I should say that I have let way too much time lapse since I read both these books. Coming off my high on Wool, the first of a three-part series by Hugh Howey, I was very eager to get into the other two and bought them both pretty much immediately. My memory on some of the details are spotty, but I'll try to keep this about my feelings regarding the two books. (Possible spoilers ahead for people who haven't read Wool. In which case, you should totally read it because I loved that book.)
Shift Omnibus
Shift is separated into three sections, and it begins in the not-so-distant future, where reality is still somewhat recognizable to our present. We meet Donald, a young newbie congressman who gets roped into designing a giant structure for Senator Thurman. The project is strictly off-the-books, and Donald only gets enlisted because the senator trusts him due to their history (he used to date Sen. Thurman's daughter, Anna) and trusts his background in architecture. Obviously, from reading Wool, we know that what Donald is actually designing is the silo, but he doesn't yet know exactly what it's for, and is clueless about how it would affect his future.
There is a sense of political expediency in this first part -- do what you're told and don't question too much about it or it will make your life difficult. The problem with this concept, which we can see in real life as well, is that we tend to carry out the ideas of those in power without fully seeing the consequences. Donald's involvement in the project, and his inability -- or, really, perhaps his obstinate refusal -- to see past just the drawing board where he designed the silo, is tantamount to the survival of human kind. Yet he does not ask Thurman exactly what it's for, does not question the high level of secrecy, and plays along with keeping others in the dark for Thurman.
When his world finally ends, morphing into the world that we saw in Wool, he is enlisted to "maintain order." Like the rest of the crew in Silo 1 who is woken up to work six-month shifts, Donald is given pills to suppress his old memories, to keep him dull and unquestioning. The other two sections chronicle each time he is woken up to take on a new shift, jolting him up into a grey reality that seems unchanging and surreal. We also get to revisit other characters that we knew in Wool, which I found a welcome call-back, a nice reminder that they are all part of this same world even though we are exploring a different element of it. .
Donald's struggle with his memories and understanding why the silos exist in this new world was somewhat reminiscent to my reading of the young adult dystopia novel, The Giver (another brilliant book that absolutely needs to be read.) He's reaching for enlightenment, for better clarity on why Thurman did what he did, for better direction on how to keep each silos "alive," but he does not understand his place in this whole new world. Nobody in Silo 1 really feels -- all are too numbed by the drugs and the unending mundanity of having to wait up every couple years for a six-month shift -- and Donald fights beneath the surface of trying to keep his feelings and memories at bay for his contribution to this world, and the betrayal of his mentor.
This book is extremely well-written. It really, really is. It's dark and depressing -- there are moments when Donald contemplates, and attempts to carry out, suicide, and you get the hopelessness that he feels. I've read some other reviews online that said Shift Omnibus is slow, but I personally disagree. I liked the slow burn of dread throughout, of a man who is rendered almost unrecognisable by the end of the book. I enjoyed the existential crisis of a human who should not be a part of this new reality, who knew and wanted none of it, and yet is instrumental in keeping it afloat.
Dust
We come back to Juliette, our awesome badass heroine from Wool and part of Shift. Turns out she spends most of her days fighting with Donald over in Silo 1, who is trying to convince her that he's on her side, while carrying out her duties as mayor of 18. She and Lukas have embarked on a relationship, and she's also trying to use a massive digger to tunnel her way to Silo 17 so that Solo and the children there can join their Silo.
Meanwhile, over at Silo 1, Donald and his pilot-fighter sister are trying to figure the end-game of this whole silos underground reality, and how to get out of it. The glimpse of green and blue -- colours that have never been seen in their current world -- is the tantalizing thread of hope that keeps them working to get to there. But they are in a race against time as Donald is slowly dying from being exposed to the outside air in Shift Omnibus.
So I mentioned in my above review how politicians, and people in general, tend to follow orders from up-high without questioning the reasons and its consequences, and how that can often lead to outcomes that one does not want but is immutably a part of? I saw the exact opposite here happen with Juliette's character, and to a degree where it just was not smart. Her hatred of Donald -- she does not recognize him to be any different from Bernard or the head of Silo 1 before because of the voice technology that renders everyone's vocals to sound the same -- blinds her to what he is trying to tell her. Lukas is a little bit more receptive to Donald and able to realise that there is truth in what he says. He asks Donald questions about the Books, which contain history about the Old World. But Juliette angrily dismisses everything he says as lies, making it difficult sometimes to side with someone so unwilling see any good in her opponent.
Dust is the conclusion to the trilogy, and it actually leaves some things up for debate. I admire Howey's restraint when it comes to not tying things up neatly. It allows past grievances to remain unresolved, past questions to remain unanswered. That's just how life is -- we don't get to have every answer to every problem, and frankly, I'm not sure if we necessarily want to be cluttered with so much information. In Juliette's world, she is looking forward, charging ahead, unfettered by the worries and restraints that weighed Donald down when he first started as a leader in his role as congressman.
I've kept my reviews vague on purpose. I genuinely want more people to read this and be surprised by it. Be surprised by who you root for, how we change our point of views on certain characters, and how much grey there is in the decisions made by the people who just want to typecast as "good" and "evil." Howey did a brilliant job with the Silo series, and I think I'm due for a reread soon.
I'm reading and reviewing for Pajiba's Cannonball Read 7, so part of this review appears on their website as well.
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