Dust

Note: There will be some spoilers for Wool, Book One of this saga; some spoilers which are marked and have warnings for Shift, Book Two; but none for Dust, the conclusion of The Silo Series. Avoid all spoilers by skipping down to Discussion and Evaluation.

Shift and Dust continue the excellent story that begins with Wool. Wool is a [non-YA] post-apocalyptic dystopia about a world in the future in which the population lives in underground silos following nuclear detonations that destroyed the outside world. Originally there were fifty silos, including one “administrative” silo, Number One. Only the residents of Number One and two designated IT Department workers in each other silo know that there are silos in existence beyond their show more own.

Most of Wool takes place in Silo 18. At the end of Wool, Juliette (“Jules”) Nichols, age 34, had been "banished" from the silo, and managed, improbably, not only to survive the outside, but to make her way to a neighboring silo, #17. There, she gets to know the very small group of inhabitants, and is eager to help them share the resources of Silo 18, to whence she returns. Her boyfriend, Lukas, is now the head of IT at 18, and convinces Jules to become the new mayor. She begins her tenure determined to pull the “wool” from over everyone’s eyes and tell them about the other silos. She also wants to bring her new friends over to Silo 18, if she can figure out a safe way to do so.

In Shift, we go back in time to 2049 to learn what happened before the silos were built, and how and why they were constructed. We also learn the way in which the silos were run following the devastation of the planet. Much of the story is told from the point of view of Donald Keene, a young Congressman from Georgia who, under the thumb of the elder Senator from Georgia, Paul Thurman, gets pulled into the silo project without fully understanding what it is. But Keene has known Thurman all his life and trusts him; he even used to date Thurman’s daughter Anna. Maybe soon, Donald and his wife Helen keep saying, things will improve. But as Anna, now working with Donald, presciently observes:

"Everyone thinks they’ve got all the time left in the world. … But they never stop to ask just how much time that is.”

Centuries later, in the control silo - Silo 1, Donald is among those who work in six-month “shifts” helping to run the other silos, alternating these periods with long intervals of cryogenic preservation.

Specific Spoilers for Shift:

None of the females who are frozen are supposed to serve on shifts, but Thurman secretly brings his daughter Anna out to use her computer skills to help with a problem. She serves on two consecutive shifts, joined on the second one by Donald. When it is time for them to be put under once again, Donald tries to kill himself by going to the outside, but Thurman brings him back.

In the last part of Shift, it is now 2345, and Donald gets awakened for another shift. But this time, his identity has apparently been switched, and he is taken for Mr. Thurman, the ultimate authority. Donald has no idea how or why this happened, but he takes the opportunity to find out the rest of the secrets about the Silo project. His discoveries all go back to one underlying premise:

"…evil men arose from evil systems, and… any man had the potential to be perverted. Which was why some systems needed to come to an end.”

As Shift concludes, Donald confronts Anna over what he has found out; wakens his sister Charlotte and hides her where Anna had been hiding on the previous shift; and makes contact with Juliette and Lukas in Silo 18.

End of Specific Spoilers for Shift

In Dust, we return to the world of Silo 18. Jules is still serving as mayor, but spends most of her time trying to reach her friends in Silo 17. There is a lot of grumbling about her iconoclastic activities, and a conservative and cult-like religious movement is gaining adherents.

The action alternates with what is taking place in Silo 1, from whence control of the other silos emanates. Donald is still masquerading as Thurman, and is also now in regular surreptitious contact with Juliette and Lukas over at Silo 18.

The situation at both silos is deteriorating. Donald is apparently dying, but he doesn’t understand why. Thurman is awakened and is very, very angry. There have been three mysterious murders in Silo 1. The denizens of Silo 18 finally dig through to Silo 17 just before Silo 18 gets terminated by Thurman. Chaos, anarchy, and violence ensue. Donald surmises that

"Heroes didn’t win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story - the dead didn’t say a word.”

Discussion: The story told in these books is all the more frightening and depressing for seeming so realistic. The ending is not as bleak as my review might imply, but rather, it is probably better than one might have hoped. But it’s not irrationally better; it respects the history of human nature, with both its good and bad points.

Evaluation: In many ways this is very intelligent writing. The stories have a solid premise, stick to realism, and focus on character building and both the limitations and promise of humanity rather than on any “futuristic” gadgetry. I loved it (even while walking hunched over at times from despair). I know it is not a story I will soon forget. show less

Dust is the final part of the trilogy that started with Wool and Shift. Now, all pieces of the puzzle should come together. Like the previous parts, this book is divided into parts, in this case 3: The Dig, Outside, and Home. The latter being the largest. My apologies for the spoilers, but then again, it's also for myself I'm writing this.

