From primordial silence to total nuclear annihilation.
Wastelands is a fierce, chronological free-verse epic that charts the rise and cataclysmic fall of existence. Scaling rapidly from billions of years of cosmic evolution to the gritty, microscopic cell, Darren Hobson holds a shattered mirror up to human progress, framing industrialisation, technology, and warmongering not as triumphs, but as corrupting forces leading inevitably to self-destruction.
Do not expect polite, academic meditation. Hobson violently injects high-register concepts like quantum physics, Max Planck, and abiogenesis into shockingly raw,colloquial street vernacular and pitch-black comedy. Through a cinematic sequence of fast-forwarded jump cuts, the collection traces structural oppression, war, and the commercialised decay of counterculture.
Yet, the ultimate anchor of this apocalyptic wasteland is a fiercely anti-romantic love story—two flawed, exhausted survivors navigating a hostile world, clinging to dirt, survival, and a mutual recognition of human imperfection. Driven by a hypnotic, rhythmic urgency, Wastelands rejects all formal poetic ornament in favour of a blunt, spoken-word cadence. This is a visceral, unfiltered survival guide for the end of the world.