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Book Club - Wool by Hugh Howey


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Wool is described as on Amazon as such:

In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.

His fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising.

More importantly, it was recommended to us by several listeners, and we have received no fewer than three free copies from various sources, one of which appears to be signed by the author. The book has enough buzz to be worth a look.

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  • edited March 2014
    Wool: very good.

    Shift: disappointing. Fills in backstory of the location utterly needlessly.

    Dust: the last book in the full story... I only just started reading it. I'll say if it's worth reading when I'm done with it, but for now I'd say stop at the end of the Wool omnibus.
    Post edited by Luke Burrage on
  • Wool: very good.

    Silo: disappointing. Fills in backstory of the location utterly needlessly.

    Dust: the last book in the full story... I only just started reading it. I'll say if it's worth reading when I'm done with it, but for now I'd say stop at the end of the Wool omnibus.

    Silo and Dust? In the US the second book is called Shift. The third book is supposedly called "The Silo Wars" and isn't out yet.

  • Ah yeah. Second book is Shift not Silo.
  • Initially DUST, which is the third book and sequel to the events in WOOL, was called The Silo Wars. True to the one-word-title theme, it was changed, but there are spots on the internet where the old name still lingers. Each book in the series was released in serial, so that doesn't help with clarity much either...

    I agree with Luke on SHIFT. There is some decent stuff in there, but overall it's an accessory. You could (and maybe should) skip straight to DUST if you care to find out what happens after WOOL, because you don't really need the backstory.

    There's also a WOOL comic, via Jet City Comics who recently came back with some GRRM related comics and others, but I haven't had the chance to check it out...

    Also, DUST has been out in the US in ebook (and UK in print) since some time last year. Hit me up if y'all need to borrow a copy.
  • Initially DUST, which is the third book and sequel to the events in WOOL, was called The Silo Wars. True to the one-word-title theme, it was changed, but there are spots on the internet where the old name still lingers. Each book in the series was released in serial, so that doesn't help with clarity much either...

    I agree with Luke on SHIFT. There is some decent stuff in there, but overall it's an accessory. You could (and maybe should) skip straight to DUST if you care to find out what happens after WOOL, because you don't really need the backstory.

    There's also a WOOL comic, via Jet City Comics who recently came back with some GRRM related comics and others, but I haven't had the chance to check it out...

    Also, DUST has been out in the US in ebook (and UK in print) since some time last year. Hit me up if y'all need to borrow a copy.

    Well, I haven't read Shift or Dust. I'm also probably not going to pay for either one, so either lend it to me or I'll find copies in a buried treasure chest. Yarrr.
  • Hey, I have the Kindle version of this. Maybe I'll actually read it.
  • Oh boy. I just finished Dust, the last book by Hugh Howey in this series. It's really bad.

    I think anyone would enjoy Wool, so read the 5 short stories in that first omnibus and have fun with that. The three novellas in Shift are okay, but not the same kind of thing as in the first omnibus. I don't mind this though, because at least he was trying new things in terms of storytelling and writing.

    Dust is really dull, and there's none of the inventiveness and experimental ideas of the first two. It feels like he lost all passion for the story and characters, and just put out whatever to finish off the story. It's a really short novel, and I was struggling to get through it.

    For real fans of the series, you can find loads and loads more stories set in the Silo Saga world from Kindle Worlds, the fan fiction service. I wouldn't be surprised if many of these stories are better than Dust.
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