What do you think?
Rate this book
Silo #2
小屑褟薪邪
袙褋懈褔泻懈 褋屑褟褌邪褌, 褔械 褉邪蟹锌芯谢邪谐邪褌 褋 褑褟谢芯褌芯 胁褉械屑械 薪邪 褋胁械褌邪... 袧芯 薪懈泻芯谐邪 薪械 褋械 蟹邪屑懈褋谢褟褌 泻芯谢泻芯 褌芯褔薪芯 械 褌芯胁邪 胁褉械屑械.
袙 斜谢懈蟹泻芯褌芯 斜褗写械褖械 褋胁械褌褗褌 胁褋械 芯褖械 械 褌邪泻褗胁, 泻邪泻褗胁褌芯 谐芯 锌芯蟹薪邪胁邪屑械, 薪芯 胁械褔械 械 芯锌邪褋薪芯 斜谢懈蟹芯 写芯 锌褉芯屑褟薪邪褌邪. 袝写胁邪 屑邪谢褑懈薪邪 懈蟹斜褉邪薪懈 褋邪 锌芯褋胁械褌械薪懈 胁 褌邪泄薪邪褌邪 蟹邪 谐芯谢械屑懈褟 褋斜谢褗褋褗泻 懈 胁薪懈屑邪褌械谢薪芯 褋械 锌芯写谐芯褌胁褟褌 蟹邪 薪械谐芯, 泻邪褌芯 锌芯胁械卸写邪褌 褔芯胁械褔械褋褌胁芯褌芯 泻褗屑 褍薪懈褖芯卸械薪懈械 懈 谐芯 芯斜褉懈褔邪褌 薪邪 卸懈胁芯褌 锌芯写 蟹械屑褟褌邪. 袞懈胁芯褌, 胁 泻芯泄褌芯 懈屑械薪邪褌邪 褋邪 斜械蟹 蟹薪邪褔械薪懈械 懈 胁褋械泻懈 屑芯卸械 写邪 械 胁褋械泻懈. 袞懈胁芯褌, 胁 泻芯泄褌芯 屑懈薪邪谢芯褌芯 械 蟹邪斜褍谢械薪芯 胁 屑懈褋褌械褉懈褟 懈 泻褍褌懈褟褌邪 薪邪 袩邪薪写芯褉邪 芯褌薪芯胁芯 屑芯卸械 写邪 斜褗写械 蟹邪褌胁芯褉械薪邪.
袠褋褌芯褉懈褟褌邪 薪邪 褋懈谢芯蟹邪 械 薪邪 锌褗褌 写邪 斜褗写械 薪邪锌懈褋邪薪邪. 袘褗写械褖械褌芯 胁褋械泻懈 屑芯屑械薪褌 褖械 蟹邪锌芯褔薪械...
袙 斜谢懈蟹泻芯褌芯 斜褗写械褖械 褋胁械褌褗褌 胁褋械 芯褖械 械 褌邪泻褗胁, 泻邪泻褗胁褌芯 谐芯 锌芯蟹薪邪胁邪屑械, 薪芯 胁械褔械 械 芯锌邪褋薪芯 斜谢懈蟹芯 写芯 锌褉芯屑褟薪邪褌邪. 袝写胁邪 屑邪谢褑懈薪邪 懈蟹斜褉邪薪懈 褋邪 锌芯褋胁械褌械薪懈 胁 褌邪泄薪邪褌邪 蟹邪 谐芯谢械屑懈褟 褋斜谢褗褋褗泻 懈 胁薪懈屑邪褌械谢薪芯 褋械 锌芯写谐芯褌胁褟褌 蟹邪 薪械谐芯, 泻邪褌芯 锌芯胁械卸写邪褌 褔芯胁械褔械褋褌胁芯褌芯 泻褗屑 褍薪懈褖芯卸械薪懈械 懈 谐芯 芯斜褉懈褔邪褌 薪邪 卸懈胁芯褌 锌芯写 蟹械屑褟褌邪. 袞懈胁芯褌, 胁 泻芯泄褌芯 懈屑械薪邪褌邪 褋邪 斜械蟹 蟹薪邪褔械薪懈械 懈 胁褋械泻懈 屑芯卸械 写邪 械 胁褋械泻懈. 袞懈胁芯褌, 胁 泻芯泄褌芯 屑懈薪邪谢芯褌芯 械 蟹邪斜褍谢械薪芯 胁 屑懈褋褌械褉懈褟 懈 泻褍褌懈褟褌邪 薪邪 袩邪薪写芯褉邪 芯褌薪芯胁芯 屑芯卸械 写邪 斜褗写械 蟹邪褌胁芯褉械薪邪.
袠褋褌芯褉懈褟褌邪 薪邪 褋懈谢芯蟹邪 械 薪邪 锌褗褌 写邪 斜褗写械 薪邪锌懈褋邪薪邪. 袘褗写械褖械褌芯 胁褋械泻懈 屑芯屑械薪褌 褖械 蟹邪锌芯褔薪械...
648 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 2013
11718 people are currently reading
50072 people want to read
About the author
Hugh Howey
148听books57k听followersI'm the author of WOOL, a top 5 science fiction book on Amazon. I also wrote the Molly Fyde saga, a tale of a teenager from the 25th century who is repeatedly told that girls can't do certain things -- and then does them anyway.
A theme in my books is the celebration of overcoming odds and of not allowing the cruelty of the universe to change who you are in the process. Most of them are classified as science fiction, since they often take place in the future, but if you love great stories and memorable characters, you'll dig what you find here. I promise.
A theme in my books is the celebration of overcoming odds and of not allowing the cruelty of the universe to change who you are in the process. Most of them are classified as science fiction, since they often take place in the future, but if you love great stories and memorable characters, you'll dig what you find here. I promise.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,439 reviews
November 26, 2015
*Buddy Read with Rachel*(BAVR)
Have you ever been happily reading a good book? You鈥檙e about to find out what happens to the protagonist. Your heart is pounding with anticipation. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the book dumps you into a ridiculously long ass flashback. Everything comes to a complete and utter stop. It鈥檚 like being trapped in a meandering shaggy dog story. And of course you鈥檝e got to read the damn flashback, because if you don鈥檛 you may not completely grasp the full ramifications of the ending.
Well, Shift is a 600 page, doorstopper flashback.
To be honest, I sort of hated the book even before I began. I wanted to go forwards, not backwards.
But I tried to stay optimistic. After all, I loved Wool. I loved the nostalgia Wool generated in me for classic SciFi. I loved the suspense. The characters were cool. I was ready to take the plunge.
Unfortunately, Shift is a long and tedious read.
First off, there鈥檚 little suspense. After all, it's a prequel, so of course I knew basically what was going to happen. Howey also had the audacity to drag it out. He kept describing the same things over and over again. I started counting how many times he mentions a tomato, or tomato soup, or tomato paste. The dead guys looked like tomato sauce was on them. Howey also likes to talk about the circular staircase in the silo and overalls. Bored, I started to wonder what these overalls are made of? It better not be cotton? They don鈥檛 have the room. And speaking of room, how can they grow so much wheat? How are their computers lasting for centuries (mine usually crash after ten years). And what is the hierarchy for the powers that be? Even Donald doesn鈥檛 know that for sure and he lives there?
And the absolute worst was that lame ass, WTF reason they blew up the world? I couldn鈥檛 believe that nobody, and I mean nobody, questions Thurman and his cronies? You鈥檝e got to be kidding me?
In fact, there are several plot holes in Shift. Most of them have to do with character motivation and time. But let鈥檚 forget about that for a minute. Let鈥檚 talk about the characters.
Donald -- God I hated that guy. I swear the whole book is him having a pity party. I could handle it in the beginning (after all, horrible things happen to him) but by the third book I wanted to rip his head off. I know Donald is supposed to be a sympathetic character because he was duped and deceived, but let鈥檚 face it, he purposely tried to stay uninformed. That was his goal, to bury his head in the sand, even when obvious hints were thrown his way. I think he鈥檚 one of the biggest, redundant and whiney, woobie characters I鈥檝e read in a long time. And the thing that finally tips him over the edge made my eyes roll. Turman鈥檚 been slaughtering people for years and Don finally decides to do something about it because
Thurman 鈥� Is a total nutcase. How come nobody notices that? I think that鈥檚 what drove me bonkers. Everybody was just so willing and happy to put Charles Manson in charge of national security. Supposedly Thurman is so charismatic, people just melt like butter and agree with him after just a few minutes. Like Rodney -- who went through the most bogus character arc I鈥檝e seen in a while. Does Howey honestly expect us to believe that milquetoast Donald is the only person to try and stop Thurman? Give me a break?
Anna 鈥� I kept wondering what the hell she saw in Donald? The trouble she goes to winning him baffled me.
Mission 鈥� Was boring and had no personality. Of course, most of the characters didn鈥檛 have much of a personality. It probably didn鈥檛 help that in Mission鈥檚 scenes, Howey spends long passages describing life in the Silo one more time (like I didn鈥檛 get enough of that in Wool?)
Solo 鈥� His story is very sad. But let鈥檚 face it, we already knew what was going to happen to him.
Shadow -- Was purposely put in the book to make Solo鈥檚 life even sadder. Grrr
Charlotte -- Who鈥檚 that?
Helen -- Made me think of June Cleaver.
In conclusion, this book annoyed me. I loved Wool. I wanted to read Dust, but now I鈥檓 not so sure. Howey should have left the past a mystery.
Have you ever been happily reading a good book? You鈥檙e about to find out what happens to the protagonist. Your heart is pounding with anticipation. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the book dumps you into a ridiculously long ass flashback. Everything comes to a complete and utter stop. It鈥檚 like being trapped in a meandering shaggy dog story. And of course you鈥檝e got to read the damn flashback, because if you don鈥檛 you may not completely grasp the full ramifications of the ending.
Well, Shift is a 600 page, doorstopper flashback.
To be honest, I sort of hated the book even before I began. I wanted to go forwards, not backwards.
But I tried to stay optimistic. After all, I loved Wool. I loved the nostalgia Wool generated in me for classic SciFi. I loved the suspense. The characters were cool. I was ready to take the plunge.
Unfortunately, Shift is a long and tedious read.
First off, there鈥檚 little suspense. After all, it's a prequel, so of course I knew basically what was going to happen. Howey also had the audacity to drag it out. He kept describing the same things over and over again. I started counting how many times he mentions a tomato, or tomato soup, or tomato paste. The dead guys looked like tomato sauce was on them. Howey also likes to talk about the circular staircase in the silo and overalls. Bored, I started to wonder what these overalls are made of? It better not be cotton? They don鈥檛 have the room. And speaking of room, how can they grow so much wheat? How are their computers lasting for centuries (mine usually crash after ten years). And what is the hierarchy for the powers that be? Even Donald doesn鈥檛 know that for sure and he lives there?
And the absolute worst was that lame ass, WTF reason they blew up the world? I couldn鈥檛 believe that nobody, and I mean nobody, questions Thurman and his cronies? You鈥檝e got to be kidding me?
In fact, there are several plot holes in Shift. Most of them have to do with character motivation and time. But let鈥檚 forget about that for a minute. Let鈥檚 talk about the characters.
Donald -- God I hated that guy. I swear the whole book is him having a pity party. I could handle it in the beginning (after all, horrible things happen to him) but by the third book I wanted to rip his head off. I know Donald is supposed to be a sympathetic character because he was duped and deceived, but let鈥檚 face it, he purposely tried to stay uninformed. That was his goal, to bury his head in the sand, even when obvious hints were thrown his way. I think he鈥檚 one of the biggest, redundant and whiney, woobie characters I鈥檝e read in a long time. And the thing that finally tips him over the edge made my eyes roll. Turman鈥檚 been slaughtering people for years and Don finally decides to do something about it because
Thurman 鈥� Is a total nutcase. How come nobody notices that? I think that鈥檚 what drove me bonkers. Everybody was just so willing and happy to put Charles Manson in charge of national security. Supposedly Thurman is so charismatic, people just melt like butter and agree with him after just a few minutes. Like Rodney -- who went through the most bogus character arc I鈥檝e seen in a while. Does Howey honestly expect us to believe that milquetoast Donald is the only person to try and stop Thurman? Give me a break?
Anna 鈥� I kept wondering what the hell she saw in Donald? The trouble she goes to winning him baffled me.
Mission 鈥� Was boring and had no personality. Of course, most of the characters didn鈥檛 have much of a personality. It probably didn鈥檛 help that in Mission鈥檚 scenes, Howey spends long passages describing life in the Silo one more time (like I didn鈥檛 get enough of that in Wool?)
Solo 鈥� His story is very sad. But let鈥檚 face it, we already knew what was going to happen to him.
Shadow -- Was purposely put in the book to make Solo鈥檚 life even sadder. Grrr
Charlotte -- Who鈥檚 that?
Helen -- Made me think of June Cleaver.
In conclusion, this book annoyed me. I loved Wool. I wanted to read Dust, but now I鈥檓 not so sure. Howey should have left the past a mystery.
July 25, 2021
Showing how it came to a devastating catastrophe in detailed retrospectives, while mixing it up with the current storyline, was hardly ever such a fun and enjoyment to read.
Well written, info dumpy preparations, debates, concepts, etc. for meta endeavors such as space colonization, a major war, an election campaign, or, going underground, are something that is often more a thing for hard sci-fi, because writers tend to avoid the extreme effort of putting any exposition in dialogue or action, instead of much easier static description, monologues, or omniscient narrator sequences.
