A community lives in an underground silo for generations and its origins are lost in time. People are told the silo protects them from a toxic outside world, a world they can only see through a single TV screen. The air outside is unbreathable and far away the skyline of a destroyed city is visible.
This is the premise of Wool, the first of the Silo series. It’s marketed as an adult dystopia, but apart from the characters’ age, it’s not much different from the Divergents and Maze Runners of this world: an unexplained post-apocalyptic world, human curiosity disrupting the system, an elite struggling to preserve the status quo.
In general I enjoyed the book. The first chapters triggered my need-to-know obsession and the ending was full of the promise of revelations to come. Jules was a strong and realistic female character and I cared for her right from the start. I understand the commercial success formula requires a romance (this was a self-published book, so likely Howey was more attuned to it), but Jules’ interest, Lucas, was far less interesting and I could have done without that relationship altogether.
Howey clearly put a lot of thought into the world-building and that was the most interesting part of the whole story: the silo’s different levels, nativity control, food production, disposal of human cadavers, electricity production – fascinating stuff.
If you’ve read the book, I’d be really curious to know your thoughts on (still no spoilers):
- Why it’s considered an adult book and not YA? Is it just the hero/heroine’s age? There’s no sexual content, and definitely less violence or social commentary than, for instance, The Hunger Games. Is it because it focuses less on romance?
- Considering the need to preserve the situation in the silo, and that there’s a mention of an organized religion, shouldn’t religion play a much bigger role in the story? Wouldn’t it be an obvious ally of IT?
- I listened to it in audiobook and the narrator gave the villain a nasal voice that was the embodiment of the Evil Doer. (Seriously, I expected an evil laughter – MUAHAHAHAH! – at several moments). However, when I finished the book I wondered if this caricature was just due to the voice or if he could’ve been better developed. What say you?
So in summary, I had fun and at moments was completely engrossed in the story. I’m also looking forward to the future movie adaptation. On the other hand, I wished it pushed the boundaries of the genre, to become something I’d never read before. But the strongest feeling of all was the need to talk about it, and that’s always a good sign!
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Other thoughts: Rhapsody in Books, SF and Fantasy Book Reviews, Leeswammes, The Guilded Earlobe, Book Den, Collateral Bloggage, Stainless Steal Droppings, Speculative Book Review, Book Monkey, Don’t be Afraid of the Dork, a book a week, A Garden Carried in the Pocket (yours?)
11 comments
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February 23, 2015 at 6:00 pm
pmaciel
This one is on my reading list (now a few notches up!) 🙂
February 24, 2015 at 10:06 am
Alex
Do read it now, do that we can discuss! it’s an order!
February 24, 2015 at 8:46 am
Annabel (gaskella)
Interesting – this trilogy has been in my piles too for some time. I love your discussion points, but can’t join in as I haven’t read them yet – but will bear in mind when I get to them!
February 24, 2015 at 10:07 am
Alex
I’ll be here when you’re done!
February 24, 2015 at 7:05 pm
Jay
Hi Alex,
I really enjoyed this one too. I learned about it in a Wall Street Journal article (it may be the only book I’ve targeted via that route). I liked how *spoiler!* “IT” is ‘the villain’, much like like in real life! Well, my real life. 🙂 I’ve been forming a hypothesis for some time now that the IT savvy and the non-IT savvy will become the REAL future’s version of Wells’ Morlock & Eloi. I see evidence of this on a daily basis at work and it concerns me.
I’ve also pushed this book on many friends, some reluctant to read it because it seemed ‘too long’ or whatever. I’ve heard no complaints from anyone so far, though. A few have read the other books in the series now too.
I’ve heard also there is a graphic novel version of the wool omnibus in the works. I’d like to see that.
-Jay
February 24, 2015 at 7:08 pm
Jay
Oh, and regarding one of your questions, maybe IT has replaced religion, or become its own form of religion. Or the rituals of the silo have replaced religion. I guess religion being “missing” was not something I thought much about when I was reading it.
February 26, 2015 at 11:25 pm
Shaina
Heyo! Found you through Andi’s #newbloglove tweets, nice to meet you. 🙂
I recently reviewed the Wool Omnibus as well, and I felt similarly about the romance. I don’t even think I touched on it in my review because that’s how little it engaged me. You can check it out here, if you’d like: http://shainareads.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-ive-been-reading-lately-mini.html
As someone who read the book rather than listened, I totally could imagine Bernard with a nasally, evildoer voice. It would have been interesting to get a bit more of his motivation besides, “This is just how things are done!”
The thing that bugged me most was that we never really found out what happened out there. After so many pages, I was really bummed not to have that answer.
March 2, 2015 at 1:20 am
Christina
I asked the person who recommended Wool to me about why it is marketed to adults and not young adult when I finished it because I felt the same way as you. She said that she felt the concept of knowing the (painful) truth versus living in ignorance was too sophisticated for YA, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Certainly the Hunger Games muddles with illusions, smoke and mirrors, etc in its presentation of the Capital and the Captail’s views of the districts. I wonder, though, if its because the characters aren’t as easily identifiable with. I mean, everyone who has read Harry Potter has wondered what house they would sorted in and I know so many young tweens who want to be Katniss Everdeen.
I was really surprised at the mention there was organized religion in the silo. It seemed like it should have been co-opted by IT if not a source of resistance for people in the silo.
On your final question, I didn’t listen to the audiobook but I thought the villain was written a really over the top manner. I kept waiting for the villain to twirl their handlebar mustache so the audiobook narrator sounds like they were reading the character exactly how they were written.
March 2, 2015 at 1:42 am
Zoe Flores
We have a query with the article, where am i able to e-mail the person responsible?
March 2, 2015 at 5:11 am
Isaac Moore
Excellent article, i did read it twice so sorry for this, i’ve
passed it on to my mates, so hopefully they’ll
enjoy it as well.
March 6, 2015 at 9:27 pm
aartichapati
I finished the first volume in this book and have been paused in the second volume (or third?) for quite a while now. I’ll get back to it one day, maybe when I take my e-reader with me on vacation this summer.
I do really like Jules so far, though I miss the other mayor.