Shift - Hugh Howey

2013, 576 pages. New Author? : No. Book 2 (out of 3) in the Silo trilogy. Genres: Dystopian Fiction; Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction. Overall Rating : 8*/10.

Wool, the opening book in Hugh Howey's breakout "Silo" series, was published in 2011. I read it in 2016 (the review is here) and thought the setting was fascinating: a post-apocalyptic world where a few survivors are confined to a huge underground silo with its 100+ levels, its penthouse level having windows that look out on a bleak, lifeless landscape.

Wool reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road in a couple ways. For instance, neither book explains what caused the apocalyptic event that triggered the dire circumstances in which the protagonists find themselves. Also, while both books end at a logical spot, neither one gives any hint as to whether the larger issue - will mankind recover from the devastation wreaked upon their world - would ever be resolved.

We'll cut Cormac McCarthy some slack - he's 87 years old now, and seems to be retired from the writing business as of 2006. Unless he commissions someone to ghostwrite a sequel, the fate of the protagonist's son in The Road will likely never be known.

But luckily Hugh Howey has penned two more novels in the Wool series (plus several short stories). Book Two, Shift, is both the sequel and the prequel to Wool, and details the events leading up to the last traces of humanity being relegated to living, and dying, in underground enclosures for centuries to come.

What’s To Like...

Shift opens in the near future, and is divided into three sections:

Shift 1 : Legacy, which alternates between Troy (2212 AD) and Donald (2049-2052 AD)

Shift 2 : Order, set in 2212-2215 AD, and follows events in Silos 1 and 18.

Shift 3 : Pact, set in 2312-2345 AD, and follows events in Silos 1 and 17.

I liked the character development. There are no "black" or "white" characters here, everyone comes in various shades of "gray". One even adopts two names - "Jimmy" when he has a cat to keep him company; "Solo" for when he's alone. The thrills and spills are sporadic, yet come often enough to keep your interest. This is more about watching society desperately trying to preserve itself, and experiencing both successes and failures.

The ending is okay. It ties up a couple of the plot threads (Donald and Thurman and Anna), but a lot of them remain open (Charlotte/Donald, Jimmy/Solo). Mostly it sets up the third and final book, Dust. The epilogue has a nice teaser, including the reintroduction of one of the characters from Wool.

Ratings…

Amazon: 4.5/5 based on 3,889 ratings.

Goodreads: 4.12/5 based on 72,754 ratings and 4,472 reviews

Excerpts...

"A typhoon kills a few hundred people, does a few billion in damage, and what do we do?" Erskine interlocked his fingers. "We come together. We put the pieces back. But a terrorist's bomb." He frowned. "A terrorist's bomb does the same damage, and it throws the world into turmoil."

He spread his hands open. "When there's only God to blame, we forgive him. When it's our fellow man, we destroy him." (loc. 3414)

"You and I have spent much of our adult lives scheming to save the world. Several adult lives, in fact. That deed now done, I ponder a different question, one that I fear I cannot answer and that we were never brave nor bold enough to pose. And so I ask you now, dear friend: was this world worth saving to begin with? Were we worth saving?" (loc. 4945)

"He's the shepherd, you know? I pictured him waking up chewing nails and farting tacks." (loc. 4838)

I didn't find much to gripe about in Shift. There's a fair amount of cussing (23 times in the first 20%), but I don't recall any sex scenes or drug/alcohol usage, with the exception of one case of abusing "potato glue", which I found wittily clever. People get killed, of course, but that's part of any post-apocalyptic tale.

The only other quibble might be the tedium that one endures when one's entire life is spent in a confined space. I didn't mind it during the first two sections because I was enjoying the details of how the masterminds went about setting up a silo society, but by the time the third section came around, I and all the characters were yearening for a change of scenery. Judging from some of the Amazon and Goodreads reviews, I was not the only reader to experience this.

But I quibble. Overall, I enjoyed Shift, particularly since it satisfied my curiosity about how the Wool scenario came about. I'm not sure whether Book 3, Dust, is set before or after Wool, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

8 Stars. We'll close with a teaser, which was posed in the book: Which weighs more: a bag full of 78 pounds of feathers, or a bag full of 78 pounds of rocks? The answer may surprise you.