But Howey switches between the past and current events, interlinking them, transporting the one or other subtle criticism, is something I haven麓t read in that way before very often, it麓s simply a new concept and premise that is an ultimate suspense creation engine. It麓s limiting the number of possible books in such a setting, of course, but when the price for that is having such an immensely highly packed ride of a read, that麓s totally worth it.
It would be interesting to know how these novels would have hit the market between 25 and 50, in real time, years earlier, where the reality inspired nuclear wasteland WW3 genre was a hot, radiating trending topic over decades. The end of the days, or at least of we world as we know it, has always been fascinating since the first apes lost their fur and got more colds and mental illnesses called consciousness and human intelligence. In contrast to the mainstream attempts of first describing the Mad Max style wastelands in urban or rural hellholes, then creating a wave of teeny angst driven reality tv gameshow clones, this new ideas popping up in sci-fi are opening deeper and more complex settings than the stereotypical Roman emperor style put in a dystopic, near future with lots of leather around uncompensated sexual instincts.
If you are into the meta planning scenario and slowly escalating thing after this one, try space opera, sci-fi, and hard sci-fi, where this element alone can be stretched to the length of average novels over the parts of a series. It opens very dense, inspiring, and thoughtful options to imagine the future not just from the protagonists麓 perspectives, but to see it through the greedy salesmen麓s and stupid politician麓s eyes too.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
Well written, info dumpy preparations, debates, concepts, etc. for meta endeavors such as space colonization, a major war, an election campaign, or, going underground, are something that is often more a thing for hard sci-fi, because writers tend to avoid the extreme effort of putting any exposition in dialogue or action, instead of much easier static description, monologues, or omniscient narrator sequences.
But Howey switches between the past and current events, interlinking them, transporting the one or other subtle criticism, is something I haven麓t read in that way before very often, it麓s simply a new concept and premise that is an ultimate suspense creation engine. It麓s limiting the number of possible books in such a setting, of course, but when the price for that is having such an immensely highly packed ride of a read, that麓s totally worth it.
It would be interesting to know how these novels would have hit the market between 25 and 50, in real time, years earlier, where the reality inspired nuclear wasteland WW3 genre was a hot, radiating trending topic over decades. The end of the days, or at least of we world as we know it, has always been fascinating since the first apes lost their fur and got more colds and mental illnesses called consciousness and human intelligence. In contrast to the mainstream attempts of first describing the Mad Max style wastelands in urban or rural hellholes, then creating a wave of teeny angst driven reality tv gameshow clones, this new ideas popping up in sci-fi are opening deeper and more complex settings than the stereotypical Roman emperor style put in a dystopic, near future with lots of leather around uncompensated sexual instincts.
If you are into the meta planning scenario and slowly escalating thing after this one, try space opera, sci-fi, and hard sci-fi, where this element alone can be stretched to the length of average novels over the parts of a series. It opens very dense, inspiring, and thoughtful options to imagine the future not just from the protagonists麓 perspectives, but to see it through the greedy salesmen麓s and stupid politician麓s eyes too.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
September 30, 2022
Hugh Howey is a great idea man and the post-apocalyptic world of the Silos is a wonderful little playground with the potential for great stories. Unfortunately Howey's skills at character-building leave much to be desired and ultimately drags down the entire series.
Here's some of the ways Howey fails at writing characters: he never tells us what anybody looks like. Every character sounds the same and has no identifying tics or habits. The relationship of just about every character to every other character is told to us instead of shown. For example, we know Donald loves Helen because we're told he loves Helen, not because he acts any special way towards her beyond calling her Sweety or Honey. Mick is his best friend because were told he's his best friend (Mick slaps him on the back a lot so I guess that proves it). Anna wants Donald to herself because we're told...and so on.
As the main character Donald is as bland as they come, showing no particular intelligence or personality to distinguish himself from the other cast members, who themselves have no distinctive personalities. Because of this I had a very hard time either identifying or sympathizing with anybody beyond their incredibly horrific circumstances (the one exception being Solo but only because he REALLY got the shaft, so to speak).
Lately I seem to keep running into novels of good ideas and poor execution i.e. Justin Cronin's 'Passage' and Ernest Cline's 'Ready Player One'. It's disappointing and as a contrast i'd recommend Steven King's 'The Stand' as an example of the apocalypse done right with solid world-building and well drawn characters we come to love or hate. For me it's still the gold-standard.
All this being said I'll still come back for the final chapter of WOOL because damn if it isn't an interesting place to explore.
Here's some of the ways Howey fails at writing characters: he never tells us what anybody looks like. Every character sounds the same and has no identifying tics or habits. The relationship of just about every character to every other character is told to us instead of shown. For example, we know Donald loves Helen because we're told he loves Helen, not because he acts any special way towards her beyond calling her Sweety or Honey. Mick is his best friend because were told he's his best friend (Mick slaps him on the back a lot so I guess that proves it). Anna wants Donald to herself because we're told...and so on.
As the main character Donald is as bland as they come, showing no particular intelligence or personality to distinguish himself from the other cast members, who themselves have no distinctive personalities. Because of this I had a very hard time either identifying or sympathizing with anybody beyond their incredibly horrific circumstances (the one exception being Solo but only because he REALLY got the shaft, so to speak).
Lately I seem to keep running into novels of good ideas and poor execution i.e. Justin Cronin's 'Passage' and Ernest Cline's 'Ready Player One'. It's disappointing and as a contrast i'd recommend Steven King's 'The Stand' as an example of the apocalypse done right with solid world-building and well drawn characters we come to love or hate. For me it's still the gold-standard.
All this being said I'll still come back for the final chapter of WOOL because damn if it isn't an interesting place to explore.
May 28, 2013
Shift, as the impressive science fiction follow up to Wool, proves that Hugh Howey can write - and write well. This is a prequel, but is, in my opinion, better read after Wool in order to not destroy the unique aspects of reading Hugh Howey's first work.
I would say that together Shift and Wool appear as better versions of series. Not only are they far more mature in their approach to their particular topics but they possess and infinite amount more plausibility and depth. The way in which Shift sets out the background to Wool, explaining how humanity could end up in silos is brilliant. It particularly works as an exploration of politics, weaponry, humanity's quest for self annihilation, versus the drive to survive. This stands alongside that sense of the contrast between the inner darkness versus the inner greatness of humanity.
However, the one reason this receives a four star rating is that the characters lacked in comparison to the previous novel and were not as appealing to myself as a reader. For once I'm lost for words as to how to properly review all the aspects of this novel. Perhaps fatigue has destroyed me over this week. That said, I will recommend all serious readers give this book a go after they've tried Wool. I will be seriously looking forward to the next book myself. I do love quality science fiction and while I'm lacking something to fully capture and describe about the depth and lack of superficiality or immaturity in this novel I cannot find it. The best thing to do is simply recommend that others read these books.
October 24, 2013
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. But unfortunately, the writer falls into the same traps he did in Wool. Like Wool, this book tells a fantastic story for the first 2/3 - in this case, I really did love the way the conspiracy built piece by piece before your eyes, and I enjoyed slowly putting it together with a lot of "OMG" moments. If the book had ended after just that, it would have been a 5 star review. However, in this novel Howey seems not to be able to restrain himself from going overboard with big reveals and too-clever tricks. It seems like he's always waiting around the corner with a BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE moment, and after a while I just developed 'reveal fatigue' I guess.
It doesn't help that the more Howey reveals, the less the conspiracy makes sense. Suspending disbelief is easy when the writer leaves much of the details to your imagination, but Howey can't do that - he has to explain every little thing and eventually it falls apart.
I also thought the entire thing was bogged down by the way-too-long chapters on Solo. Like, I really didn't need to know the details of Solo's bowel movements through the years he was alone. Those chapters seemed to serve no purpose but to fill space and they just bogged down the story, after a while I was just skipping through to get back to Silo 1.
Finally, the biggest disappointment here was that Howey was as devoted in this book as he was in Wool to forcing a happy ending. He's created a world of despair and hopelessness, and then it seems like he can't bring himself to follow through with it - the endings of the books all seem forced and fake. It is a sign of an undisciplined writer, and unfortunately that lack of discipline overshadowed my enjoyment of this story.
Overall, this book was very disappointing - what could have been an amazing conspiracy story about an irrevocable act by a group of madmen fell beneath the hand of an unskilled story-teller. The plot became more and more incoherent, and the 'big reveals' got more and more showy and silly. I wanted to hear about this cabal that murdered 7 billion people , not hear Hugh Howey pat himself on the back for being super clever. I won't be reading , because I know where it's going and I know it would make the entire trilogy incoherent and silly. It's frustrating, because this could have been a really groundbreaking sci-fi story, but instead it was an amateur overtelling of details that didn't make any sense.
It doesn't help that the more Howey reveals, the less the conspiracy makes sense. Suspending disbelief is easy when the writer leaves much of the details to your imagination, but Howey can't do that - he has to explain every little thing and eventually it falls apart.
I also thought the entire thing was bogged down by the way-too-long chapters on Solo. Like, I really didn't need to know the details of Solo's bowel movements through the years he was alone. Those chapters seemed to serve no purpose but to fill space and they just bogged down the story, after a while I was just skipping through to get back to Silo 1.
Finally, the biggest disappointment here was that Howey was as devoted in this book as he was in Wool to forcing a happy ending. He's created a world of despair and hopelessness, and then it seems like he can't bring himself to follow through with it - the endings of the books all seem forced and fake. It is a sign of an undisciplined writer, and unfortunately that lack of discipline overshadowed my enjoyment of this story.
Overall, this book was very disappointing - what could have been an amazing conspiracy story about an irrevocable act by a group of madmen fell beneath the hand of an unskilled story-teller. The plot became more and more incoherent, and the 'big reveals' got more and more showy and silly. I wanted to hear about this cabal that murdered 7 billion people , not hear Hugh Howey pat himself on the back for being super clever. I won't be reading , because I know where it's going and I know it would make the entire trilogy incoherent and silly. It's frustrating, because this could have been a really groundbreaking sci-fi story, but instead it was an amateur overtelling of details that didn't make any sense.
December 12, 2019
UPDATED! PARANOID RANT NEAR THE END WITH SLIGHT SPOILER!
The second volume of Howey's Solo trilogy takes us back to the origin of the silos and introduces a few good guys - Donald in particular - a few bad guys - Thurman although we are not sure until Dust exactly how evil he is - and some ambiguous characters - Anna (well, you'll need to read Dust to see how this turns out). It is an interesting idea with the nanobots and the Noah's Arc concept. The suspense is done quite well with time shifting back and forth as the reality of the project slowly dawns on Donald. (Honestly, I wanted to slap him a few times for his naivet茅.) For my reservations regarding the larger story line, you'll need to read my review of Dust. As for this story, it is carried primarily on the suspense that Howey builds throughout rather than character development which I felt was rather flat. Still, it is an interesting follow-up to Wool which I enjoyed peripherally and I was still intrigued enough to follow through with Dust.
The second volume of Howey's Solo trilogy takes us back to the origin of the silos and introduces a few good guys - Donald in particular - a few bad guys - Thurman although we are not sure until Dust exactly how evil he is - and some ambiguous characters - Anna (well, you'll need to read Dust to see how this turns out). It is an interesting idea with the nanobots and the Noah's Arc concept. The suspense is done quite well with time shifting back and forth as the reality of the project slowly dawns on Donald. (Honestly, I wanted to slap him a few times for his naivet茅.) For my reservations regarding the larger story line, you'll need to read my review of Dust. As for this story, it is carried primarily on the suspense that Howey builds throughout rather than character development which I felt was rather flat. Still, it is an interesting follow-up to Wool which I enjoyed peripherally and I was still intrigued enough to follow through with Dust.
December 11, 2013
Last night I was tempted to give this book two stars out of sheer frustration, but that wouldn't be fair. Yes, it's nowhere near as good as its predecessor, the excellent _Wool_. And yes, it's not what you'd call really good. But I did read it straight through, and with no regrets.
What Shift does well is provide context and explanations for much of the culture and history (or lack thereof) that we saw in Wool, and that's cool. As a sort of Simarillion, this prequel book works. The last few pages also nicely set up the final volume of the trilogy. And, as with Wool, it's fun to track the many different ways in which the title fits the stories.
What Shift doesn't do well is make sense. Or provide interesting, likeable characters. Or have a very good plot-to-page-count ratio.
Shift is three stories: one short one of an early silo uprising told from the POV of a silo porter. That one's quite good, and the highlight of the book. One is the backstory of Solo from Wool: there's nothing new here; we got the picture just fine from Wool. And the story's ending is so crassly manipulative, so obvious, as to be downright disgusting. The whole arc didn't need to be there.
The third is the story of one of the sort-of-unwitting creators of the silos, from the project's founding through his repeated thaws from suspended animation to address crises in the silos, up to the events ending Wool. This should have been terrific material, but failed on many counts. Donald is almost entirely passive in the face of world-ending events, just kind of bobbing along. He makes terrible decisions, not out of tragic flaws, but either from cognitive impairment or just not wanting to think too hard or take action.
It's around Donald that Howey's writing fails: we're told repeatedly of Donald's epic passion for his wife, but all we see is a cool and distant relationship with someone vaguely unsympathetic. He uses this twoo wuv to rebuff the constant advances of the hot sociopath - but we never see why she might be interested in this nebbish.
Generally, unlike in Wool, so much makes no sense here that it destroys immersion in the book. It's just not possible to imagine that the project could have been built as described (we're to believe that construction workers didn't talk to each other, and nobody bothered to look at 5000% cost overruns on everything), nor that the triggering event could have happened without *anyone* outside the conspiracy including an entire military chain of command getting asked if the mission was authorized.