The Dig - Jules is thus mayor, but is more active below, trying to reach Silo 17 (Solo/Jimmy) than acting as mayor. Many people don't trust her anymore, not even her friends. Lukas (her boyfriend and head of IT) tries to keep her on track. But she's determined. They do reach Silo 17, so Jules was right. And it seems mr. Thurman wasn't dead after all (see Shift). This means that Donald and Charlotte show more (Donny's sister) are in deep trouble, when the truth is uncovered.

Outside - Donald's secret is uncovered, Thurman plans revenge, to set things right. Donald tells how he did it (how he fooled everyone by pretending to be Thurman, and act like nothing happened, how he also awoke his sister, etc.), finds out from Thurman how the servers contain info on everyone's being & doing. Juliette, meanwhile, went outside to take samples (soil, air, ...), sees contradictions with what silo 1 has always stated. Then all goes wrong. As Thurman tries to get back in power, he then ultimately decides to shut down silo 18. All flee to 17, yet many do go outside, thinking it's better (& die). Shirly, one of Jules's friends, sacrifices herself (so Jules can go on and lead the pack) and Lukas and many more to save the rest of the group from suffocation (gas). So the passage between silo 18 and 17 caves in, thanks to explosives.

Home - Yes, home. As everyone is now looking for shelter in silo 17, Jimmy/Solo and the kids are back home, despite efforts to give them a new home in silo 18 (Jules's plan). With so many people now, all seek food, behave like it's always been their silo, like they know/own the place and don't have to obey anyone. Not all support(ed) Jules as mayor. Still, silo 17 doesn't have the amount of power, water, food, tools and machinery that were available in silo 18.

Jules wants revenge for the damage that was done to her and her people. She threatens to come over to silo 1 and bomb the place. Charlotte, despite having killed someone as he discovered her, tries to remain hidden (again) to work on the drone, but also seek contact with silo 18 to tell what Donald had discovered and how he wanted to help silo 18 (and the others), yet was stuck to certain rules and procedures. Jules thinks of a plan to go bomb the place, as digging towards a new silo would take too long, without enough food, fuel, and other stuff. But upon seeing Jimmy and the kids - and after she successfully extinguished the fire on level 34 (where someone from the church community burned all the books - since the bible is the only "true" book - but at last got killed by Jules in the attempt) - her anger and rage decreases, makes way for a more peaceful solution. Saving her people.

Darcy discovers Charlotte, while she's talking to Jules over the radio. She manages to persuade him that she's working with Donald on a good cause, trying to uncover the truth, that the world outside is indeed only partially destroyed, that the silo system is a means to destroy the people, not save them. So Donald gets guided from the deepfreeze to continue working on the plans, while Darcy pretends (to his superiors) not to be aware of this. But Donald is sick, will die soon, and so he decides Charlotte should save herself (with the help of Darcy), despite her complaints. In the end, Donald does get his revenge.

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Dust is actually quite easy to read, especially if you've read Wool and Shift. And you MUST have read those two in order to understand the events in Dust. The tension is high and it's hard to put the book down, once started. Luckily, sort of, the three books came out in quick succession, so that made the reading easier, without having to wait months and months to find out what would happen next.

The overall mood in the books is dark, depressing even. It shows that people, when deprived of freedom and privacy, having to live a controlled life, a life like an assembly line, can have their reflexes and minds made numb. They can lose respect for their fellow inhabitants, for the work of others. And then they withdraw into a new/own small community/group/... When in fact, all should join forces and look for a solution that benefits all. Especially when all are "trapped" in the same situation. But there's hope and light at the end of the tunnel. There will always be a few people who will stand up and revolt, in search of the truth, so people can be free again. And then more will follow.

This series also shows what the future may look like in terms of controlling a population (and fooling them, generation after generation) while people in charge make sure they remain in charge (for hundreds of years), of waging war, and so on. That train of thought aside, I can only heavily recommend this trilogy! show less

It took me a really long time to read this book, and I don't know why. I first started the Silo trilogy back in September of 2014, and read Wool really quickly. It took me a little longer to get through Shift. Then I started Dust, got part of the way through it, and lost some of the momentum for some reason. It was the book I'd come back to between other books.

