Dust - Hugh Howey

   2013; 459 pages.  Full Title: Dust: Every Beginning Has an End.  Book 3 (out of 3) in the “Silo” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi; Dystopian Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    In a post-apocalyptic world, the remnants of humanity are confined to underground silos, hundreds of stories deep.  The outside air has been shown to be toxic, so leaving the silo is a death sentence.  Interaction between silos is limited to radio conversations since the deadly outside environment precludes all aboveground transportation.

 

    Existence is a tenuous affair.  Some levels of each silo are devoted to farming, and the total population of each one is strictly controlled.  Yet still, catastrophes occasionally occur, and several silos have just suddenly “gone dark”, presumably with all their citizens perishing.

 

    But changes are looming, thanks to those pesky rascals in Silo 18.  Their mayor, Juliette Nichols, has initiated an underground tunneling expedition, which is working its way over to Silo 17.  Silo 17 has mixed feelings about this: it would be astounding to meet humans from another silo, but on the other hand, that’s also lots more mouths to feed.

 

    Let’s just hope that the powers that be over in Silo 1, those who monitor all the other silos, who dictate how many new babies can be born and how many old geezers need to be euthanized, don’t catch wind of Juliette’s project.  They might terminate everyone in both Silos 17 and 18.

 

What’s To Like...

    Dust is the third and concluding book in Hugh Howey’s fantastic “Silo” series.  It is divided into four parts, all of similar length, and with the appropriate titles: “The Dig”, “Outside”, “Home”, and “Dust”.

 

    There are 63 chapters, plus a Prologue and an Epilogue, which cover 459 pages in the Kindle version.  Almost all of the action is confined to three of the silos: Silos 1, 17, and 18, and the Table of Contents helpfully lets you in which of those each chapter is occurring.  The introduction above gives a brief backstory of Books 1 and 2, Wool and Shift, which I’ve read and are reviewed here and here.

 

    The main characters to keep track of are Donald and Charlotte from Silo 1, Juliette and Lukas from Silo 18, and Jimmy (aka Solo) and Elise from Silo 17.  I thought the character development of each of these was done well.  They all live under the threat of being terminated at any given moment, and it’s not a spoiler to say that not all of them will make it to the end of the book.

 

    The first part of Dust focuses mostly Silo 18’s efforts to tunnel across to Silo 17.  From there on in, we get plenty of intrigue as some of Silo-dwellers work on figuring out how to escape the silos without perishing, others work on acquiescing to the powers that be in hopes of not being exterminated, and the shadowy powerbrokers who have the ability to delete anyone and everyone they choose.

 

    The tension builds to a logical and hopeful climax, although it’s not particularly twisty or exciting.  I’d call it a THX-1138-ish ending, if you’ve ever watched that movie.  That’s not a criticism though, it’s hard to imagine any other way for this sort of post-apocalyptic storyline to end.  And don’t skip the epilogue at the end of the book; it'll leave a lump in your throat.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 17,573 ratings and 4,142 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.25/5 based on 76,902 ratings and 4,525 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    She fought to hold it together, to not let the tears creep into her voice.  “I’m being hunted right now.  They will put me back to sleep or they will kill me, and I don’t know that there’s a difference.  They keep us frozen for years and years while the men work in shifts.  There are computers out there that play games and will one day decide which of your silos is allowed to go free.  The rest will die.  All of the silos but one will die.  And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”  (loc. 3629)

 

    “I know your brother, you know,” Darcy said as he held the door for her.  “He never seemed like the sort.  Neither do you.”

    Charlotte shook her head.  “I never wanted to hurt anyone.  We were only after the truth.”  She passed through the armory and toward the lift.

    “That’s the problem with the truth,” Darcy said.  “Liars and honest men both claim to have it.  It puts people in my position in something of a predicament.”  (loc. 4130)

 

Kindle Details…

    Dust currently sells for $15.99 at Amazon.  The other two books in the series will run you $9.99 (Wool) and $14.49 (Shift).  Hugh Howey has dozens of other e-books for your reading pleasure, some fiction and some non-fiction; some full-length novels, some in series, and a bunch of short stories.  The full-length books vary in price from $2.99 to $15.99.  The short stories are usually $0.99.

 

“Heroes didn’t win.  The heroes were whoever *happened* to win.  History told their story — the dead didn’t say a word.”  (loc. 2490)

    The quibbles are minor.  There’s a moderate amount of cussing—in this case 18 instances in the first 20% of the book, which was about the same as what I found for Drift, the previous book in the series.  Also, since these books are deeply interconnected, reading them in order borders on being a must-do.

 

    Although there’s only one or two main characters for each Silo, there are a fair amount of secondary characters at each site.  It would’ve been nice to have a Cast of Characters section, showing who’s in which silo to make keeping track of things easier.

 

    Lastly, this is the only book I can recall where a “Note to Reader” section comes before the Epilogue.  I don’t know whether this was accidental or not, but IMO it works rather well.

 

    All in all, I enjoyed this series.  Hugh Howey’s writing skills are good enough to where I didn’t get bored with the storyline even though, in books 1 and 3 at least, the settings are by necessity rather limited.  If there ever is a nuclear war, and the current Russia-Ukraine fighting demonstrates just how easily that could occur, underground silos may be the only way for humanity to continue its existence.

 

    Hugh Howey has devoted considerable time and effort to pondering such a situation.  It behooves us all to read what he has to say about it.

 

    8½ Stars. The door is left open at the end of Dust for a sequel but so far I haven't seen one.   Wikipedia reports that in August 2021, Hugh Howey announced he had started writing the next book in the series, taking place in Silo 40, but I've yet to see its release date.

 

    Until it does come out, there are several short story anthologies co-edited by Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams, for your reading pleasure, as well the first book, Wool in graphic novel format.  There is also a 4-book fan fiction series, titled Silo 49 and written by Ann Christy, available for your Kindle.