And, if everything's been thought through and sanitized, down to the encyclopedias for the inner circle, how come all the children are raised with books from before the apocalypse?
Finally, even positing nano/bio mind control, Howey's society has no storytellers, no artists, not a single person who decorates their body or their uniform. These are not humans. Tell me they're Venusian Slime Molds, and I'll go along with you. But those are some of humanity's deepest traits. Tell me that you've eradicated those but kept farming and industrial labor, and sorry, I'm walking away.
I'll read Dust, the final volume, but I'm not in any great hurry now.
What Shift does well is provide context and explanations for much of the culture and history (or lack thereof) that we saw in Wool, and that's cool. As a sort of Simarillion, this prequel book works. The last few pages also nicely set up the final volume of the trilogy. And, as with Wool, it's fun to track the many different ways in which the title fits the stories.
What Shift doesn't do well is make sense. Or provide interesting, likeable characters. Or have a very good plot-to-page-count ratio.
Shift is three stories: one short one of an early silo uprising told from the POV of a silo porter. That one's quite good, and the highlight of the book. One is the backstory of Solo from Wool: there's nothing new here; we got the picture just fine from Wool. And the story's ending is so crassly manipulative, so obvious, as to be downright disgusting. The whole arc didn't need to be there.
The third is the story of one of the sort-of-unwitting creators of the silos, from the project's founding through his repeated thaws from suspended animation to address crises in the silos, up to the events ending Wool. This should have been terrific material, but failed on many counts. Donald is almost entirely passive in the face of world-ending events, just kind of bobbing along. He makes terrible decisions, not out of tragic flaws, but either from cognitive impairment or just not wanting to think too hard or take action.
It's around Donald that Howey's writing fails: we're told repeatedly of Donald's epic passion for his wife, but all we see is a cool and distant relationship with someone vaguely unsympathetic. He uses this twoo wuv to rebuff the constant advances of the hot sociopath - but we never see why she might be interested in this nebbish.
Generally, unlike in Wool, so much makes no sense here that it destroys immersion in the book. It's just not possible to imagine that the project could have been built as described (we're to believe that construction workers didn't talk to each other, and nobody bothered to look at 5000% cost overruns on everything), nor that the triggering event could have happened without *anyone* outside the conspiracy including an entire military chain of command getting asked if the mission was authorized.
And, if everything's been thought through and sanitized, down to the encyclopedias for the inner circle, how come all the children are raised with books from before the apocalypse?
Finally, even positing nano/bio mind control, Howey's society has no storytellers, no artists, not a single person who decorates their body or their uniform. These are not humans. Tell me they're Venusian Slime Molds, and I'll go along with you. But those are some of humanity's deepest traits. Tell me that you've eradicated those but kept farming and industrial labor, and sorry, I'm walking away.
I'll read Dust, the final volume, but I'm not in any great hurry now.
April 9, 2020
It is truly a sorry affair that
most sequels just do not turn out right.
Well, alright, not most. Some.
Can we settle on a lot ?
I can start naming now,
(The sequel to Blood Red Road, Metro 2034...)
and I am sure you can carry on with this list to eternity. In fact, please carry on in the comments! I would really love to find out what sequel drove you mad .
So basically, I think we can draw the conclusion that you pretty much have to be J.K. Rowling not to mess up the sequels.
So am I surprised that Shift wasn't really a charming sequel to ?
No, dear friends, I am not. But am I disappointed?
I don't really know where to begin with this book, or frankly - IF I should begin at all, cause you can see I just gave it 1 star, which I pretty much never do , so you must be getting the vibe that not only did this book not satisfy me, it probably even enraged me.
In fact, if that book had been a game, I would have rage quit.
This book has many very unfortunate factors that made me hate it. Part of it was that it was a sequel to a mind-blowing book . But it's not just that! The plot dragged and dragged and dragged... I can't think of a book that has tortured me quite so lately.
If I had to compare it with , well, first of all, the main character is such a wimp that you can't even. Literally. Second 鈥� okay, the first book is quite depressing. But it's also uplifting in a way, cause they keep fighting. Nobody gives up. Shift though? What happens to the guy is so depressing , that if you have any empathy at all, like even the amount sea critters have, you will probably get sorely depressed from just touching the book , much less reading it.
(Hint: I totally did.)
Unfortunately, I can't find much more to say about this book. It's a non-story completely. I know it will not remain in my mind at all, because, well, pretty much nothing happened. Half of it was a retelling of what happened in the first book, half told stuff about a guy I honestly don't care to hear about, and intermingled in between all of that, there was maybe a little bit about how or why the silos were actually built. Alright, I'll give you that 鈥� there is the backstory. But hey. I could have saved so much more time (and brain cells) if that was just given to me in like 10 pages.
Now you will say, Evelina, dear friend, WHY DID YOU NOT DNF??
Well, now. I actually have a pretty good reason for that.
You might know I do not DNF almost ever , but this time I was buddy-reading this with my mom. And since I was taking my sweet time, she kept whining about wanting to talk about the story and just tortured me into finishing it! It was terrible :D abuse, I tell you! Here's a GIF of me (superstar!) to show you how I felt while reading this book 鈥� I think it's a better outlet than text:
Now you鈥檝e seen it all.
| |
Well, alright, not most. Some.
Can we settle on a lot ?
I can start naming now,
(The sequel to Blood Red Road, Metro 2034...)
and I am sure you can carry on with this list to eternity. In fact, please carry on in the comments! I would really love to find out what sequel drove you mad .
So basically, I think we can draw the conclusion that you pretty much have to be J.K. Rowling not to mess up the sequels.
So am I surprised that Shift wasn't really a charming sequel to ?
No, dear friends, I am not. But am I disappointed?
I don't really know where to begin with this book, or frankly - IF I should begin at all, cause you can see I just gave it 1 star, which I pretty much never do , so you must be getting the vibe that not only did this book not satisfy me, it probably even enraged me.
In fact, if that book had been a game, I would have rage quit.
This book has many very unfortunate factors that made me hate it. Part of it was that it was a sequel to a mind-blowing book . But it's not just that! The plot dragged and dragged and dragged... I can't think of a book that has tortured me quite so lately.
If I had to compare it with , well, first of all, the main character is such a wimp that you can't even. Literally. Second 鈥� okay, the first book is quite depressing. But it's also uplifting in a way, cause they keep fighting. Nobody gives up. Shift though? What happens to the guy is so depressing , that if you have any empathy at all, like even the amount sea critters have, you will probably get sorely depressed from just touching the book , much less reading it.
(Hint: I totally did.)
Unfortunately, I can't find much more to say about this book. It's a non-story completely. I know it will not remain in my mind at all, because, well, pretty much nothing happened. Half of it was a retelling of what happened in the first book, half told stuff about a guy I honestly don't care to hear about, and intermingled in between all of that, there was maybe a little bit about how or why the silos were actually built. Alright, I'll give you that 鈥� there is the backstory. But hey. I could have saved so much more time (and brain cells) if that was just given to me in like 10 pages.
Now you will say, Evelina, dear friend, WHY DID YOU NOT DNF??
Well, now. I actually have a pretty good reason for that.
You might know I do not DNF almost ever , but this time I was buddy-reading this with my mom. And since I was taking my sweet time, she kept whining about wanting to talk about the story and just tortured me into finishing it! It was terrible :D abuse, I tell you! Here's a GIF of me (superstar!) to show you how I felt while reading this book 鈥� I think it's a better outlet than text:
Now you鈥檝e seen it all.
| |
January 22, 2022
2022 reread:
I see that I started this on the exact same day four years ago but finished it almost two weeks earlier back then. Huh. Anyways, I very much enjoyed it once again. But just like in 2018 I didn't much care about Mission's POV. This slowed me down quite a bit this time around. But I think I have generally become a slower reader since then. Probably. The book? Good.
Buddy read with Linda, Tyler Came Late And Left Early and Future Diane.
2018 review:
This is the second book in Hugh Howey鈥檚 Silo Series.
Shift is actually the prequel to . I didn鈥檛 know this, when I started this series. So there was no debate whether to read it first. And I think it benefited from being read in order of publication.
We learn how the silos came to be and generally get a broader view of the world. That鈥檚 something I longed for after the rather confined space in which Wool took place.
We have one ongoing character arc here which starts years before the silos. And three accompanying ones with some overlapping in between. A rather big overlapping in one case. But I don鈥檛 want to spoil anything.
The main character arc should be the one that keeps the reader going of course and that worked pretty well, as it kept my interest start to finish. In a best case scenario the accompanying ones are just as interesting. I give Hugh Howey two hits and one miss. So there was a bit of a drag in Second Shift for me because I didn鈥檛 care all that much about Mission鈥檚 story. Expected way more of The Great Uprising, to be honest.
In Third Shift we revisit some events from Wool and I got this warm feeling you get at the get-together of old friends. I guess that鈥檚 mostly the pull of prequels.
There鈥檚 not as much action as in Wool. This book, at its core, is mainly about the psychological effects this barren world has on its occupants. I think Howey has pulled this off nicely. Although some passages felt a bit too long and overwritten.
As with the first book there鈥檚 always this feeling that Hugh Howey has it in him to write a full blown five star novel, but misses.
Let鈥檚 see if he puts it together in the third book.
I see that I started this on the exact same day four years ago but finished it almost two weeks earlier back then. Huh. Anyways, I very much enjoyed it once again. But just like in 2018 I didn't much care about Mission's POV. This slowed me down quite a bit this time around. But I think I have generally become a slower reader since then. Probably. The book? Good.
Buddy read with Linda, Tyler Came Late And Left Early and Future Diane.
2018 review:
This is the second book in Hugh Howey鈥檚 Silo Series.
Shift is actually the prequel to . I didn鈥檛 know this, when I started this series. So there was no debate whether to read it first. And I think it benefited from being read in order of publication.
We learn how the silos came to be and generally get a broader view of the world. That鈥檚 something I longed for after the rather confined space in which Wool took place.
We have one ongoing character arc here which starts years before the silos. And three accompanying ones with some overlapping in between. A rather big overlapping in one case. But I don鈥檛 want to spoil anything.
The main character arc should be the one that keeps the reader going of course and that worked pretty well, as it kept my interest start to finish. In a best case scenario the accompanying ones are just as interesting. I give Hugh Howey two hits and one miss. So there was a bit of a drag in Second Shift for me because I didn鈥檛 care all that much about Mission鈥檚 story. Expected way more of The Great Uprising, to be honest.
In Third Shift we revisit some events from Wool and I got this warm feeling you get at the get-together of old friends. I guess that鈥檚 mostly the pull of prequels.
There鈥檚 not as much action as in Wool. This book, at its core, is mainly about the psychological effects this barren world has on its occupants. I think Howey has pulled this off nicely. Although some passages felt a bit too long and overwritten.
As with the first book there鈥檚 always this feeling that Hugh Howey has it in him to write a full blown five star novel, but misses.
Let鈥檚 see if he puts it together in the third book.
March 14, 2020
Shift (Silo #2), Hugh Howey
Silo is a series of post-apocalyptic science fiction books by American writer Hugh Howey.
The series started in 2011 with the short story "Wool", which was later published together with four sequel novellas as a novel with the same name. Along with Wool, the series consists of Shift, Dust, three short stories and Wool: The Graphic Novel.
In a future less than fifty years away, the world is still as we know it. Time continues to tick by. The truth is that it is ticking away. A powerful few know what lies ahead. They are preparing for it. They are trying to protect us. They are setting us on a path from which we can never return. A path that will lead to destruction; a path that will take us below ground. The history of the silo is about to be written. Our future is about to begin.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賴卮鬲賲 跇丕賳賵蹖賴 爻丕賱 2017 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 卮蹖賮鬲 讴鬲丕亘 丿賵賲 爻乇蹖 爻蹖賱賵貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 賴蹖賵 賴丕賵蹖貨
丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
Silo is a series of post-apocalyptic science fiction books by American writer Hugh Howey.
The series started in 2011 with the short story "Wool", which was later published together with four sequel novellas as a novel with the same name. Along with Wool, the series consists of Shift, Dust, three short stories and Wool: The Graphic Novel.
In a future less than fifty years away, the world is still as we know it. Time continues to tick by. The truth is that it is ticking away. A powerful few know what lies ahead. They are preparing for it. They are trying to protect us. They are setting us on a path from which we can never return. A path that will lead to destruction; a path that will take us below ground. The history of the silo is about to be written. Our future is about to begin.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賴卮鬲賲 跇丕賳賵蹖賴 爻丕賱 2017 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 卮蹖賮鬲 讴鬲丕亘 丿賵賲 爻乇蹖 爻蹖賱賵貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 賴蹖賵 賴丕賵蹖貨
丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
March 10, 2025
My rating is 4.5
By the second part of the book Silos is a little less good, but the first part of the trilogy. But the story is still great, very well written, and keeps us tense all the time.
The story leads us to the time of construction the silos and is accompanied by the main figure congressman Donald, who gets the task of the president to make drafts for silos. Though he accepts a job, it does not attract him much because he takes that job away from the family. But this job will bring him something bigger than except for him in the future. His whole world will only break up in the future in one day. The writer leads us to a terrible future in which individuals are determined to do everything to manipulate people with some strange motives. Donald will find it difficult, and all that he considers true will burst into the wilderness that has become his life. One thing is certain: Donald must change it all.
