Book Review: I Will Wander On by Ron Prasad
Title: I Will Wander On: Terrifying Tales of Life, Love, & Death
Author: Ron Prasad
Release date: September 3rd, 2024
*Huge thanks to Ron for sending me a digital copy of this one!*
In July of this year – 2025 – I spent the month dedicating my social media pages to Canadian Horror. You might’ve even seen that! I posted hundreds and hundreds of books, movies, publishers and cover artists and during that time, I had a few folks ask if I’d read every book I’d posted.
Nope. I wish I had, but there were a lot on the list I simply hadn’t read yet.
One such author that I featured in a post – Ron Prasad – reached out to me and thanked me for featuring his book and asked if I’d read it yet. I hadn’t, and though it was on my very long list of books I still need to purchase, he kindly offered to send me a digital copy for me to read when I had a chance.
If you’ve been following my reviews for the last five years or so, you’ll know I’ve been complaining about my burn out on short story collections and anthologies. Because of that burn out – which honestly, I think is just a thing now that I have to live with! – I tend to steer clear of collections/anthologies, even if they’re offered to me, but in this case, I accepted, as I was curious to see what Ron was creating and it would tick off one of the books on my list I hadn’t read yet!
I dove in, totally blind, and boy, was I richly rewarded for what was within these pages.
What I liked: To be straight up with you – there isn’t a let down or a short story that didn’t cut it within these fifteen stories. I was actually really surprised, because often there’s a story within each collection I read where it feels kind of forced in (I know I’ve done it before), where the author REALLLLLLY loves a specific story, even though it doesn’t flow well or fit thematically within the group of stories selected.
Not here.
Every story is a home run, which made it really difficult for me to narrow down my favorites. Ron’s writing is easily digestible but also layered and complex. There’s a lot going on in each story, though never did I feel dumb reading the stories or lost.
One of the highlights of the collection is the very first story.
‘The Spinal Girl’ was a huge surprise for me, mainly because I’ve gravitated away from zombie fiction over the last half decade. This one was different. This one was gripping, nuanced and the titular character was a really fun twist within the story. This is one where Ron could easily expand upon the events and the world and give us a really engaging three book series of pre/during/post and see where things started, what’s happening and where things went and I’d be all over reading those!
The next story that really grabbed me was ‘Leftovers.’ On the surface, this seemed to be a simple story about a prison guard having to deal with a crazy killer on death row, but we soon see a cosmic shift and the ending will have you revisiting the opening paragraphs. Just a great story.
‘Destroyer of Worlds’ was another phenomenal story that had me thinking back to the crazy movies in the late 80s and early 90s I loved to watch. After moving into a new apartment, a hole is accidently created in the wall, except behind it the residents find a ladder that seems to go down forever. Another cosmic/portal story that was just top notch enjoyable.
‘Find My Phone’ might be one of the shortest stories within the collection, but it was also perhaps the most heart wrenching. Carl is on a trip to honor a friend who died. While there he loses his cellphone. After talking to his son, his son says to use the find my phone app, which he does and that’s where this story takes a huge turn and punches you in the stomach unexpectedly. I won’t go further into this one, but this was just perfect.
‘The Misshapen’ begins simple enough, but Ron wasn’t content with simple. This one follows Tony and his wife Mei, who’ve moved into a new place with Mei’s mom, after they lost their young son. Tony experiences something odd one night, while taking the dog out, and from there everything gets thrown into chaos. This story was a novel’s worth of craziness within twenty pages or so, but it was essentially like an X-Files episode written by Adam Nevill. This would’ve been my favorite story within the collection, but there was one other that really nailed it for me. And that was…
‘Paint the Forest.’
Look, there’s very few things that could top ‘X-Files by way of Adam Nevill’ for me, but the one thing that can is Bigfoot. And that’s what ‘Paint the Forest’ focuses on.
The story follows an older woman, being interviewed, who is sharing what happened many years ago when she was hired as a surveyor for a logging company. While there, creatures attack and she learns of them and what she must do to ensure their safety. This was a cryptid love story with environmental themes and the role mankind has in the destruction of our forests. This was fantastic and much like ‘The Spinal Girl,’ I’d love to see this expanded into a long form release.
What I didn’t like: This was one of those rare collections, like I mentioned earlier, where every story really worked for me. The only thing that stood out for me that I wasn’t too sure about, was there was a few stories that seemed to maybe be related to something else. Either that or I was just reading into that too far. Saying that, maybe there’s more planned in some of those worlds and it’s in the works etc. etc. But either way, it didn’t distract or hinder my reading experience.
Why you should buy this: This was an absolute unexpected gem. Going in, I was thinking there’d be one or two stories that really worked for me, but going through the notes I made about each story, only two stories I rated as four star, while the rest were five. This collection is STRONG and flows fantastically. Ron bounces from strength to strength and whether you want a collection with a lot of creatures or one with a lot of heart, Ron gives us both in spades, which absolutely elevated this one.
What a fantastic collection and one I hope a lot more readers begin to rave about.