That said, over the past weekend, I was sick and had time to kill, and picked this book up again. As I started reading it again, I became more and more interested in the story, and basically read the last third of the book almost without stopping. I feel bad that I didn't give this book more of a chance before. I love the entire concept of this trilogy, and the worlds that the show more author has built. It's one of those books that make me desperately wish I could draw, so that I could put down on paper the images I was seeing in my head. It's such a richly-developed story -- definitely worth the read! show less

This book broke my heart. And then broke me down again before giving me hope. It's always darkest before the dawn and in this case, it was very very true. This book is DARK and it was hard to read at times. But I also really loved it, and loved how it ended - not with an ending but with another beginning.

I am sad to see the end of this series because there is so much more that could be told. Maybe one day, we'll see some more and learn about how Juliet and company are faring in a post-Silo world.

I wasn't going to bother, after reading Shift, but I'm so glad I did: Dust has restored my faith in Hugh Howey's trilogy. Really, in my opinion, books one and three do the job; Shift is an interesting prequel, but sort of interrupts the pacing. Charlotte and Donald in silo one connect the past and the present, but I'm sure their story could have been worked into the other two novels.

Anyway, I raced through the final instalment, abandoning another sluggish novel to lose myself in Howey's incredible world building. Picking up the threads from Wool and Shift took a couple of chapters - who? what? when? - but the characters from all three novels are so strong that I could still follow the plot while getting reacquainted. Charlotte and show more Donald in the central silo, Juliette and Lukas in eighteen, and Solo and the children in seventeen are all drawn together to outsmart the warped wisdom of those who drove civilisation underground, sacrificing lives and taking charge of their own future. I was completely engrossed, even after the patchy pacing of the second novel. The analogy is heavy-handed in places - basically, believe half of what you see and none of what religion tells you - but nothing like the sledgehammer morality of Stephen King.

I would definitely recommend the trilogy, but Wool and Dust are the best parts, padded out with Shift. show less

Dust by Hugh Howey is the third and final volume in this popular Silo dystopia trilogy that started with Wool. It has taken me years to finish his trilogy, as I disliked the second volume so much. I loved the first, Wool but not the second, Shift.

Published in 2013, [Dust] closes the trilogy by bringing the main characters of both the previous books together. Unfortunately because I waited so long to read this volume, I had lost track of the characters and the plot points. The Reader finds himself once again immersed in the claustrophobic underground world of the silo. I found the book overly long and too wordy. Because I had retained so little of the first two volumes, I often found that I had no idea what was going on and I cared very show more little about what was happening. Suffice to say that the author wrapped up his story and the people finally left the Silo. There was no particular finale event. I felt like the book sort of petered out.

I am glad that the completest in me to no longer has to feel guilty when I see any of these books, as after years I have finally finished my read of the Silo Trilogy. show less

Cross-posted to Knite Writes

Plot

A ambitious mayor has a plan to topple the rules of the old world gods. A humbled, dying old “god” wants to make amends and stop the man he used to respect from killing 90% of the remnants of humanity. And a poor woman is stuck in the middle, watching it all unfold. Welcome to Dust.

After her stint in Silo 17, Juliette, now 18′s mayor, starts systematically dismantling the rules that have dominated the silos for centuries. She breaks the massive digger out from the very bottom of the silo and uses it to dig across to 17 and rescue Solo and the kids from their isolation in their dead home. At the same time, she’s trying to figure out how to take down the people in Silo 1 who she thinks are bent on show more controlling their world, especially Donald — she hates that guy.

Meanwhile, Donald, slowly dying from his exposure to the nano-machine-infected outside air, is still pretending to be Thurman and using his influence to try and help Silo 18, even though Juliette keeps arguing with him every time they talk. With Charlotte, his sister, woken up and helping him explore the outside world with drones, he finally manages to figure out just what’s going on — the nano-machines dust cloud doesn’t extend beyond a certain point. It’s limited. And beyond its boundary is a flourishing, perfectly intact Earth.

Unfortunately, before anyone can achieve victory, Thurman returns from death. Sort of. Turns out he was never dead. Because he was hooked up to the cryogenic pod when Donald shot him in Shift, he never died. The healing nano-machines in the pod kept him alive. So he captures Donald and beats the crap out of him, and, in a fit of anger and a pathetic attempt to reclaim his pride, he gasses Silo 18 with the killer nano-machines.

Juliette, after having rescued Solo and the kids, ends up having to take them back to 17 due to the fear and panic caused by their arrival. Just as she’s making her way down the silo to send them home, the gas is released, and Lukas warns her what’s coming before he dies, trapped in the IT server room. Juliette manages to heard a few hundred people through the tunnel to 17 before blocking it off to stop the gas from killing them.