I would recommend the book to fans of post-apocalyptic science fiction.
By the second part of the book Silos is a little less good, but the first part of the trilogy. But the story is still great, very well written, and keeps us tense all the time.
The story leads us to the time of construction the silos and is accompanied by the main figure congressman Donald, who gets the task of the president to make drafts for silos. Though he accepts a job, it does not attract him much because he takes that job away from the family. But this job will bring him something bigger than except for him in the future. His whole world will only break up in the future in one day. The writer leads us to a terrible future in which individuals are determined to do everything to manipulate people with some strange motives. Donald will find it difficult, and all that he considers true will burst into the wilderness that has become his life. One thing is certain: Donald must change it all.
I would recommend the book to fans of post-apocalyptic science fiction.
October 11, 2014
Continuing the saga of the Silo. . . .
I loved Wool, I loved this book! So many questions after reading Wool. Why, for instance, were there no elevators? This book addresses that - sort of. (I wonder if the author received enough emails about that topic that he felt he ought to mention it in his next book?) Shift answers a few Woolly questions, but asks quite a few more questions. I think that every few pages I was going "OMG!"
This book is more of a prequel to Wool but should definitely be read after Wool to prevent spoilers from ruining the story. This is the story of the Silo's beginnings. It starts many years before Wool, but then ends at the same time as Wool ends. Shift covers the lives of several people and a few of them are familiar. It plunged me right back into that world and I started once again dreaming of living in a silo every night. It's not often a book gets into my dreams, but this one certainly did. That must be part of the universal appeal of this book. Something in this book is definitely speaking to part of my brain.
Looking forward to reading Dust. I'm not sure where this is heading.
(BTW - it also makes for some fun conversation. Last night, for instance, my husband mentioned to me if I thought there would be fewer uprisings in the Silo if they had more reading material, maybe some fun magazines like Silo Living? That led to Living in the Mids, Up Top Life, Better Silos and (uh?) Silos, Down Deep Life and then eventually we realized there had to have been at least one uprising on the shortfall of TP (paper, after all, is such a precious commodity).
Recommended for all Wool lovers out there.
I loved Wool, I loved this book! So many questions after reading Wool. Why, for instance, were there no elevators? This book addresses that - sort of. (I wonder if the author received enough emails about that topic that he felt he ought to mention it in his next book?) Shift answers a few Woolly questions, but asks quite a few more questions. I think that every few pages I was going "OMG!"
This book is more of a prequel to Wool but should definitely be read after Wool to prevent spoilers from ruining the story. This is the story of the Silo's beginnings. It starts many years before Wool, but then ends at the same time as Wool ends. Shift covers the lives of several people and a few of them are familiar. It plunged me right back into that world and I started once again dreaming of living in a silo every night. It's not often a book gets into my dreams, but this one certainly did. That must be part of the universal appeal of this book. Something in this book is definitely speaking to part of my brain.
Looking forward to reading Dust. I'm not sure where this is heading.
(BTW - it also makes for some fun conversation. Last night, for instance, my husband mentioned to me if I thought there would be fewer uprisings in the Silo if they had more reading material, maybe some fun magazines like Silo Living? That led to Living in the Mids, Up Top Life, Better Silos and (uh?) Silos, Down Deep Life and then eventually we realized there had to have been at least one uprising on the shortfall of TP (paper, after all, is such a precious commodity).
Recommended for all Wool lovers out there.
May 31, 2023
With Shift, Hugh Howey continues his thoroughly unique, claustrophobic and engrossing story about the world in the silo. We get a skillfully woven background and unexpected explanations for how it all came to be, and this is fed to us in intriguing bits and pieces. I found I could not bite off my next scrap fast enough!
I have shelved these stories science fiction, though these are much less science than they are simply human and somewhat tragic. Hugh Howey understands and portrays loneliness in a way I hope never to experience firsthand. He shows us how love, when it's desperate and dysfunctional, can ruin a relationship and perhaps even a civilization. Bottom line is that he "gets" people and shares his compassionate appreciation for our flaws and our well-intentioned missteps, even when this revelation is far from the sunbeams and rainbows we hope he'll provide.
Taking a breather with a couple other books before I move on to Dust, mostly because I don't want to rush through. I'm trying to pace myself, savoring each morsel of the silo pie.
I have shelved these stories science fiction, though these are much less science than they are simply human and somewhat tragic. Hugh Howey understands and portrays loneliness in a way I hope never to experience firsthand. He shows us how love, when it's desperate and dysfunctional, can ruin a relationship and perhaps even a civilization. Bottom line is that he "gets" people and shares his compassionate appreciation for our flaws and our well-intentioned missteps, even when this revelation is far from the sunbeams and rainbows we hope he'll provide.
Taking a breather with a couple other books before I move on to Dust, mostly because I don't want to rush through. I'm trying to pace myself, savoring each morsel of the silo pie.
January 17, 2025
5 Stars for Shift: Silo, Book 2 (audiobook) by Hugh Howey read by Tim Gerard Reynolds.
It was great to get to see how and why the silos were built. We got the whole backstory that catches us up to the first book. And it was interesting to see how the characters changed do to this isolation.
It was great to get to see how and why the silos were built. We got the whole backstory that catches us up to the first book. And it was interesting to see how the characters changed do to this isolation.
January 1, 2017
REVIEW SUMMARY: The sequel trilogy to the best seller, Wool Omnibus, which takes a leap back in time to show how the chaos started.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A silo architect finds out too late what he鈥檚 been building, loses track of his wife and memories, and must uncover the secret behind the silo in order to make everything right.
MY RATING: 3.5 stars
MY REVIEW
PROS: Strong beginning; empathy for major characters; challenging philosophical themes about war and sacrifice to survive as a human race.
CONS: Third Shift (Book Three) slowed the story way down with minor revelations and sparse action.
BOTTOM LINE: While the first half gave hope that this sequel could surpass Wool Omnibus, the story went downhill from there. Shift is still recommended for Wool fans, and it will not kill interest in reading the concluding volume even though it did not meet expectations.
(Spoiler Warning: This review will have spoilers for people who have not read Wool, and only general spoilers for those who have yet to read Shift. Reviews for First Shift: Legacy and Second Shift: Order can be seen at the reviewer鈥檚 home page.)
Shift Omnibus is made up of three books, First Shift 鈥� Legacy, Second Shift 鈥� Order, and Third Shift 鈥� Pact.
First Shift 鈥� Legacy starts out with a young congressman, Donald, who has aspirations for greatness but finds out that his plans are not what those up the chain-of-command have in store for him. Donald is given the task of building an underground silo 鈥� just in case recent nanotechnology development continues to escalate into a world war 鈥� and is assigned to work with an old flame from his college days. This old flame flirts just like she always did, and he begins to wonder if she is manipulating events to keep him away from his wife. The race for Donald to figure out what he is really building and how to make sure he doesn鈥檛 lose his wife in the process is very exciting and emotional, reminiscent of the turmoil in Wool 1 and even made a few reviewers wonder what this series would have been like had it started with this book. The conclusion of First Shift 鈥� Legacy wows as much as it breaks one鈥檚 heart.
Second Shift 鈥� Order continues to pound a hammer on the heart strings as it further unfolds the mystery of the silos and the over-arching moral dilemma of killing in order to save lives. The revelations mix perfectly with the questions posed about what you would do in Senator Thurman鈥檚 situation. The new POV character, a porter named Mission Jones, has a strong character arc of his own that is only slightly less impacting as Donald鈥檚. Here, the author writes a tight plot exploring Mission鈥檚 inner struggle of hating to be a burden on anyone.
This book鈥檚 inclusion of Mission Jones is an outstanding compliment to the overall plot and thematic question of whether humanity should adapt a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Mission has a revelation: 鈥淓veryone was trying to get to where they didn鈥檛 need one another. And how exactly was that supposed to help them all get along?鈥� This is the opposite side to Thurman鈥檚 stance that the people inside the silos don鈥檛 need the people who were killed above ground in order for their human-race 鈥渟aving鈥� experiment to be successful.
The conclusion to Mission鈥檚 arc is also emotional and surprising. Senator Thurman makes a powerful argument for the establishment and goal of the silos, and it seems like Donald is not going to be able to overcome a system that treats people like numbers instead of integral pieces of a whole.
Third Shift 鈥� Pact has an emotional beginning, but stalls as it shows snippets of a young man, Jimmy, growing up alone in a silo post-uprising. While this reader appreciates seeing the origin story of one of the remaining characters in Wool, the frank analysis of his story in this book is that he had twice as much page time as he should have. The discovery of self and finding of a partner in a stray cat were emotionally engaging, but the time spent holed up and then wandering made the end of this book a burden to finish.
Jimmy鈥檚 revelation illustrated the point of his story within this omnibus, 鈥淢an wasn鈥檛 meant to live alone.鈥� This reader just wishes the illustration of that point was more exciting, and maybe a letdown in Donald鈥檚 arc contributed to the lack of balance between introspection and intrigue.
Donald鈥檚 arc in Third Shift 鈥� Pact did not surprise enough to match the excitement of the first two books. It was already clear that he was angry with Thurman and Anna, and so his solution to those problems was only mildly surprising, and a little more disappointing. Donald has gone through a very difficult life, but his decisions in Third Shift went a direction that lessened empathy and support. On top of that, the silo numbers became confusing as far as their relation to the plot鈥檚 mystery.
To wrap up, Shift Omnibus took bold strides in expanding the conspiracy inherent in the world of the author鈥檚 Silo Saga, but a weak ending stole the momentum and interest established in the first two books. While Wool set this series up to be a lifetime favorite, Shift 鈥� and Third Shift specifically 鈥� tempered expectations significantly.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A silo architect finds out too late what he鈥檚 been building, loses track of his wife and memories, and must uncover the secret behind the silo in order to make everything right.
MY RATING: 3.5 stars
MY REVIEW
PROS: Strong beginning; empathy for major characters; challenging philosophical themes about war and sacrifice to survive as a human race.
CONS: Third Shift (Book Three) slowed the story way down with minor revelations and sparse action.
BOTTOM LINE: While the first half gave hope that this sequel could surpass Wool Omnibus, the story went downhill from there. Shift is still recommended for Wool fans, and it will not kill interest in reading the concluding volume even though it did not meet expectations.
(Spoiler Warning: This review will have spoilers for people who have not read Wool, and only general spoilers for those who have yet to read Shift. Reviews for First Shift: Legacy and Second Shift: Order can be seen at the reviewer鈥檚 home page.)
Shift Omnibus is made up of three books, First Shift 鈥� Legacy, Second Shift 鈥� Order, and Third Shift 鈥� Pact.
First Shift 鈥� Legacy starts out with a young congressman, Donald, who has aspirations for greatness but finds out that his plans are not what those up the chain-of-command have in store for him. Donald is given the task of building an underground silo 鈥� just in case recent nanotechnology development continues to escalate into a world war 鈥� and is assigned to work with an old flame from his college days. This old flame flirts just like she always did, and he begins to wonder if she is manipulating events to keep him away from his wife. The race for Donald to figure out what he is really building and how to make sure he doesn鈥檛 lose his wife in the process is very exciting and emotional, reminiscent of the turmoil in Wool 1 and even made a few reviewers wonder what this series would have been like had it started with this book. The conclusion of First Shift 鈥� Legacy wows as much as it breaks one鈥檚 heart.
Second Shift 鈥� Order continues to pound a hammer on the heart strings as it further unfolds the mystery of the silos and the over-arching moral dilemma of killing in order to save lives. The revelations mix perfectly with the questions posed about what you would do in Senator Thurman鈥檚 situation. The new POV character, a porter named Mission Jones, has a strong character arc of his own that is only slightly less impacting as Donald鈥檚. Here, the author writes a tight plot exploring Mission鈥檚 inner struggle of hating to be a burden on anyone.
This book鈥檚 inclusion of Mission Jones is an outstanding compliment to the overall plot and thematic question of whether humanity should adapt a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Mission has a revelation: 鈥淓veryone was trying to get to where they didn鈥檛 need one another. And how exactly was that supposed to help them all get along?鈥� This is the opposite side to Thurman鈥檚 stance that the people inside the silos don鈥檛 need the people who were killed above ground in order for their human-race 鈥渟aving鈥� experiment to be successful.
The conclusion to Mission鈥檚 arc is also emotional and surprising. Senator Thurman makes a powerful argument for the establishment and goal of the silos, and it seems like Donald is not going to be able to overcome a system that treats people like numbers instead of integral pieces of a whole.
Third Shift 鈥� Pact has an emotional beginning, but stalls as it shows snippets of a young man, Jimmy, growing up alone in a silo post-uprising. While this reader appreciates seeing the origin story of one of the remaining characters in Wool, the frank analysis of his story in this book is that he had twice as much page time as he should have. The discovery of self and finding of a partner in a stray cat were emotionally engaging, but the time spent holed up and then wandering made the end of this book a burden to finish.
Jimmy鈥檚 revelation illustrated the point of his story within this omnibus, 鈥淢an wasn鈥檛 meant to live alone.鈥� This reader just wishes the illustration of that point was more exciting, and maybe a letdown in Donald鈥檚 arc contributed to the lack of balance between introspection and intrigue.
Donald鈥檚 arc in Third Shift 鈥� Pact did not surprise enough to match the excitement of the first two books. It was already clear that he was angry with Thurman and Anna, and so his solution to those problems was only mildly surprising, and a little more disappointing. Donald has gone through a very difficult life, but his decisions in Third Shift went a direction that lessened empathy and support. On top of that, the silo numbers became confusing as far as their relation to the plot鈥檚 mystery.
