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Hugh Howey's bio includes this sentence:
"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."

The cruelty of the universe was clear in Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1), where humanity was several (hundred) years into living in a silo, the only people left alive on earth as far as they knew. Isolated, yet somehow sustainable if only the riots and coups could be held at bay. The silo enforced systematic cruelty as well, with the Cleanings removing people who had violated the social code, and the engineers with access to more than they were sharing. That's about all I can say without a spoiler.

Then came Shift, the backstory to Wool. I didn't review it very highly because I decided that giving me specifics didn't end up satisfying me as a reader, in fact part of the horror that made Wool so successful was not being sure where anything had come from or how long it had been there, and if there was any hope. We don't really get hope from Shift, but it fills in the gaps up to the beginning of Wool. I admit that I went back and upped the star by one after seeing how it all ended up.

In Dust, Howey twines the stories of Wool and Shift together in a satisfying way. The facts we never knew while reading Wool become integral to what happens after. I can't say anything at all about the story without spoiling the other two books, but I was surprised by who became the two main characters.

I also include Howey's biographical quote for a inexplicable reason (just read it), but I do think this hidden optimism has an impact on where he takes the story.

I listened to the audiobook, and read other books in between. I took breaks between the major sections. Tim Gerard Reynolds is a good narrator for these books, but I can't speed him up to 2x like I can with most readers. Even 1.5x felt too fast at times. That isn't a complaint, just an observation; the book took longer to listen to than others have!