This book was slow to get into but I ended up loving it. It blended a unique story and interesting characters, and was a terrific mix of dreamlike fantasy and harsh reality. I really like fantasy set in historical times, and there’s always something about a journey that draws me as a reader. This book takes place on a train that runs from China to Russia in the 1899, carrying passengers towards a Grand Exhibition in Moscow. Between Beijing and Moscow are the Wastelands of Siberia – mysterious, dangerous and poisonous. On the train’s last run, something terrible happened that none of the crew can remember. The maker of the train’s windows was blamed for exposing the passengers and crew to the toxic air. But now, the train is perfectly safe.


The story is narrated primarily by two characters. One is Marya Petrovna; her father was the window-maker, and his failure killed him. Marya wants to find out what happened and clear his name. The second is Zhang Weiwei, known as “the child of the train”. Sixteen years old, she was born on the train and cared for by its staff. Her whole life has been in service to the train, and the Captain is the closest thing she’s had to a parent.

The Cautious Traveller is a series of books (fictional) by an author named Rostov. Most of his guides are for well-travelled cities, but in his last book about the Wastelands he highlighted the dangers of it, including the sickness of the mind that has attacked those exposed to it. Because of this, the Wastelands can only be seen from behind the glass of the train, and the crew must be vigilant about any signs of illness. This sets up a key theme in the book – can a place like this be experienced safely, or does all great experience require adventure and risk? A secondary theme is the idea of science versus wonder. Is it possible to know too much, and in cataloguing the world’s wonders, are we also harming them? Can travelers pass through wilderness without affecting it, and without being affected in turn?

This is the kind of thing I think about a lot when I travel. I’m a fairly cautious traveler; I want to learn but also experience; I want to see beautiful places but minimize my footprint. I want to be safe but not see the world through glass. I know all of these things require tradeoffs.

As this is 1899, the classes are segregated, and the crew has to cater to their wealthy passengers. The train is managed by the Company, which is making a fortune on the transport of goods and tourists. The passengers and crew are watched by two Company Men known as the Crows. Marya, who begins asking a lot of questions about the last train ride, attracts their attention. At the same time, Weiwei discovers a stowaway she needs to keep safe.

The more I think about it, the more I appreciate how Brooks wove together all of these different ideas and storylines, while at the same time building a story with both wonder and horror. This book had it all. While it’s set on a train, it’s more like Annihilation than Snowpiercer. There’s man vs. nature, corporate greed vs. science, and at the same time I also appreciated the way the characters grow and develop relationships. The story also comes to a satisfying and not entirely expected conclusion.

If I had a small complaint, it was that there are two older characters on the train, a scientist and a professor, and I had trouble differentiating them at first. A very minor issue. Anyone who likes atmospheric books that blend reality, history and fantasy, and who don’t mind a slow pace, will enjoy this story.

Note: I received an advance review copy from NetGalley and publisher Flatiron Books. This book publishes June 18, 2024.

Thank you NetGalley and Flatiron Books for this ARC Copy!

I wasn't sure if this was going to be the book for me because I am not usually a fan of books where the characters are trapped together in small spaces for the entire book, but I am so glad that I came into this one with an open mind. I had so much fun with this story and trying to figure out each of our POV characters and each of their different situations/missions through the story.

The world building was really well done considering that there were very few instances that as a reader we were able to venture out of the train but it was a richly crafted world that is alive and forever changing.

Definitely recommend if you are a fan of gothic and creepy worlds, well done mystery, and a creative world building.

The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands follows a grand cast of characters who are traveling the wastelands via locomotive. The train has many secrets and Weiwei knows most of them. However, on the last trip across the wasteland, something had gone terribly wrong. Even worse, all who travelled on the last trip have no recollection of what happened. Now as the Trans-Siberian Express makes its next trip, odd things begin to happen.

DNF at 30%. This book isn’t super fun. The characters are flat and I feel zero connection to them. I don’t find any of their stories interesting enough to continue on. I had really high hopes for this book so I’m super sad I didn’t like it.

An interesting story about a train trip through an area between China and Russia deemed the Wastelands. Something happened on the previous voyage, but no one seems to remember much about it. So there's a lot of mystery involved here, including not really knowing what happened to create the area or why it's considered so dangerous. The plot is relatively straightforward at first, but gets odder as it goes. The train with an overbearing "company" and protocols was somewhat reminiscent of Snowpiercer. And I was fine that not everything was explained, though the ending was a little open ended for my taste.