To wrap up, Shift Omnibus took bold strides in expanding the conspiracy inherent in the world of the author鈥檚 Silo Saga, but a weak ending stole the momentum and interest established in the first two books. While Wool set this series up to be a lifetime favorite, Shift 鈥� and Third Shift specifically 鈥� tempered expectations significantly.
March 22, 2014
Warning: Spoilers for "Wool", the previous book in the series.
While the title "Shift" actually refers to the time that one works, it's definitely a shift in the storytelling of the series. This volume goes back in time and tells the story of how and somewhat why the universe of "Wool" exists. It is a tale of politics, paranoia and nanotechnology. Yes the world ends in a somewhat SF cliche way, but it is still told with a great amount of talent, which makes those cliches forgivable.
Although we get nearly all our questions answered and some fascinating tales are told, "Shift" lacks a couple of properties that made "Wool" such a great read. Firstly, while characterisation is still great, I found that I had little to no empathy for the main character, Donald. How can you connect with someone who is a workaholic, ignores his wife and who was lucky enough to know some influential people to get into a position to be exploited? Even his later actions in the novel, while they do fit his character as being naive and ham-fisted, do not endear me to this man at all. And I don't dislike him. I just feel meh about him. Luckily later on we get the back story of one of the great characters from "Wool", Solo or Jimmy.
What is also lacking in this volume is some of the great and beautiful scenes I talked about in my review of "Wool". This may be due to my non-engagement with the main character and my wish to get through those sections efficiently and quickly, but this volume did seem to hold a greater precedence with plot and pace rather than having those small moments interspersed between.
But despite these criticisms "Shift" is still a great SF read and complements "Wool" by answering a lot of the questions that came about in that novel. I look forward to reading the next volume "Dust" and being reunited with the great characters from Silo 18, especially Juliette.
While the title "Shift" actually refers to the time that one works, it's definitely a shift in the storytelling of the series. This volume goes back in time and tells the story of how and somewhat why the universe of "Wool" exists. It is a tale of politics, paranoia and nanotechnology. Yes the world ends in a somewhat SF cliche way, but it is still told with a great amount of talent, which makes those cliches forgivable.
Although we get nearly all our questions answered and some fascinating tales are told, "Shift" lacks a couple of properties that made "Wool" such a great read. Firstly, while characterisation is still great, I found that I had little to no empathy for the main character, Donald. How can you connect with someone who is a workaholic, ignores his wife and who was lucky enough to know some influential people to get into a position to be exploited? Even his later actions in the novel, while they do fit his character as being naive and ham-fisted, do not endear me to this man at all. And I don't dislike him. I just feel meh about him. Luckily later on we get the back story of one of the great characters from "Wool", Solo or Jimmy.
What is also lacking in this volume is some of the great and beautiful scenes I talked about in my review of "Wool". This may be due to my non-engagement with the main character and my wish to get through those sections efficiently and quickly, but this volume did seem to hold a greater precedence with plot and pace rather than having those small moments interspersed between.
But despite these criticisms "Shift" is still a great SF read and complements "Wool" by answering a lot of the questions that came about in that novel. I look forward to reading the next volume "Dust" and being reunited with the great characters from Silo 18, especially Juliette.
June 23, 2014
Very savvy of the author to pen Shift after releasing Wool. The latter scooped me in immediately, whereas Shift took somewhat longer to lure me into its clutches. That's okay, I was already invested and there is a lot of information to be gleaned here. To those of you who want your Wool-ish questions answered, you can find them in Shift.
You will learn how the silos came into being and why. Shrinks are in charge of the insanity (I love that!). Working stiffs are working a never-ending mind-numbing misery of shifts, following orders, obediently taking drugs to make them forget, but forget what? Silo 1 - responsible for humanity's very survival, population control management by lottery, the deep freeze, going dark, time becoming strange. And as always, the up top, the mids, and the down deep, only this time with shadows. 'It was meant to be this way.'
Can't wait to see what Hugh Howey has in store for us with Dust. Loving the story!
You will learn how the silos came into being and why. Shrinks are in charge of the insanity (I love that!). Working stiffs are working a never-ending mind-numbing misery of shifts, following orders, obediently taking drugs to make them forget, but forget what? Silo 1 - responsible for humanity's very survival, population control management by lottery, the deep freeze, going dark, time becoming strange. And as always, the up top, the mids, and the down deep, only this time with shadows. 'It was meant to be this way.'
Can't wait to see what Hugh Howey has in store for us with Dust. Loving the story!
October 5, 2017
O lume ap膬s膬toare, sumbr膬 葯i clocotind de disperare, o atmosfer膬 claustrofobic膬 葯i personaje aflate permanent pe muchia nebuniei - iat膬 ce te a葯teapt膬 la fiecare pagin膬. 葮i frica. Frica visceral膬, teroarea 卯mbibat膬 de paranoia care va schimba omenirea pentru totdeauna.
De葯i pe 欧宝娱乐 cartea apare ca fiind a doua parte a seriei, ac葲iunea acestui volum urm膬re葯te evenimentele care au condus la refugierea ultimilor oameni 卯n ad芒ncurile P膬m芒ntului 葯i continu膬 povestea Silozului din perspectiva celor care l-au creat.
脦mp膬r葲it膬 卯n trei secven葲e (Primul schimb: Mo葯tenirea, Al doilea schimb: Ordinul 葯i Al treilea schimb: Pactul), povestea 卯l are ca personaj principal pe Donald, un t芒n膬r arhitect care tocmai a fost ales congresman cu sprijinul unui vechi prieten de familie, senatorul Thurman. Cooptat de acesta din urm膬 pentru participarea la un program secret, Donald ajunge s膬 proiecteze silozurile, cl膬dindu-葯i f膬r膬 s膬 葯tie propria 卯nchisoare. Plimb芒ndu-se 卯ntre 卯nt芒mpl膬rile trecutului 葯i provoc膬rile prezentului din cele 50 de silozuri, Hugh Howey atinge cu subtilitate o multitudine de aspecte sociale, politice 葯i filosofice (tendin葲a de auto-anihilare a omenirii, rela葲ia omului cu propria sa identitate ca specie 葯i cultur膬, moralitatea sacrific膬rii unora pentru salvarea majorit膬葲ii), compens芒nd astfel caracterizarea sumar膬 a personajelor.
De mult膬 vreme 卯mi doream s膬 ajung la 卯nceputurile Silozului 葯i s膬 aflu de ce s-a sf芒r葯it 卯ntreaga lume... iar acum... ei bine, acum am aflat 葯i nu sunt prea convins膬 de plauzibilitatea evenimentelor: . Totu葯i, l膬s芒nd la o parte nemul葲umirile subiective, din punctul meu de vedere, Silozul. 脦nceputurile completeaz膬 destul de bine universul seriei; sper s膬 apar膬 葯i volumul final al trilogiei.
3.5鈽�
De葯i pe 欧宝娱乐 cartea apare ca fiind a doua parte a seriei, ac葲iunea acestui volum urm膬re葯te evenimentele care au condus la refugierea ultimilor oameni 卯n ad芒ncurile P膬m芒ntului 葯i continu膬 povestea Silozului din perspectiva celor care l-au creat.
脦mp膬r葲it膬 卯n trei secven葲e (Primul schimb: Mo葯tenirea, Al doilea schimb: Ordinul 葯i Al treilea schimb: Pactul), povestea 卯l are ca personaj principal pe Donald, un t芒n膬r arhitect care tocmai a fost ales congresman cu sprijinul unui vechi prieten de familie, senatorul Thurman. Cooptat de acesta din urm膬 pentru participarea la un program secret, Donald ajunge s膬 proiecteze silozurile, cl膬dindu-葯i f膬r膬 s膬 葯tie propria 卯nchisoare. Plimb芒ndu-se 卯ntre 卯nt芒mpl膬rile trecutului 葯i provoc膬rile prezentului din cele 50 de silozuri, Hugh Howey atinge cu subtilitate o multitudine de aspecte sociale, politice 葯i filosofice (tendin葲a de auto-anihilare a omenirii, rela葲ia omului cu propria sa identitate ca specie 葯i cultur膬, moralitatea sacrific膬rii unora pentru salvarea majorit膬葲ii), compens芒nd astfel caracterizarea sumar膬 a personajelor.
De mult膬 vreme 卯mi doream s膬 ajung la 卯nceputurile Silozului 葯i s膬 aflu de ce s-a sf芒r葯it 卯ntreaga lume... iar acum... ei bine, acum am aflat 葯i nu sunt prea convins膬 de plauzibilitatea evenimentelor: . Totu葯i, l膬s芒nd la o parte nemul葲umirile subiective, din punctul meu de vedere, Silozul. 脦nceputurile completeaz膬 destul de bine universul seriei; sper s膬 apar膬 葯i volumul final al trilogiei.
3.5鈽�
December 22, 2024
RATING BREAKDOWN
Characters: 4猸愶笍
Setting: 5猸愶笍
Plot: 5猸愶笍
Themes: 4猸愶笍
Emotional Impact: 3猸愶笍
Personal Enjoyment: 4猸愶笍
Total Rounded Average: 4.25 猸愶笍
I love that this was absolutely NOT what I was expecting.
After the way Wool ended, I anticipated a forward progression in the story. This however takes us back to prequel territory, and we get the origins of the Silos as well as the backstory on characters and locations from Wool. This is so compelling because we get to see the motivations and strategies of the "villains" and recognize how morally ambiguous some of this is. It adds that layer of complexity that just enriches speculative fiction.
Donald is such a well-developed character, and Mission gives a lot of insight into life in the Silos away from leadership. Jimmy's origin story is also really satisfying and simultaneously heart-breaking to read.
I loved getting the foundation of the events we read in Wool, and this perfectly sets up a final installment where all of this has to reach some kind of conclusion. What this series does so well is deliver a narrative where I cannot predict or even clearly articulate what I hope will happen. I just need it to all come out. And I think that well establishes the themes of the story. Humanity will always crave truth and freedom, no matter how bleak and dire the consequences. And it forces the reader to wrestle with that fact; to question whether it's good or bad when extinction hangs in the balance.
This one has me so ready for Dust. I can't wait to see how this series wraps up.
Characters: 4猸愶笍
Setting: 5猸愶笍
Plot: 5猸愶笍
Themes: 4猸愶笍
Emotional Impact: 3猸愶笍
Personal Enjoyment: 4猸愶笍
Total Rounded Average: 4.25 猸愶笍
I love that this was absolutely NOT what I was expecting.
After the way Wool ended, I anticipated a forward progression in the story. This however takes us back to prequel territory, and we get the origins of the Silos as well as the backstory on characters and locations from Wool. This is so compelling because we get to see the motivations and strategies of the "villains" and recognize how morally ambiguous some of this is. It adds that layer of complexity that just enriches speculative fiction.
Donald is such a well-developed character, and Mission gives a lot of insight into life in the Silos away from leadership. Jimmy's origin story is also really satisfying and simultaneously heart-breaking to read.
I loved getting the foundation of the events we read in Wool, and this perfectly sets up a final installment where all of this has to reach some kind of conclusion. What this series does so well is deliver a narrative where I cannot predict or even clearly articulate what I hope will happen. I just need it to all come out. And I think that well establishes the themes of the story. Humanity will always crave truth and freedom, no matter how bleak and dire the consequences. And it forces the reader to wrestle with that fact; to question whether it's good or bad when extinction hangs in the balance.
This one has me so ready for Dust. I can't wait to see how this series wraps up.
September 9, 2013
Spoilers
Really good. I enjoyed the first two stories in Shift but the best story by far was the last one (Third Shift), as it focused on one of the more interesting arcs from Wool.
-I was initially disappointed that Shift was a prequel, I wanted to read more about the characters that were in Wool, especially Juliette, Solo and the kids. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to get invested in the prequel story or the new characters 鈥� although the characters weren't quite as endearing as those in Wool.
-It was great finally getting some answers and a more complete picture of 1. The conception of the Silos 2. The world outside 3. The other Silos and 4. The end goal of the Silos.
I didn't quite believe the reasoning behind a lot of things that were revealed but I guess they weren't totally implausible.
-The characters were a bit of a hit and miss for me. The main character, Donald, was hard to like at first 鈥� he was just so weepy, emotional, and annoying. He was meant to be a congressman but he acted way too naive and weak. He should have had a bit of strength, instead most of the time he acted like a scared little boy. Everyone around him manipulated him really easily, it was kind of ridiculous. Even though he was a frustrating character, he did grow on me by the end, and I eventually kind of understood why he had such an emotional reaction to everything.
-I knew Troy would turn out to be Donald, it was really obvious.
-It was somewhat sad that Donald was separated from his wife, Helen, because of Anna's manipulation. His reaction to finding out Helen married his best friend and had kids/grandkids was a little odd though 鈥� he kept saying how much he loved Helen but he never actually showed it. He seemed to have more passion and reaction to Anna, so I didn't really understand his utter devastation about losing Helen. I would have expected him to be a bit depressed but the way he broke down didn't make much sense, his love for Helen never really rang true especially when he was lusting after Anna so much.
-Anna was a desperate manipulative cow. Mick was a selfish back stabbing douche. Hated them both.
-It was dumb how Thurman and the other leaders just killed off loads of people whenever there was a slight problem. It just made the whole 50 Silos seem pointless, they may as well have just built a couple and let them sort out their own problems.
-Mission's story was quite boring. And the Great Uprising was underwhelming.
