Hey all, I’m back with the first entry in a series that’s a rather unique take on urban fantasy for this week’s Bookish Wednesday. It’s “Wild Wastes Book One” by Randi Darren.

Plot: This story takes place in a universe where some experiment radically changed the world sometime in the midst of World War II by failing catastrophically. It changed the center of America into a wasteland called The Waste and filled with fantasy monsters.

The main character Vince is a ranger whose job is to survive in The Waste and perform various tasks like courier work and missions for a guild. The story is good and complex, though the really interesting thing about this series is that it’s only a part of a whole interconnected universe starting from one of the first American LitRPGs I ever listened to, the Selfless Hero Trilogy. How they are all connected is complicated, but the authors Randi Darren and William D. Arand are the same person.

Characters: Vince is the main character, but Fes is surprisingly a fun second main character. I generally don’t tend to enjoy Orcs in most fiction, but Fes was pretty fun.

Overall: A solid first entry in an interesting urban fantasy series.