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

The Cautious Travelers Guide To The Waistlands by Sarah Brooks, in the book we meet crewmembers and travelers alike it is the late 1800s in an alternate universe where a train travels between Beijing and Russia and somewhere in the middle is what’s called the wastelands. It used to be a vibrant land with waterfalls ponds trees fish ET see but something has happened to it and although it looks like it is dying it is also mutating at the same time. The train has been traveling for a year and it goes through the wasteland and an author wrote all about it and how at one particular site he saw a woman type girl come out of the pond, something opinions differ on whether it is true or something he made up. On this trip there is a girl who works for the train called Weiwei, her mother died in childbirth on the train and because she cried when they tried to take her off they decided to raise her on said train. The new line has been running for a year now despite the year before something went wrong and the air from the wastelands got into the train causing wasteland sickness. On this trip the little girl finds a stowaway she named Evelyn, there is a woman aboard who goes by a disguise and has ulterior motives for taking the train, a professor who this will be his last year taking the train due to his age and there’s others that I don’t have the time nor space to mention but just know that another part of the wastelands they have tides that rock the train in this go round is the worst yet but that is just the first of many strange occurrences to happen on this long journey in a unforgiving dead looking landscape. Oh yes but when the wasteland started dying people felt compelled to go to the pond in the woods and some were never heard of again. There is a lot to this book that I am not putting in this review just know this is a fairytale that I absolutely loved I’ve read it from beginning to end without stopping and starting another book something I do quite often. I loved this book and highly recommend it. I loved the little girl Weiwei, Maria, and the lady along with many others in the book. it is full of wonderful characters in the train even has a female captain. The biggest question is will the train even make it to its destination? This is a great read!#FlatIronBooks, #NetGalley, #SarahBrooks, #TheCautiousTravelersGuideToTheWaistLands,

A "Wasteland" appeared in Siberia, eating away everything that lived there and transforming it into something dangerous and new.. China and Russia built walls to keep it from encroaching into their fertile lands. In the late 1800s a railway was built between Beijing and Moscow, and it has kept trade between East and West profitable. but 6 months ago, the train experienced some kind of disaster. No one on the train can remember what exactly happened. Now they're running another trip...

This book felt like a combo of Snowpiercer and Annihilation. The prose is clear, but it feels detached emotionally. I liked the idea and the writing, but I wish I'd felt more of a connection with the characters.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for offering me a review copy of this book.

If you're itching for a book that feels unlike anything else you've ever read, this is a great one to pick up.

Taking place aboard a train, we follow a handful of characters, all on the train for different reasons, and as the train moves deeper and deeper into the Wastelands, the passengers aboard also get deeper and deeper into something (no spoilers). At times eerie, this book captures the feeling of the unknown without trying to explain it away.

There is enough content in this book to keep everyone happy, and make you eager to know what comes next.

I am not a huge fantasy or historical fantasy reader but the description of this book sounded so unique: a train travels between China and Russia thru what once was Siberia but due to some strange event is now turned into something out of HP Lovecraft.

I really liked it, much more than I expected to. The authors descriptions are clear and well done so you the reader get a clear idea of what the Wastelands and characters look like (something important to me as a reader). The story is interesting, a blend of steampunk fantasy, mystery, and a touch of horror.

The audiobook version was very well done.

I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by the author. As I don’t read much historical fantasy I can’t compare this book to any others except if you like books that tell a good story and blend different genres together then I think you will like this book.

**Thanks to the author and publisher for the e-arc I received via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.**

The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands is a highly atmospheric story filled with mystery and hints of horror as readers are filled with as much dread and anticipation as the characters aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. The cover and title for this book made me initially think that this would be more of a creepy mystery that leaned on the 'lighter' side in tone, but I'd like to note that that's definitely not the case, and this book feels a lot more horror-leaning (a very quiet, slow-burn feeling of horror) than I might've expected, and I loved it.

The Trans-Siberian Express travels between Beijing and Moscow, but it's no ordinary journey as it must pass through the Wastelands, an abandoned stretch of land where everything that now grows and lives within it poses both physical and mental threats to anyone who dares to pass through. A trip through the Wastelands is therefore not for the faint of heart, but the great Trans-Siberian Express boasts the strongest glass and the safest possible mode of transportation to get through the Wastelands. But all travellers must be cautious, as even looking out the window for too long at whatever resides in the Wastelands can pose risks to any person's sanity, and everyone onboard must be vigilant of succumbing to the effects of the Wastelands–and keep an eye on fellow passenger. This particular journey across the Wastelands feels especially tense, as it's the first trip to occur after a previous less-than-perfect crossing where the indestructible glass broke and the full events of what occurred are still unknown to those who were not a part of the journey.