-Loved Jimmy's POV even though it was really depressing.
-Some of the science with the freezing and nanotechnology seemed quite far fetched.
-It only took 3 years to build all 50 Silos? Yea, that was hard to believe.
-What happened to Silo 40 and the surrounding Silos? Why was Donald cool with destroying Silo 40 when he had such a hard time shutting down Silo 12? Why didn't he feel guilty about killing everyone in Silo 40 especially when he could have easily avoided it without his colleagues being any the wiser?
When it came to Silo 12 he didn't really have a choice about shutting it down, since it was his job鈥� But with Silo 40 no-one else knew for certain that it had survivors so he didn't really have to do anything about them since it wasn't expected of him. It was just weird how he had no problem killing the people in 40 when he basically had a break down for the doing the same thing to 12.
-What happened to the remaining people inside Silo 12? Were they all killed? How exactly was Silo 12 shut down? Was it the white fog? Or was the building itself destroyed? Or was it both?
-What exactly happened in Silo 17 that caused the open airlock and mass hysteria? Was it because of the Cleaning? Did someone find out about the other Silos?
-Why didn't Jimmy die when Donald shut his Silo down with that poison white fog?
-What happened to the rest of the world? Was it just Georgia that was destroyed? Or was it all of America? What happened in other countries?
-The excuse for not unfreezing/waking up the women was weak. As if men wouldn't get into fights without the presence of women.
-The writing in Shift was much better than that of Wool.
All in all, a great story though some of the characters were lacking.
Really good. I enjoyed the first two stories in Shift but the best story by far was the last one (Third Shift), as it focused on one of the more interesting arcs from Wool.
-I was initially disappointed that Shift was a prequel, I wanted to read more about the characters that were in Wool, especially Juliette, Solo and the kids. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to get invested in the prequel story or the new characters 鈥� although the characters weren't quite as endearing as those in Wool.
-It was great finally getting some answers and a more complete picture of 1. The conception of the Silos 2. The world outside 3. The other Silos and 4. The end goal of the Silos.
I didn't quite believe the reasoning behind a lot of things that were revealed but I guess they weren't totally implausible.
-The characters were a bit of a hit and miss for me. The main character, Donald, was hard to like at first 鈥� he was just so weepy, emotional, and annoying. He was meant to be a congressman but he acted way too naive and weak. He should have had a bit of strength, instead most of the time he acted like a scared little boy. Everyone around him manipulated him really easily, it was kind of ridiculous. Even though he was a frustrating character, he did grow on me by the end, and I eventually kind of understood why he had such an emotional reaction to everything.
-I knew Troy would turn out to be Donald, it was really obvious.
-It was somewhat sad that Donald was separated from his wife, Helen, because of Anna's manipulation. His reaction to finding out Helen married his best friend and had kids/grandkids was a little odd though 鈥� he kept saying how much he loved Helen but he never actually showed it. He seemed to have more passion and reaction to Anna, so I didn't really understand his utter devastation about losing Helen. I would have expected him to be a bit depressed but the way he broke down didn't make much sense, his love for Helen never really rang true especially when he was lusting after Anna so much.
-Anna was a desperate manipulative cow. Mick was a selfish back stabbing douche. Hated them both.
-It was dumb how Thurman and the other leaders just killed off loads of people whenever there was a slight problem. It just made the whole 50 Silos seem pointless, they may as well have just built a couple and let them sort out their own problems.
-Mission's story was quite boring. And the Great Uprising was underwhelming.
-Loved Jimmy's POV even though it was really depressing.
-Some of the science with the freezing and nanotechnology seemed quite far fetched.
-It only took 3 years to build all 50 Silos? Yea, that was hard to believe.
-What happened to Silo 40 and the surrounding Silos? Why was Donald cool with destroying Silo 40 when he had such a hard time shutting down Silo 12? Why didn't he feel guilty about killing everyone in Silo 40 especially when he could have easily avoided it without his colleagues being any the wiser?
When it came to Silo 12 he didn't really have a choice about shutting it down, since it was his job鈥� But with Silo 40 no-one else knew for certain that it had survivors so he didn't really have to do anything about them since it wasn't expected of him. It was just weird how he had no problem killing the people in 40 when he basically had a break down for the doing the same thing to 12.
-What happened to the remaining people inside Silo 12? Were they all killed? How exactly was Silo 12 shut down? Was it the white fog? Or was the building itself destroyed? Or was it both?
-What exactly happened in Silo 17 that caused the open airlock and mass hysteria? Was it because of the Cleaning? Did someone find out about the other Silos?
-Why didn't Jimmy die when Donald shut his Silo down with that poison white fog?
-What happened to the rest of the world? Was it just Georgia that was destroyed? Or was it all of America? What happened in other countries?
-The excuse for not unfreezing/waking up the women was weak. As if men wouldn't get into fights without the presence of women.
-The writing in Shift was much better than that of Wool.
All in all, a great story though some of the characters were lacking.
March 22, 2013
Immediately after finishing the Wool series, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Hugh Howey had finished Third Shift, which meant that Shift Omnibus was complete, and I could dive right into it.
Shift provides some much-needed backstory for the Wool books, namely who designed the Silos, why, and most importantly, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? (Sort of...more on that later...).
Hugh manages to do it all with his usual engrossing style. Dare I say I'm pleased to be able to see his evolution as a writer through the entire series; as well-written as all of the Wool books were from the start, I think in Shift he takes his craft to a whole different level.
I might disagree with a couple of characters' motivations toward the end of the book, but they make sense logically--if anything, I'm transposing what I would do in those situations without putting myself in that person's shoes. In other words, I was reading lazily.
I have to admit, though, I woke up this morning having completed 80% of it, thinking that I would read a little and be off to writing.
I finished the remaining 20% in a single sitting.
It leaves an opening for Dust, which I assume will be the thrilling finale. Just what exactly lies beyond the Silos (pun intended)? And though the ostensible motive for constructing the Silos has been revealed, something tells me our crafty author isn't showing us all the cards just yet...
So be warned: if you have a job where face time is valued and reading is frowned upon, wait until the weekend to pickup the Wool and Shift books.
But if you like well-paced writing, gobs of suspense, fleshed-out characters, and a fearless author, I'd highly recommend starting with Wool I and seeing where it takes you.
Shift provides some much-needed backstory for the Wool books, namely who designed the Silos, why, and most importantly, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? (Sort of...more on that later...).
Hugh manages to do it all with his usual engrossing style. Dare I say I'm pleased to be able to see his evolution as a writer through the entire series; as well-written as all of the Wool books were from the start, I think in Shift he takes his craft to a whole different level.
I might disagree with a couple of characters' motivations toward the end of the book, but they make sense logically--if anything, I'm transposing what I would do in those situations without putting myself in that person's shoes. In other words, I was reading lazily.
I have to admit, though, I woke up this morning having completed 80% of it, thinking that I would read a little and be off to writing.
I finished the remaining 20% in a single sitting.
It leaves an opening for Dust, which I assume will be the thrilling finale. Just what exactly lies beyond the Silos (pun intended)? And though the ostensible motive for constructing the Silos has been revealed, something tells me our crafty author isn't showing us all the cards just yet...
So be warned: if you have a job where face time is valued and reading is frowned upon, wait until the weekend to pickup the Wool and Shift books.
But if you like well-paced writing, gobs of suspense, fleshed-out characters, and a fearless author, I'd highly recommend starting with Wool I and seeing where it takes you.
May 31, 2015
I will admit, I struggled to get through Shift. While the writing is quite good, I never felt it was as compelling or interesting as Wool. Shift felt more like an addendum to Wool than a novel that could stand by itself. I enjoyed getting some answers about what happened in Wool, yet it wasn't enough to keep me interested.
My biggest problem was that I didn't care about the characters, especially the main character, Donald. Before the silos came into play, Donald was a senator. As far as what was happening and the role he played in it, I couldn't believe how clueless and dense he was. And after they were in the silos, all he seemed to do was whine and feel sorry for himself. Then he did something later in the book that completely turned me off toward him, not that it was much of a leap.
I would recommend this book to those who have read Wool and have an interest in reading Sand. I'll probably read Sand, but I may take a break before doing so.
My biggest problem was that I didn't care about the characters, especially the main character, Donald. Before the silos came into play, Donald was a senator. As far as what was happening and the role he played in it, I couldn't believe how clueless and dense he was. And after they were in the silos, all he seemed to do was whine and feel sorry for himself. Then he did something later in the book that completely turned me off toward him, not that it was much of a leap.
I would recommend this book to those who have read Wool and have an interest in reading Sand. I'll probably read Sand, but I may take a break before doing so.
July 19, 2013
The Shift is comprised of three parts: Legacy, Order and Pact, which if you have read Wool, promises answers to some of your questions.
I have read some complaints that the characters in The Shift were too flat, not fleshed out enough to become invested in. It is true that some of these characters did come across as mere shadows but I cannot help but get the sense that maybe that was the point.
In brief, Legacy tells us about what is happening in the world prior to the destruction we have seen and know from Wool. It introduces us to the players, takes us inside their thoughts and doubts and dreams, well at least those of Donald. From the other major players what we see primarily is manipulation of the weaker, more reliant members of the party; those that are indebted to the manipulators, for their positions and opportunities provided. A glimpse, if you will, of what life had been, a sneak peek at some of the doubts beginning to infiltrate the minds of the manipulated and a front row view into the minds of those in charge. Or is it?
The Order tells us what life is like on the other side of that mirror of doubt. Here in silo 1 is where the main players come across as one dimensional, mere shadows; more like marionettes dancing to a tune orchestrated by others. Their purpose and their duty is all laid out for them, all they need do is comply and follow the rules, maintain order, until they can once again escape to the blissful void. Shift over. But first let鈥檚 take a peek outside鈥︹€︹€︹€�
Throughout The Shift time moves back and forth. We see life before the big catastrophic event, life shortly after, and life many years into the future. It is in the future that we meet new people, living their lives in other silos, engineered by those original members of The Legacy. I really liked Mission and found myself cheering for him, but it was The Crow that truly captured my imagination reminding me of The Oracle from the Matrix. These people and more living their lives unaware that manipulation and control are afoot; unaware that they are merely puppets, dancing on a string.
The Pact comprises the rules that everyone not charged with maintaining order, live by. We visit silo 17 and meet Jimmy. We learn what happened to his parents and all the others and while this was interesting I confess I did not need to read about his isolation, his fears, his scavenging and mind melting loneliness, page after page, through all those years. I got it long before I stopped reading about it.
But back in Silo 1 Donald鈥檚 mind is beginning to thaw, things are unravelling, a new plan is emerging鈥︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€�
While this is not the adrenaline paced, thumb sweating read that Wool was, Howey鈥檚 world is still extremely well imagined. The Shift answered many of the questions I had and gave birth to scads more.
Count me in for Dust.
I have read some complaints that the characters in The Shift were too flat, not fleshed out enough to become invested in. It is true that some of these characters did come across as mere shadows but I cannot help but get the sense that maybe that was the point.
In brief, Legacy tells us about what is happening in the world prior to the destruction we have seen and know from Wool. It introduces us to the players, takes us inside their thoughts and doubts and dreams, well at least those of Donald. From the other major players what we see primarily is manipulation of the weaker, more reliant members of the party; those that are indebted to the manipulators, for their positions and opportunities provided. A glimpse, if you will, of what life had been, a sneak peek at some of the doubts beginning to infiltrate the minds of the manipulated and a front row view into the minds of those in charge. Or is it?
The Order tells us what life is like on the other side of that mirror of doubt. Here in silo 1 is where the main players come across as one dimensional, mere shadows; more like marionettes dancing to a tune orchestrated by others. Their purpose and their duty is all laid out for them, all they need do is comply and follow the rules, maintain order, until they can once again escape to the blissful void. Shift over. But first let鈥檚 take a peek outside鈥︹€︹€︹€�
Throughout The Shift time moves back and forth. We see life before the big catastrophic event, life shortly after, and life many years into the future. It is in the future that we meet new people, living their lives in other silos, engineered by those original members of The Legacy. I really liked Mission and found myself cheering for him, but it was The Crow that truly captured my imagination reminding me of The Oracle from the Matrix. These people and more living their lives unaware that manipulation and control are afoot; unaware that they are merely puppets, dancing on a string.
The Pact comprises the rules that everyone not charged with maintaining order, live by. We visit silo 17 and meet Jimmy. We learn what happened to his parents and all the others and while this was interesting I confess I did not need to read about his isolation, his fears, his scavenging and mind melting loneliness, page after page, through all those years. I got it long before I stopped reading about it.
But back in Silo 1 Donald鈥檚 mind is beginning to thaw, things are unravelling, a new plan is emerging鈥︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€�
While this is not the adrenaline paced, thumb sweating read that Wool was, Howey鈥檚 world is still extremely well imagined. The Shift answered many of the questions I had and gave birth to scads more.
Count me in for Dust.
April 8, 2022
This was an excellent 鈥減requel鈥� to Wool. Knowing what happened in Wool, you know where things are heading at the beginning of the book. The horror I felt at the motivations of the people pulling the strings was great. And it just got worse and worse.
The bulk of the book is split between pre-Silo times and early Silo times and then split between Silo 1 (HQ) and other 鈥渢roubled鈥� silos. I feel like some of what happened in Wool was touched upon, but my memory of the details is obviously too vague, because I was never quite sure! I kind of wish I had reread it or skimmed it. So, it would be my recommendation not to wait too long before reading this one.
