The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

   1951; 241 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Triffids” series.  Genre : Classic Sci-Fi; Post-Apocalyptic Fiction; Movie Tie-In.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It was a global double whammy.

 

    The first shock was the coming of a new plant species called the triffids.  Some think they came from outer space, but the evidence points to modified seeds of Russian origin.

 

    The triffids are dangerous: they can shuffle around and possess a lethal ten-foot-long stinger.  But triffid oil is a highly prized commodity, much superior to traditional fish oil, so "triffid farms quickly sprang up.  And since triffids had no eyes, the threat they posed to humans was minor.

 

    Then came the second shock.  The earth’s orbit passed through the tail of a comet, and people worldwide were treated to an astral light show, the likes of which had never been seen before.  There was just one drawback: the next morning, every human who had watched the cosmic event was totally blind.  Suddenly triffids and humans couldn’t see each other.

 

    But the triffids had already adapted to that.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel by John Wyndham.  It was made into a movie 12 years later, which was my introduction to it (black & white version, probably seen on TV), and it scared the bejeezus out of me.

 

    The story is set in the greater London area (John Wyndham is a British author), and we follow our protagonist, Bill Masen, as he tries to come to grips with a world where nearly everyone has been blinded and are desperately trying to survive on a limited food supply, no services (such as phones and electricity), and marauding triffids.  Bill is one of the few lucky humans that can still see; he was recovering from eye surgery on the night of the comet, and missed the light show because his eyes were wrapped up with gauze.

 

    The storyline is basically an examination of how humans would react when they are suddenly threatened with complete annihilation.  Different people respond in different ways.  The majority adopt a “me first” attitude: grab as much food and supplies as you can; and who cares if others starve because of this.  Others counter with a “share and share alike” philosophy; but the trouble with this is that it might mean that everyone just starves to death a little bit sooner.  Some discern “God’s judgment” in what has transpired, and establish religious communes.  And a few decide that “might makes right” applies and are happy to kill anyone who disagrees; less mouths to feed means more food for the those who remain alive.  All of these approaches reminded me of the old saying “Every society is three meals away from chaos.”

 

    The e-book is written in English, not American, which means you get a few weird spellings, such as eying, caldrons, whisky, and payed; but I didn’t find this distracting.  I chortled at the “triffidian amatory exuberance” euphemism, but had to ponder the “enforced polygamy” dictum, a practice whose justification is given in one of the excerpts below.  The Christian commune at Tynsham Manor is an interesting study, and kudos to Wyndham for mentioning the city of Staines: I’ve been there!

 

    The ending is okay, but somewhat contrived.  Bill and company are visited by a helicopter from a group of survivors one day, then desperately need them when visited by a less-friendly group 24 hours later.  This creates a situation that can either be viewed as a cliffhanger (a pet peeve of mine), or a teaser for a sequel, but Wyndham never penned one.  The follow-up book finally appeared 50 years later; it was titled The Night of the Triffids and written by Simon Clark.  Better late than never.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Spizzard (n.) : someone who is intoxicated by drugs or alcohol.

Others: Contretemps (n.); Derniers Cris (n., pl.); Cointreau (n.); Shindy (n.); Cenobite (n.);

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 5,884 ratings and 756 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.01*/5, based on 109,345 ratings and 5,287 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Look at it this way.  Granted that they do have intelligence then that would leave us with one important superiority—sight.  We can see, and they can’t.  Take away our vision, and the superiority is gone.  Worse than that—our position becomes inferior to theirs, because they are adapted to a sightless existence and we are not.”  (loc. 627)

 

    “There is one thing to be made quite clear to you before you decide to join our community.  It is that those of us who start on this task will all have our parts to play.  The men must work—the women must have babies.  Unless you can agree to that, there can be no place for you in our community.

    After an interval of dead silence, he added:

    “We can afford to support a limited number of women who cannot see, because they will have babies who can see.  We cannot afford to support men who cannot see.  In our new world, then, babies become very much more important than husbands.”  (loc. 1668)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Day of the Triffids presently goes for $4.99 at Amazon.  The sequel will run you $8.99.  Amazon carries another eight books or so by John Wyndham, ranging in price for $3.50 to $12.99.