We follow three passengers onboard, each with different experiences and reasons for being on the train. First up is Weiwei, a child of the train who has lived and worked on the train her entire life; next is Marya, a woman who has boarded the train under false pretenses in order to uncover a personal mystery; lastly, we follow Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist whose dream is to renew his reputation in the field by bringing back something groundbreaking from the Wastelands. I appreciated that each character had a very unique perspective on the Wastelands and their reason for being on the train for this journey, and Brooks did a a great job of capturing each person's personality in such a way that I felt I could fully understand each person's motivation (even if I didn't fully agree with each character's choices...) throughout the entire story. I also really loved that the train and the Wastelands themselves are characters as much as any of the humans onboard.

This book hit such a perfect spot for me, as I love stories that tease at something entirely unknown that feels incredibly creepy and slowly feeds you more and more information while you still have no idea what's lurking around the corner the entire time. It's a very slow build up that's filled with so many hints of twisted, unnerving, and generally dark things that reside in the Wastelands that I couldn't help but feel my own curiosity constantly piqued to know what horrors lay outside the walls of the train. This story evokes an almost constant sense of trepidation–like that feeling where you really want to know why everyone is so scared and what's being alluded to, but you also aren't sure if you really want to know, and every glimpse you get just makes it that much more intense.

There's a lot of build-up in this story and I think satisfaction with the payoff will vary from person to person. I was generally quite satisfied with what this story grew into and how it eventually concluded, but I do think there are some areas where it could feel like there was a lot of build-up that didn't quite develop into anything overly exciting. That being said, I appreciated the messages the author focused on and think this ended up being a much more meaningful and thoughtful story than I anticipated, and I liked that Brooks managed to pack so much into this story, from the more horror-tinged side to the meaning and substance portrayed through the characters' journeys as well.

As much as I loved the slow burn style of this story, I have to admit that it was exceptionally slow-paced at times, and I ended up taking probably twice as long as I expected to to finish this book. It was a odd experience, because even enjoyed pretty much every page of this book and always looked forward to reading it, for some reason every time I sat down to read it ended up taking me a longer than usual time to get through each page and I found myself getting more distracted than usual. This could have just been on me (maybe I was feeling more stressed than usual at the time?), but it was just one of those books that had absolutely nothing wrong with it that I could pinpoint, but the writing and pacing were just so slow that it really required me to slow down as well for some reason. This may or may not be the case for everyone, but is something I felt compelled to note since it really stood out to my experience.

Overall, I've given The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands 4.25 stars! I loved the heavily atmospheric quality of this book and how much it left me dying to find out more. I highly recommend this one and can't wait to see what Sarah Brooks may write next!

An interesting historical fantasy with a mystery element to it, I struggled to finish this one. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER'S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS effortlessly combines the mystical and otherworldly with the more scientific pursuits in a sublime version of what gaslamp fantasy can be. Brooks gives her readers diverse and beguiling characters being directly impacted by their train ride across the Wastelands.

What was so good about this tale was simply the writing. The flow from character to character and the pace at which the author propels the story forward allows the reader to feel as if they are a passenger on the Trans-Siberian Express with all the others. And of course, there is always the looming question of what this trip will do to the passengers. Secrets are being held close, connections are being made, and each person met is trying to decipher who can truly be trusted.

From beginning to end, THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER'S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS takes the reader on a journey filled with twists and turns. There may be a set route for this voyage, but it soon becomes clear that the mystery of the last trip is ever-present. Brooks delivered a fantasy with a hint of intrigue which in this humble reader’s opinion is some of the best kinds of books.

Audiobook Note: Katie Leung and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith narrate this book in a way that only enhances the story. I have listened to both narrators before in other books, so it was a treat to hear them together in this one. The pace, inflection, and overall flow of this audiobook are great. Having spent half the time reading this book by listening allowed me to pick up where I left off with the bonus of giving a voice to the characters I had become fascinated with.

Do you love books where the setting is a character in its own right? The Cautious Traveller’s Guide delivers a fascinating and eerie setting in the Wastelands. Readers are immediately pulled into the mysterious setting and interesting history of the Trans-Siberia Company’s railroad.

The story follows an eclectic cast of characters who are traveling on the railroad’s first journey back across the Wastelands after a pause in service, the reasons for which feel as mysterious as the Wastelands.