How the silos came into being was fascinating. Lots of tension and horror (at the gaul of some people), some very interesting characters.
The narrator was ok. His main voice was pleasant enough, but I didn鈥檛 love all the voices he did to differentiate the POV characters and others. He did do a fine job with the British accent. Also, he actually said 鈥淣uke-u-lar鈥�. Ugh. And it wasn鈥檛 a character鈥檚 鈥渧oice鈥�. Overall I would rate him about a 3 because he wasn鈥檛 horrible (except for Nuke-u-lar).
Characters 7/10
Atmosphere 9/10
Writing Style 8/10
Setup 8/10
Plot 7/10
Intrigue 9/10
Logic 7/10
Enjoyment 9/10
Narration 6/10
70/90 points
3.8 on the star scale
The bulk of the book is split between pre-Silo times and early Silo times and then split between Silo 1 (HQ) and other 鈥渢roubled鈥� silos. I feel like some of what happened in Wool was touched upon, but my memory of the details is obviously too vague, because I was never quite sure! I kind of wish I had reread it or skimmed it. So, it would be my recommendation not to wait too long before reading this one.
How the silos came into being was fascinating. Lots of tension and horror (at the gaul of some people), some very interesting characters.
The narrator was ok. His main voice was pleasant enough, but I didn鈥檛 love all the voices he did to differentiate the POV characters and others. He did do a fine job with the British accent. Also, he actually said 鈥淣uke-u-lar鈥�. Ugh. And it wasn鈥檛 a character鈥檚 鈥渧oice鈥�. Overall I would rate him about a 3 because he wasn鈥檛 horrible (except for Nuke-u-lar).
Characters 7/10
Atmosphere 9/10
Writing Style 8/10
Setup 8/10
Plot 7/10
Intrigue 9/10
Logic 7/10
Enjoyment 9/10
Narration 6/10
70/90 points
3.8 on the star scale
February 7, 2025
袙褌芯褉邪 褔邪褋褌 屑懈 褏邪褉械褋邪 屑薪芯谐芯 锌芯胁械褔械 芯褌 锌褗褉胁邪, 锌褉械写锌芯谢邪谐邪屑 蟹邪褖芯褌芯 褋胁械褌褗褌 锌褉懈写o斜懈 屑邪褖邪斜 懈 锌芯胁械褔械 褋屑懈褋褗谢.
- 袙 锌褉懈褉芯写邪褌邪 薪懈 械 写邪 屑械褔褌邪械屑 蟹邪 芯褌泻褉懈褌芯褌芯 锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪褋褌胁芯 - 芯褌胁褗褉薪邪 褌芯泄. - 袛邪 褌褗褉褋懈屑 褌械褉懈褌芯褉懈褟, 胁 泻芯褟褌芯 写邪 褋械 褉邪蟹褋械谢胁邪屑械. 袧懈屑邪 薪械 褋屑械 褋械 芯泻邪蟹邪谢懈 褌褍泻 锌芯 褌芯蟹懈 薪邪褔懈薪?
- 孝褍泻? 袙 袗屑械褉懈泻邪 谢懈? - 蟹邪褋屑褟 褋械 褋械薪邪褌芯褉褗褌. - 袣芯谐邪褌芯 褋屑械 写芯褕谢懈 褌褍泻, 薪械 褋屑械 薪邪屑械褉懈谢懈 芯褌泻褉懈褌芯 锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪褋褌胁芯. 袪邪蟹斜芯谢械谢懈 褋屑械 褋褍屑邪 褏芯褉邪, 懈蟹斜懈谢懈 褋屑械 谐懈 懈 褋屑械 褋褗蟹写邪谢懈 锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪褋褌胁芯."
"些械 胁蟹械屑邪 芯斜懈褔邪泄薪芯褌芯 - 芯褌胁褗褉薪邪 褌褟 懈 锌芯褋芯褔懈 褌芯胁邪, 泻芯械褌芯 薪褟泻芯谐邪 斜械褕械 锌褉芯褋褌芯 褋邪薪写胁懈褔 褋褗褋 褋懈褉械薪械 薪邪 褋泻邪褉邪 懈 锌褗褉卸械薪懈 泻邪褉褌芯褎懈, 薪芯 胁械褔械 褋械 斜械 锌褉械胁褗褉薪邪谢芯 胁 褋邪薪写胁懈褔 褋 锌褗褉卸械薪懈 蟹械谢械薪懈 写芯屑邪褌懈, 褋懈褉械薪械 谐褉褞械褉, 谐谢邪蟹褍褉邪 芯褌 泻谢械薪芯胁 屑械写 懈 锌褗褉卸械薪懈 屑懈薪懈泻邪褉褌芯褎泻懈 褋褗褋 褋芯褋 褌邪褉褌邪褉."
"袟薪邪械褕械, 褔械 褌芯蟹懈 写芯泻谢邪写 薪褟屑邪 写邪 懈屑邪 芯褋芯斜械薪芯 蟹薪邪褔械薪懈械. 袥褍写芯褋褌褌邪 薪褟屑邪褕械 泻邪泻 写邪 斜褗写械 懈蟹斜械谐薪邪褌邪 褋 锌谢邪薪懈褉邪薪械. 袩褉懈 写芯褋褌邪褌褗褔械薪 斜褉芯泄 褉芯褌邪褑懈懈, 懈蟹斜芯褉懈 懈 褋屑械薪懈 薪邪 胁谢邪褋褌褌邪, 薪邪泻褉邪褟 褍锌褉邪胁谢械薪懈械褌芯 褖械褕械 写邪 斜褗写械 锌芯械褌芯 芯褌 薪褟泻芯泄 斜械蟹褍屑械褑. 孝芯胁邪 斜械褕械 薪械懈蟹斜械卸薪芯."
" - 袙械褉芯褟褌薪芯 胁褋懈褔泻懈 褋懈 屑懈褋谢懈屑, 褔械 屑芯卸械 写邪 褋屑械 锌褗褉胁芯褌芯 锌芯泻芯谢械薪懈械, 泻芯械褌芯 薪褟屑邪 锌褉芯褋褌芯 写邪 褍屑褉械 - 锌褉芯写褗谢卸懈 袗薪邪, - 泻芯械褌芯 褖械 卸懈胁械械 胁械褔薪芯. 孝褟 锌芯胁写懈谐薪邪 胁械卸写懈. - 小械谐邪 胁褋懈褔泻懈 芯褔邪泻胁邪屑械 写邪 褋褌懈谐薪械屑 写芯 褋褌芯 懈 褌褉懈泄褋械褌 谐芯写懈薪懈, 屑芯卸械 斜懈 锌芯胁械褔械, 褋褟泻邪褕 褌芯胁邪 械 薪邪褕械 锌褉邪胁芯. 孝邪泻邪 褔械 械褌芯 泻邪泻胁邪 械 褌械芯褉懈褟褌邪 屑懈...- 袧邪胁械写械 褋械 锌芯-斜谢懈蟹芯 泻褗屑 袛芯薪邪谢写, 泻芯泄褌芯 胁械褔械 褋械 褔褍胁褋褌胁邪褕械 薪械谢芯胁泻芯, 芯褌 锌芯褋芯泻邪褌邪, 胁 泻芯褟褌芯 斜械褕械 褌褉褗谐薪邪谢 褉邪蟹谐芯胁芯褉褗褌. - 袧褟泻芯谐邪 写械褑邪褌邪 褋邪 斜懈谢懈 薪邪褕懈褟褌 蟹邪胁械褌, 薪邪谢懈? 袘懈谢懈 褋邪 薪邪褕懈褟褌 褕邪薪褋 写邪 懈蟹屑邪屑懈屑 褋屑褗褉褌褌邪, 写邪 锌褉械写邪写械屑 薪邪褌邪褌褗泻 芯薪械蟹懈 屑邪谢泻懈 褔邪褋褌懈褑懈 芯褌 褋械斜械 褋懈. 袧芯 褋械谐邪 褋械 薪邪写褟胁邪屑械, 褔械 褌芯胁邪 屑芯卸械屑 写邪 斜褗写械屑 锌褉芯褋褌芯 薪懈械."
"- 袧械 斜褗写懈 薪邪懈胁械薪, 褋懈薪泻芯 - 薪邪屑褉褗褖懈 褋械 孝褗褉屑邪薪. - 袟邪 薪褟泻芯懈 卸懈胁芯褌褗褌 薪械 芯蟹薪邪褔邪胁邪 薪懈褖芯. 袗泻芯 褋谢芯卸懈褕 锌褉械写 写械褋械褌 屑懈谢懈邪褉写邪 写褍褕懈 泻芯锌褔械, 褋锌芯褋芯斜薪芯 写邪 褍斜懈械 胁褋懈褔泻懈 薪懈 胁 屑懈谐邪, 胁 泻芯泄褌芯 谐芯 薪邪褌懈褋薪械褕, 泻褗屑 薪械谐芯 褖械 褋械 锌褉芯褌械谐薪邪褌 褏懈谢褟写懈 褉褗褑械. 袛械褋械褌泻懈 褏懈谢褟写懈. 些械 斜褗写械 褋邪屑芯 胁褗锌褉芯褋 薪邪 胁褉械屑械."
"孝芯蟹懈 褋胁褟褌 械 卸械褋褌芯泻. 袙懈薪邪谐懈 械 斜懈谢 褌邪泻褗胁. 袩褉械泻邪褉邪褏 褑械谢懈褟 褋懈 卸懈胁芯褌 胁 褌褗褉褋械薪械 薪邪 薪邪褔懈薪懈 写邪 谐芯 薪邪锌褉邪胁褟 锌芯-写芯斜褗褉, 写邪 懈蟹谐谢邪写褟 薪械褖邪褌邪, 屑械褔褌邪械泄泻懈 蟹邪 锌芯褋褌懈谐邪薪械褌芯 薪邪 薪褟泻邪泻褗胁 懈写械邪谢. 袧芯 薪邪 胁褋械泻懈 谐谢褍锌邪泻 泻邪褌芯 屑械薪 褌邪屑 芯褌胁褗薪 懈屑邪 锌芯薪械 写械褋械褌懈薪邪 写褉褍谐懈, 泻芯懈褌芯 懈褋泻邪褌 写邪 褍薪懈褖芯卸邪胁邪褌. 袠 械 写芯褋褌邪褌褗褔薪芯 褋邪屑芯 械写懈薪 芯褌 褌褟褏 写邪 懈蟹胁邪写懈 泻褗褋屑械褌."
"啸芯褉邪褌邪 褋褌褉邪写邪褌 芯褌 褌邪泻邪胁邪 斜芯谢械褋褌, 袛芯薪懈, 芯褌 褌芯蟹懈 薪邪褌褉邪锌褔懈胁 懈屑锌褍谢褋 写邪 褋械 写胁懈卸邪褌 写芯泻邪褌芯 薪械 褋械 褋斜谢褗褋泻邪褌 胁 薪械褖芯. 袩芯褋谢械 锌褉芯斜懈胁邪屑械 褌褍薪械谢 胁 褌芯胁邪 薪械褖芯 懈谢懈 锌褉械锌谢邪胁邪屑械 芯泻械邪薪懈褌械 懈谢懈 蟹邪谢懈褌邪泄泻懈, 懈蟹泻邪褔胁邪屑械 锌谢邪薪懈薪懈.
- 袛芯褉懈 褋褌褉邪褏褗褌 芯褌 褋屑褗褉褌褌邪 械写胁邪 谢懈 械 写芯褋褌邪褌褗褔械薪, 蟹邪 写邪 褋械 锌褉芯褌懈胁芯锌芯褋褌邪胁懈 薪邪 褌芯蟹懈 薪邪褕 懈屑锌褍谢褋. 袗泻芯 薪械 懈屑 锌芯泻邪卸械屑 泻邪泻胁芯 懈屑邪 褌邪屑 芯褌胁褗薪, 褌械 褋邪屑懈 褖械 芯褌懈写邪褌 写邪 胁懈写褟褌. 袪邪褋邪褌邪 薪懈 胁懈薪邪谐懈 械 锌褉邪胁懈谢邪 褌邪泻邪."
- 袙 锌褉懈褉芯写邪褌邪 薪懈 械 写邪 屑械褔褌邪械屑 蟹邪 芯褌泻褉懈褌芯褌芯 锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪褋褌胁芯 - 芯褌胁褗褉薪邪 褌芯泄. - 袛邪 褌褗褉褋懈屑 褌械褉懈褌芯褉懈褟, 胁 泻芯褟褌芯 写邪 褋械 褉邪蟹褋械谢胁邪屑械. 袧懈屑邪 薪械 褋屑械 褋械 芯泻邪蟹邪谢懈 褌褍泻 锌芯 褌芯蟹懈 薪邪褔懈薪?
- 孝褍泻? 袙 袗屑械褉懈泻邪 谢懈? - 蟹邪褋屑褟 褋械 褋械薪邪褌芯褉褗褌. - 袣芯谐邪褌芯 褋屑械 写芯褕谢懈 褌褍泻, 薪械 褋屑械 薪邪屑械褉懈谢懈 芯褌泻褉懈褌芯 锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪褋褌胁芯. 袪邪蟹斜芯谢械谢懈 褋屑械 褋褍屑邪 褏芯褉邪, 懈蟹斜懈谢懈 褋屑械 谐懈 懈 褋屑械 褋褗蟹写邪谢懈 锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪褋褌胁芯."