 

And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo of a vanished past.  (loc. 1755)

    As would be expected of a 1951 sci-fi novel, the language is very clean.  I noted just six cusswords in the first 25% of the book, all mild entries in the eschatological category.

 

    It should be noted that the 1963 movie adaptation probably sets a record for diverging from the book’s storyline.  The film is an action-horror tale where the triffid invasion is settled on a soggy lighthouse floor.  There’s no such invasion in the book, which is more of a study of human survival in a post-apocalyptic world.  Wyndham would’ve been turning over in his grave if he saw the movie.

 

    The shortcomings if the book’s ending have already been addressed, but the literary bar for a science fiction novel in the early 1950s was set rather low, and The Day of the Triffids easily meets my expectation in that regard.  Plus, there’s a short epilogue on the final page that lets you know how things turn out for Bill, Josella, and Susan.  (Huh? Who?)

 

    8 Stars.  So which is better: the thriller-horror movie or the contemplative book?  I’ll duck that issue by saying both have their merits, and it depends on your mood at the time.  But I do want to find and watch the movie version and see if it still scares me.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

   2004; 434 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “MaddAddam” trilogy.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Post-Apocalyptic Fiction; Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Snowman, once known as Jimmy, ekes out a solitary existence.  As far as he knows, he’s the last living human being on Earth.  The only one with immunity to the Plague.

 

    I guess you could count the genetically modified “Children of Crake” as fellow human survivors.  Unfortunately, thanks to their designer, Crake, they have a built-in, self-destruct trait in them.  At age 30, they drop over dead.  Immediately.  Automatically.

 

    Ah yes, Crake.  Snowman’s best friend.  A genius at just about everything.  And Oryx.  Such a sweet young lass, although worldly-wise since childhood.  She loved both Snowman and Crake, and was loved by both of them in return.  Crake and Oryx are gone now, both of them.

 

    Snowman can’t go on living like this.  The pigoons and wolvogs are becoming intelligent predators, and sooner or later they’ll catch Snowman, rip him to shreds, and eat him for lunch.  It’s time for Snowman to start planning a trip.

 

What’s To Like...

    Oryx and Crake is the first book in Margaret Atwood’s “MaddAddam” post-apocalyptic trilogy.  The title could be expanded to “Oryx and Crake and Snowman”, since the latter is whom we primarily follow in the book.

 

    For the most part, the storyline jumps between the present-day “post-” and the past “pre-" apocalypse”.  You can tell which time period you’re in by whether our protagonist goes by “Snowman” or “Jimmy”.

    The disaster scenario reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  But here the steps leading up the civilization-ending plague are gradually revealed via Snowman’s flashbacks.

 

    The world-building is complex and thought-provoking.  Global warming has wreaked havoc on our planet.  God’s Gardeners remind everybody that the End is near for humanity.  BlyssPlus pills keep everyone happy, but at a deadly cost.  And the working class is forced to live in company compounds which means the corporations control every aspect of their lives.

 

    Genetic-tinkering has a major impact on the coming catastrophe.  It’s original aim is well-intended: grow your own replacement organs.  But it rapidly goes awry.  We’re now up to our ears in pigoons, wolvogs, snats, rakunks, bobkittens, spoats, giders, hemorrhagics, Crakers, and kanga-lambs; all carving out their niche in the creature pecking order. 

 

    There are some interesting characters to meet and greet, including Uncle En the child pimp, Jimmy’s wayward mom Sharon, and Jimmy’s crazier-than-a-loon dorm mate, Bernice.  The character development of both the primary and secondary persons is excellent.

 

    The ending is hopeful, terrifying, sad, and terrifying all at the same time.  Things stop at a logical place, as the present and past timelines of Jimmy/Snowman finally merge.  The how and why of the apocalyptic event are fully explained, and it is strongly hinted that the sequel holds a “first contact” scenario in store for Snowman.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 12,763 ratings and 1,568 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.01*/5, based on 269,400 ratings and 16,881 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Caecotrophs (n., pl.) : nutrient-rich fecal pellets.

