seek resolution his own way, risking that it may very well be the way to ruin.
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Described as the story of Shutter Island meeting the soft-post apocalyptic world of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Wayfarer weaves threads of mystery, horror, mental illness, and recovery into the familiar guise of an adventure fantasy.
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Content Warning: Mild Profanity, Violence, Death, Sex, Rape, Substance Usage

©2021 Zachary M Kekac (P)2021 Zachary M Kekac

Baskerville Book Reviews

This is a hard DNF for me, based entirely on the narration. Ok, maybe a little on the writing. I rarely DNF books, but this is insufferable. There’s this robotic voice that’s constantly referring to “you” mid-conversation. In this case, “you” is the protagonist. I think it’s their inner dialogue. Where it becomes entirely insufferable is how it interrupts dialogue CONSTANTLY! You can’t even get through a paragraph without this jarring, obnoxious, out-of-place robot voice interrupting the dialogue, making it difficult to follow along with what’s being said.

It reminds me of a LitRPG, which I utterly and completely despise. I did a bit of searching and couldn’t find anywhere listing it as a LitRPG, but those are the only books I know of with obnoxious, out-of-place robot voices in the middle of dialogue.

I might consider reading a physical copy of this book, not to say I’ve enjoyed the story. I’ve had so much trouble following along, I have no idea what the hell the plot even is. That robot voice is seriously distracting and annoying. I have 7 hours, 40 minutes left of this book, listening at 2.55x speed, it’s probably closer to 3 or 4 and I can’t take another minute of this nonsense.

Other than that insufferable robot voice, I really can’t get over how much I despise it; the narrator is pretty good.

NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.