"些械 胁蟹械屑邪 芯斜懈褔邪泄薪芯褌芯 - 芯褌胁褗褉薪邪 褌褟 懈 锌芯褋芯褔懈 褌芯胁邪, 泻芯械褌芯 薪褟泻芯谐邪 斜械褕械 锌褉芯褋褌芯 褋邪薪写胁懈褔 褋褗褋 褋懈褉械薪械 薪邪 褋泻邪褉邪 懈 锌褗褉卸械薪懈 泻邪褉褌芯褎懈, 薪芯 胁械褔械 褋械 斜械 锌褉械胁褗褉薪邪谢芯 胁 褋邪薪写胁懈褔 褋 锌褗褉卸械薪懈 蟹械谢械薪懈 写芯屑邪褌懈, 褋懈褉械薪械 谐褉褞械褉, 谐谢邪蟹褍褉邪 芯褌 泻谢械薪芯胁 屑械写 懈 锌褗褉卸械薪懈 屑懈薪懈泻邪褉褌芯褎泻懈 褋褗褋 褋芯褋 褌邪褉褌邪褉."
"袟薪邪械褕械, 褔械 褌芯蟹懈 写芯泻谢邪写 薪褟屑邪 写邪 懈屑邪 芯褋芯斜械薪芯 蟹薪邪褔械薪懈械. 袥褍写芯褋褌褌邪 薪褟屑邪褕械 泻邪泻 写邪 斜褗写械 懈蟹斜械谐薪邪褌邪 褋 锌谢邪薪懈褉邪薪械. 袩褉懈 写芯褋褌邪褌褗褔械薪 斜褉芯泄 褉芯褌邪褑懈懈, 懈蟹斜芯褉懈 懈 褋屑械薪懈 薪邪 胁谢邪褋褌褌邪, 薪邪泻褉邪褟 褍锌褉邪胁谢械薪懈械褌芯 褖械褕械 写邪 斜褗写械 锌芯械褌芯 芯褌 薪褟泻芯泄 斜械蟹褍屑械褑. 孝芯胁邪 斜械褕械 薪械懈蟹斜械卸薪芯."
" - 袙械褉芯褟褌薪芯 胁褋懈褔泻懈 褋懈 屑懈褋谢懈屑, 褔械 屑芯卸械 写邪 褋屑械 锌褗褉胁芯褌芯 锌芯泻芯谢械薪懈械, 泻芯械褌芯 薪褟屑邪 锌褉芯褋褌芯 写邪 褍屑褉械 - 锌褉芯写褗谢卸懈 袗薪邪, - 泻芯械褌芯 褖械 卸懈胁械械 胁械褔薪芯. 孝褟 锌芯胁写懈谐薪邪 胁械卸写懈. - 小械谐邪 胁褋懈褔泻懈 芯褔邪泻胁邪屑械 写邪 褋褌懈谐薪械屑 写芯 褋褌芯 懈 褌褉懈泄褋械褌 谐芯写懈薪懈, 屑芯卸械 斜懈 锌芯胁械褔械, 褋褟泻邪褕 褌芯胁邪 械 薪邪褕械 锌褉邪胁芯. 孝邪泻邪 褔械 械褌芯 泻邪泻胁邪 械 褌械芯褉懈褟褌邪 屑懈...- 袧邪胁械写械 褋械 锌芯-斜谢懈蟹芯 泻褗屑 袛芯薪邪谢写, 泻芯泄褌芯 胁械褔械 褋械 褔褍胁褋褌胁邪褕械 薪械谢芯胁泻芯, 芯褌 锌芯褋芯泻邪褌邪, 胁 泻芯褟褌芯 斜械褕械 褌褉褗谐薪邪谢 褉邪蟹谐芯胁芯褉褗褌. - 袧褟泻芯谐邪 写械褑邪褌邪 褋邪 斜懈谢懈 薪邪褕懈褟褌 蟹邪胁械褌, 薪邪谢懈? 袘懈谢懈 褋邪 薪邪褕懈褟褌 褕邪薪褋 写邪 懈蟹屑邪屑懈屑 褋屑褗褉褌褌邪, 写邪 锌褉械写邪写械屑 薪邪褌邪褌褗泻 芯薪械蟹懈 屑邪谢泻懈 褔邪褋褌懈褑懈 芯褌 褋械斜械 褋懈. 袧芯 褋械谐邪 褋械 薪邪写褟胁邪屑械, 褔械 褌芯胁邪 屑芯卸械屑 写邪 斜褗写械屑 锌褉芯褋褌芯 薪懈械."
"- 袧械 斜褗写懈 薪邪懈胁械薪, 褋懈薪泻芯 - 薪邪屑褉褗褖懈 褋械 孝褗褉屑邪薪. - 袟邪 薪褟泻芯懈 卸懈胁芯褌褗褌 薪械 芯蟹薪邪褔邪胁邪 薪懈褖芯. 袗泻芯 褋谢芯卸懈褕 锌褉械写 写械褋械褌 屑懈谢懈邪褉写邪 写褍褕懈 泻芯锌褔械, 褋锌芯褋芯斜薪芯 写邪 褍斜懈械 胁褋懈褔泻懈 薪懈 胁 屑懈谐邪, 胁 泻芯泄褌芯 谐芯 薪邪褌懈褋薪械褕, 泻褗屑 薪械谐芯 褖械 褋械 锌褉芯褌械谐薪邪褌 褏懈谢褟写懈 褉褗褑械. 袛械褋械褌泻懈 褏懈谢褟写懈. 些械 斜褗写械 褋邪屑芯 胁褗锌褉芯褋 薪邪 胁褉械屑械."
"孝芯蟹懈 褋胁褟褌 械 卸械褋褌芯泻. 袙懈薪邪谐懈 械 斜懈谢 褌邪泻褗胁. 袩褉械泻邪褉邪褏 褑械谢懈褟 褋懈 卸懈胁芯褌 胁 褌褗褉褋械薪械 薪邪 薪邪褔懈薪懈 写邪 谐芯 薪邪锌褉邪胁褟 锌芯-写芯斜褗褉, 写邪 懈蟹谐谢邪写褟 薪械褖邪褌邪, 屑械褔褌邪械泄泻懈 蟹邪 锌芯褋褌懈谐邪薪械褌芯 薪邪 薪褟泻邪泻褗胁 懈写械邪谢. 袧芯 薪邪 胁褋械泻懈 谐谢褍锌邪泻 泻邪褌芯 屑械薪 褌邪屑 芯褌胁褗薪 懈屑邪 锌芯薪械 写械褋械褌懈薪邪 写褉褍谐懈, 泻芯懈褌芯 懈褋泻邪褌 写邪 褍薪懈褖芯卸邪胁邪褌. 袠 械 写芯褋褌邪褌褗褔薪芯 褋邪屑芯 械写懈薪 芯褌 褌褟褏 写邪 懈蟹胁邪写懈 泻褗褋屑械褌."
"啸芯褉邪褌邪 褋褌褉邪写邪褌 芯褌 褌邪泻邪胁邪 斜芯谢械褋褌, 袛芯薪懈, 芯褌 褌芯蟹懈 薪邪褌褉邪锌褔懈胁 懈屑锌褍谢褋 写邪 褋械 写胁懈卸邪褌 写芯泻邪褌芯 薪械 褋械 褋斜谢褗褋泻邪褌 胁 薪械褖芯. 袩芯褋谢械 锌褉芯斜懈胁邪屑械 褌褍薪械谢 胁 褌芯胁邪 薪械褖芯 懈谢懈 锌褉械锌谢邪胁邪屑械 芯泻械邪薪懈褌械 懈谢懈 蟹邪谢懈褌邪泄泻懈, 懈蟹泻邪褔胁邪屑械 锌谢邪薪懈薪懈.
- 袛芯褉懈 褋褌褉邪褏褗褌 芯褌 褋屑褗褉褌褌邪 械写胁邪 谢懈 械 写芯褋褌邪褌褗褔械薪, 蟹邪 写邪 褋械 锌褉芯褌懈胁芯锌芯褋褌邪胁懈 薪邪 褌芯蟹懈 薪邪褕 懈屑锌褍谢褋. 袗泻芯 薪械 懈屑 锌芯泻邪卸械屑 泻邪泻胁芯 懈屑邪 褌邪屑 芯褌胁褗薪, 褌械 褋邪屑懈 褖械 芯褌懈写邪褌 写邪 胁懈写褟褌. 袪邪褋邪褌邪 薪懈 胁懈薪邪谐懈 械 锌褉邪胁懈谢邪 褌邪泻邪."
January 31, 2024
I'm rereading the series in a fit of nostalgia. Just as good further down the road as it was originally. Human nature fighting through obstacles to get a breath of air and a search to find a hoped for future. Will reread the third book in the series now.
May 7, 2024
After how much I adored Wool, Shift was a disappointment. While it was interesting to learn about the history of the Silo, this installment was less engaging than the first by a country mile. The pacing was quite a bit slower, and the switches between points of view were jarring and interrupted the flow of the narrative.
Speaking of the characters, their development wasn't executed nearly as well, leaving me less invested in them and somewhat disengaged in general. Solo was this installment's most interesting point-of-view character, and I enjoyed learning more about him and his backstory. Still, I was very disappointed by the introduction of Donald as a protagonist. He was profoundly unlikeable and bland, and his relationships were sketched in more than they were adequately developed, so spending so much time with him and trying to root for him in a variety of situations was a struggle.
The book was fine overall, good even. I enjoyed it most of the time, and the audiobook's narration was fantastic, yet again. But I think this book could have easily been a novella or short story to give us the quick rundown of the backstory for the Silo because, as it was, it felt like things were padded quite a bit to extend very little material into an almost 600-page novel. This was worth the read to learn more of the Silo's mysteries, but not nearly as fantastic as the first book in the series. I hope book three recaptures the magic Wool and that Shift was just a bump in the road for this series!
Trigger/Content Warnings: suicidal ideation, murder, confinement, drugging, suicide attempt, loss of parents, isolation, feces, animal death
You can find me on...
| |
You can join our book club over on Patreon...
Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ALC.
Speaking of the characters, their development wasn't executed nearly as well, leaving me less invested in them and somewhat disengaged in general. Solo was this installment's most interesting point-of-view character, and I enjoyed learning more about him and his backstory. Still, I was very disappointed by the introduction of Donald as a protagonist. He was profoundly unlikeable and bland, and his relationships were sketched in more than they were adequately developed, so spending so much time with him and trying to root for him in a variety of situations was a struggle.
The book was fine overall, good even. I enjoyed it most of the time, and the audiobook's narration was fantastic, yet again. But I think this book could have easily been a novella or short story to give us the quick rundown of the backstory for the Silo because, as it was, it felt like things were padded quite a bit to extend very little material into an almost 600-page novel. This was worth the read to learn more of the Silo's mysteries, but not nearly as fantastic as the first book in the series. I hope book three recaptures the magic Wool and that Shift was just a bump in the road for this series!
Trigger/Content Warnings: suicidal ideation, murder, confinement, drugging, suicide attempt, loss of parents, isolation, feces, animal death
You can find me on...
| |
You can join our book club over on Patreon...
Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ALC.
December 14, 2019
I very rarely read science fiction but this series by Hugh Howey sounded so interesting I gave it a chance. The first book was which was a 5 star read for me and this second book in the series didn't disappoint either.
It's one of those stay up all night I just can't put it down kind of books. The characters are so well crafted and believable even under the bizarre circumstances they are trying their best to survive.
The premise is a future time when a group of survivors are living in a silo deep in the ground after some sort of dooms day event has occurred. Perilous events constantly threaten their survival which makes for fascinating reading. Can't wait to buy the next books in the series to see what happens.
It's one of those stay up all night I just can't put it down kind of books. The characters are so well crafted and believable even under the bizarre circumstances they are trying their best to survive.
The premise is a future time when a group of survivors are living in a silo deep in the ground after some sort of dooms day event has occurred. Perilous events constantly threaten their survival which makes for fascinating reading. Can't wait to buy the next books in the series to see what happens.
May 28, 2019
Wants to go cry in a corner on the absolute pile of rubbish that went for six hundred pages and yet still nothing important happened and it could have been cut down to twenty pages and everything still would have made sense but oh no we need lots of characters that have zero personality to around doing nothing for a whole book.
A major disappointment and that really long and windy sentence above summarises the book that I have just read pretty well. If I鈥檓 being honest, I skimmed the last one hundred pages in about thirty minutes and still don鈥檛 think I missed anything important. Most of the last one hundred pages was about a guy and his cat and nothing much.
I swear to god that I have zero care for any of the characters in this book, which is really sad as the first book was actually decent at a solid 3.5 stars compared to this book which is at max a 2 star. It was way too long, most of the story was completely useless and not needed in any way shape or form and I pretty much just wasted three days of my reading life on absolutely nothing. The only potentially interesting characters are killed.
Sighs in disappointment. 3.5/10
A major disappointment and that really long and windy sentence above summarises the book that I have just read pretty well. If I鈥檓 being honest, I skimmed the last one hundred pages in about thirty minutes and still don鈥檛 think I missed anything important. Most of the last one hundred pages was about a guy and his cat and nothing much.
I swear to god that I have zero care for any of the characters in this book, which is really sad as the first book was actually decent at a solid 3.5 stars compared to this book which is at max a 2 star. It was way too long, most of the story was completely useless and not needed in any way shape or form and I pretty much just wasted three days of my reading life on absolutely nothing. The only potentially interesting characters are killed.
Sighs in disappointment. 3.5/10
April 3, 2016
Very disappointed in this book after the great first part in the trilogy. Very dull and tedious.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,439 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.