Others: Gestalt (n.), Suttee (n.), Kakking (v.)

 

Excerpts...

    The rakunks had begun as an after-hours hobby on the part of one of the OrganInc biolab hotshots.  There’d been a lot of fooling around in those days: create-an-animal was so much fun, said the guys doing it; it made you feel like God.  A number of the experiments were destroyed because they were too dangerous to have around – who needed a cane toad with a prehensile tail like a chameleon’s that might climb in through the bathroom window and blind you while you were brushing your teeth?  Then there was the snat, an unfortunate blend of snake and rat: they’d had to get rid of those.  (pg. 57)

 

    “These are the floor models.  They represent the art of the possible.  We can list the individual features for prospective buyers, then we can customize.  Not everyone will want all the bells and whistles, we know that.  Though you’d be surprised how many people would like a very beautiful, smart baby that eats nothing but grass.  The vegans are highly interested in that little item.  We’ve done our market research.”

    Oh good, thought Jimmy.  Your baby can double as a lawn mower.  (pg. 359)

 

Kindle Details…

    Oryx and Crake sells for $12.99 right now at Amazon, as do the other two books in the series, The Year of The Flood and MaddAddam.  Margaret Atwood has more than a dozen other novels for you, ranging in price from $4.99 to $17.99, plus a couple of short stories for $0.99 apiece.

 

Is this purgatory, and if it is, why is it so much like the first grade?  (pg. 417)

    There’s a moderate amount of profanity in Oryx and Crake.  I noted 18 instances in the first 20% of the book, and later on, male genitalia are referenced.  There are various “sexual situations” presented, including ones involving minors.  None of them are lurid, but still, you probably don’t want little Timmy or Susie asking you what those passages are all about.

 

    I spotted two typos, both of which involved word splitting, which makes me think they occurred during the formatting stage in the e-book.  The funniest one of these was the phrase “antique roadshow” being split up into “anti queroadshow”.

 

    But I pick at nits.  Post-apocalyptic tales ought to have gritty and nasty parts, otherwise they wouldn’t be realistic.  Oryx and Crake fully met my high expectations for any novel penned by Margaret Atwood, and I have the other two books of the trilogy waiting for me on my Kindle.

 

    9 Stars.  One last teaser.  If you happen to be into role-playing games, Jimmy and Crake get hooked on a bunch of them here, including Blood & Roses, Barbarian Stomp, Three-Dimensional Waco, Kwiktime Osama, and my favorite (and theirs) Extinctathon.  Won’t somebody please develop and market real-world versions of these?

Daybreak 2250 A.D. - Andre Norton

   1952; 191 pages.  Alternate Titles: “Star Man’s Son” and “Star Man’s Son, 2250 AD”.  New Author? : No.  Genres : 50’s Sci-Fi; YA; post-apocalyptic.   Overall Rating: 8/10.

 

    Fors's father, Langdon, was a highly regarded Star Man.  He had roamed the ruined lands around the Eyrie extensively, drawn maps of it, and brought back precious loot.  And even though Langdon was now dead, it was natural to assume that Fors would follow in his father’s footsteps.

 

    But his mother was of an alien race, one could tell that just by looking at Fors.  Which made him a half-breed, a mutant.  And when it came time for the yearly Choosing ritual at the Star Hall, the Council’s opinion was that Fors’s genes were more important than his training or his father's fame.

 

    Five years Fors had been nominated to be a Star Man; five years he had been rejected.  Five years was the limit; a sixth nomination was forbidden.  Fors would be relegated to the status of a commoner, suitable for working in the fields.  Nothing more.  All because of his looks.  And there's nothing he can do about it.

    Is there?

 

What’s To Like...

    Andre Norton (real name: Alice Mary Norton, b. 1912, d. 2005) was a prolific and popular sci-fi/fantasy author; Daybreak 2250 AD is one of her early works.  We follow Fors as he travels into the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world with his companion cat, Lura (see cover image).  In a land where nuclear war has annihilated almost all of civilization, Fors encounters various beasts and humans, which at best, distrust any stranger passing through their territory, and at worst, want to kill and eat them.