The story follows several characters as they begin their journey including a child who grew up on the train and a woman with secrets who is traveling under an assumed name. The points of view feel well connected as each change moves both the character’s individual story as well as the broader plot forward. The characters felt easy to connect to, and I found myself worrying and rooting for them across their journeys.

The Wastelands, vividly described, were the highlight of the story in how they interacted with the train, the passengers, and the journey.

I loved this book, and it feels like one of those books where a description and what I can say about it will probably not fully give it justice. It’s also a book where the best reading experience is one where you aren’t exactly sure what you’re getting into, much like a journey with the Trans-Siberia Company.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All expressed opinions are my own.

I found this book complicated and fascinating. It is a melding of so many genres that it almost defies description - is it an alt historical, magical realism, steampunk, or something entirely new? However you label it, this story was highly atmospheric and filled with compelling characters. I particularly loved the development of the relationship between WeiWei, the child of the train, and Elena, the mysterious stowaway.
Not all the questions raised in the book were answered, and while there were some pieces that I would have like a bit more on, in general I was okay with the fact that there was still an air of mystery in the conclusion. In general, it was beautiful and satisfying, while also unexpected. I think this is a book people will be talking about for a long time.

This is a slower-paced book which I would describe more as a fantastical character study and less of a book with plot. I found the different POV characters to all be fascinating and mysterious in their own rights, and I enjoyed delving into their histories and motivations. I felt similarly about the world that Sarah Brooks crafted, although I would have liked more answers and explanations. At the end, I was left feeling vaguely perplexed, but I had enjoyed the ride so much I wasn't really upset about it. I can absolutely see why it was comped with Piranesi, because I walked away from that one feeling very similarly.

thank you to netgalley for providing me with this arc.

I think this book was really good! I went in not really thinking I would like it that much and found myself pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the mystery aspect of the story line and how interwoven all the different characters were. This book felt like the perfect blend of a lot of different genres of books, there were aspects of historical fiction as well as fantasy thrillers, a genre I don't typically lean towards. There was a lot of "world building" in terms of having a normal historical setting but framing it to be more fantasy driven than real world driven. The characters were diverse and complex and felt like characters that were strong enough to present their problems and make them captivating to the readers. Overall I think that Brooks did a great job captivating a reader and hooking them into this mysterious tale!

𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄: THE CAUTIOUS TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO THE WASTELANDS
𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑: Sarah Brooks
𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑: Flatiron Books
𝐏𝐔𝐁 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: ⁣6.18.24
𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄: Historical Steampunk slightly Horror filled.
Thank you to ⁣ ⁣Sarah Brooks @sarah_l_brooks ⁣and @flatiron_books for sending me this gifted copy

{𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒}
⁣
Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands is set in an alternative Victorian world. A visual book, where passengers board the luxurious Trans-Siberian Express, a train that runs through the Wastelands stretching between Bejing and Moscow. With an oddly diverse cast of characters this steampunk fantasy is one you won’t forget. An engaging and entertaining story that felt completely immersed within its pages.

⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣{𝐇𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒} ⁣
#sarahbrooks #thecautioustravellersguidetothewastelands #flatironbooks #becauseofreading #mybookishfeature #livelifebeautifully #fantasyfiction

This book has so much promise but lacks so many things.

The story follows various characters as they travel together on the Trans-Siberian Express train through the cursed and mysterious Wastelands. The POVs switch between Marya, a grieving daughter seeking answers for her father’s death, Weiwei, a young girl who was born on the train, and Henry Grey, a naturalist seeking redemption for his reputation by studying the Wastelands. The setting ebbs and flows as the mysterious characters of the land around them haunt their journey.

With such immense high stakes, one would expect a fast moving plot or something more cohesive. Instead, we get a very slow start where we kinda understand the characters’ motivations but not much happens in the plot. The characters don’t drive the story as much in the beginning, which made it a non-exciting read.

The first 60% or so is mostly just an exhibition of the people on the train, which fit similarly to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. But, for me as a reader, if it takes me until 60% to be interested in a moving plot, it is not a good read.

I will say, there are many things that I found super interesting: the setting, the concept and the thematic elements of the train and the nature around it. But, if you like developed characters and fast moving plots, then this is not for you. I think if this focused on maybe one or two POVs, then it might have been a bit more cohesive.

for fans of Annihilation and Into the Woods with a dash of Snowpiercer for extra flavor. a welcome surprise.

many thanks to flatiron books and netgalley for this advance readers copy.

It started it off great, but this story is too slow, and I lost my interest 48% into into. Really sorry.
There are too many characters, and the mystery is so well kept that I ended up not caring anymore, and I am afraid I will end up being disappointed by the reveal.