Charlotte, now in hiding and without Donald to help her, manages to make contact with Juliette after hearing the genocide of 18 over the radio. She manages to communicate the fact that the diggers at the bottom of every silo were situated to dig to the same place, a single point somewhere outside the range of the silos, somewhere outside the reach of the deadly dust cloud. Then she gets caught by someone from security — thankfully, she gets caught by the one good security guy, Darcy, who, when told the truth, turns on Thurman and helps Charlotte get Donald back.

Juliette gathers as many survivors as will follow her and gets to work on yet another escape plan — to leave the dust cloud over land, ironically using the cleaning suits to protect themselves.

Charlotte and Donald (and Darcy), at the same time, craft a plan to take down Silo 1: blow up a bomb on the reactor level. Charlotte thinks Donald is going to activate it remotely, but at the last second, he reveals that he’s going to detonate it himself, and that Charlotte is going to leave with Darcy. Unfortunately, Darcy and Charlotte get attacked before they can escape, and only Charlotte escapes from Silo 1.

Donald rigs the bomb to blow, but before he can detonate it, Thurman and crew show up and shoot him. Thing is, Donald is no longer a gullible fool or a young, naive Congressman. He pulls out a gun and shoots the bomb before Thurman can kill him. And Silo 1 goes down.

Juliette and the survivors from 18 make it out of the dust cloud and find themselves in a world they’ve only ever seen in picture books. They reach the building Charlotte told Juliette about and discover it’s a supply warehouse filled with seeds for planting and tents and tools and everything they could possibly need to start a new life. Just as they’re packing up to leave, however, Charlotte stumbles out of the dust cloud and runs into them. Juliette, now thankful for Charlotte and Donald’s help, immediately accepts her into the group.

In the end, they survivors, Juliette, and Charlotte head off toward the ocean to make a new civilization and reclaim the Earth. The other silos are left behind, ignorant and blissful…but there’s no longer a Silo 1 to control them.

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My Take

-slow clap-

I was a little let down by Shift, if you remember, but I had high hopes for this installment of the series; turns out they were well-founded hopes. Howey ramps up the pace, the stakes, and the action in Dust. Characters from the previous two books come together, work together, fight each other, kill each other — in what is a relatively short novel, an incredible number of relationships are created, developed, and destroyed. Overall, Howey’s character management in this book was phenomenal, and good characterization is something I really rely on (and heavily scrutinize) in order to enjoy a novel.

In terms of the plot, I found Dust far better thought out than Shift. It was more interesting, more thrilling, and moved along at a pace that helped hold the tension in place throughout the entire book. It never wavered. There was always something about to happen, always something on the verge of going wrong and dooming everyone, always some distant glimmer of hope that the good guys would “win.”

And that’s another thing I liked about this novel: the gray. Howey doesn’t touch black and white morality with a ten foot pole. He stays firmly in the area of reality, where everyone is confronted with the consequences of their decisions, and people praise them, blame them, hate-love them for what they’ve done and will do. There’s an omnipresent, overhanging scrutiny of all the main character’s actions and plans — from the characters themselves and the others around them. Howey doesn’t forget, amidst all the action, to relay the emotional states of everyone involved and display, quite plainly, the toll that tragedy and fear have on the human psyche.

The ending (I’m not going to spoil it again, I promise) — I loved the ending. It was the perfect amount of resolution and ambiguity. The Silo Saga, at its core, has always been about the lives of the main characters — while the greater world and the greater society of the silos has always hung around in the background, it’s never taken center stage. And Howey doesn’t break from that in Dust. He doesn’t try to create some grand revolution that changes the face of human society in its entirety and immediately unravels and resolves all the complex issues of the tragic human past. He sticks to his game: this is a story about a small number of people, the consequences their ambitions and choices have on themselves and those around them, and the fear of what may be a futile effort to escape a system greater than they can ever be.

As for the effects the events of the Silo Saga have on the world at large — well, Howey leaves those up to you to consider. Just as it should be.

In other words, I enjoyed this book immensely.

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Writing

I feel like Howey’s writing has improved to some degree since Wool (which isn’t surprising, since Wool was written without editorial supervision); his prose seems to flow a lot better than before, and his pacing skills have definitely improved. At its core, though, the writing style is the same. Simple. Straightforward. To the point. Effective. All in good order.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Oh, yeah. I think Howey nailed it.

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Rating

4/5 show less