 

    The target audience is YA boys, which was true of all sci-fi novels written in the 1950s.  Therefore there is lots of adventure here, and absolutely zero booze, drugs, adult situations, and/or cussing.  When the latter seems called for, Andre Norton delightfully resorts to phrases like “by the great horned lizard!” and “forest filth!”.

 

    In amongst all the exploring and adventuring, the author subtly weaves some keen insight about several serious themes.  The book was published in 1952, just seven years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  This introduced a new global dread: a massive, life-ending nuclear holocaust.  Andre Norton uses that scenario as the setting for Daybreak 2250 AD.  She also offers some provocative opinions, for that era, on racial bigotry (the southern tribespeople are dark-skinned) and feminism (one of the clans is led by a woman).  Plus, there is an overarching theme of the futility of war.  Pretty awesome for 1952!

 

    It was fun to comb through the ruins alongside Fors searching for long-lost gadgets and artifacts.  The rusted, derelict automobiles, both the nuclear-powered and the older gasoline-burning ones, are ignored; the technology for making their fuels has long been lost.  Store mannequins scared and mystified Fors because at first he thought they were petrified victims of the nuclear blasts.  OTOH, finding pencils, especially the colored ones, and a ream of paper, cause him to rejoice.  So do foodstuffs preserved in cans and jars that are still sealed.  Ordinary forks are also valuable finds.

    The ending is satisfying and heartwarming, albeit pretty straightforward and not very twisty.  Given several choices for a tribe that will accept him, and mutant though he is, Fors opts for the obvious one.  The book screams to be developed into a series chronicling Fors’s further adventures, but that has never happened.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 58 ratings and 34 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02*/5, based on 2,539 ratings and 163 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    They might have forgotten about his night sight and too-keen hearing.  He could have concealed those as soon as he learned how wrong it was to be different.  But he could not hide the color of his close-cropped hair.  And that had damned him from the day his father had brought him here.  Other men had brown or black, or, at the worst, sunbleached yellow, covering their heads.  He had silver white, which showed to all men that he was a mutant, different from the rest of his clan.  Mutant!  Mutant!  (pg. 6)

 

    “Mountains—man made—that is what we see here.  But why did the Old Ones love to huddle together in such a fashion?  Did they fear their own magic so that they must live cheek to cheek with their kind lest it eat them up when it was loosed—as it did?  Well, they died of it in the end, poor Old Ones.  And now we have a better life—”

    “Do we?”  Fors kicked at the loose stone.  “They had such knowledge—we are groping in the dark for only crumbs of what they knew—"  (pg. 70)

 

“Only a fool tries to teach the otter to swim.”  (pg. 157)

    There’s very little to quibble about in Daybreak 2250 AD.  As mentioned, there is nothing even remotely R-rated here.  One reviewer felt that the storyline was anti-feminist because Fors chose not to accept the female leader’s offer to accept him into her tribe.  But this novel came out in 1952.  Feminism was not yet an issue back then.  Personally, I was impressed that it portrayed an army of men as being willing to have a woman lead them into battle.

 

    The big problem was with the editing.  Typos abounded: tained/tainted; mid-dile/middle, horrow/horror, scatered/scattered, and a host of others, numerous enough to be a distraction. But again, this book came out in 1952, when spellchecker and word processing programs were just a figment of the imagination.   So I’m forced to cut the editing staff some slack.

 

    Daybreak 2250 AD kept my interest from the start to finish, which was a bit of a surprise, since I am not part of the target audience.  The text did not seem “YA-ish” at all, and the action, if not particularly realistic, did feel “balanced”—the baddies (aka “the Beast Things”) were capable of holding their own, using tricks and strategy to thwart the good guys.  1950s sci-fi can sometimes feel out-of-date.  I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case here.

 

    8 Stars.  Daybreak 2250 AD was a re-read for me, although it’s been about 60 years since I first read it.  It was one of two books that had a major impact on my literary preferences as a kid, the other being Evan Hunter’s Danger: Dinosaurs!  The latter sits on my Kindle, waiting to be read again.  I hope it delights me the second time around as much as Daybreak 2250 AD did.

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.

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.