Dust

Burned through this one in a few days, due to the extensive buildup of Wool and Shift before it. Howey hits the ground running in this novel and does not slow down throughout, thanks to the intricate setup from Shift. By this point you know the characters, know the world and are free to just sit back and enjoy while the whole saga is brought to a close. The good? Almost everything. The closing of the multiple threaded storyline is brought to a satisfying, rewarding and happy conclusion that pays the reader back for the investment made in Shift. The author’s optimism shines through in the actions of the characters, the resolution of the conflicts in the story and the high note the book ends on. Characters act as they should and as we’ve been led to believe they will and the structure of the novel rewards (and in a few cases, punishes) them without pulling the reader out of the realm of believability. There is no way I can’t give this book five stars – it’s just too damned good. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have things I didn’t like and I’ll confess to being slightly disappointed in how a couple of the story lines played out. It’s the authors story and I can respect that but I hated to see a return to the well of “let’s kill off a major characters love interest” after already playing that card in Shift with Donald. Howey is forgiven though because he didn’t kill the puppy. If he had killed the puppy all bets would have been off. One dead puppy would have equaled a significant reduction in stars, rituals involving fire and creepy voodoo dolls in the backyard and likely legal action. Possibly even more serious consequences like harshly worded statements on Twitter and muttering to myself and anyone that would listen for days and maybe even weeks to come. Thank goodness we avoided that outcome. I’ve seen others quibble over the loose ends not tied up but personally I’m happy to make the transition to some of the Kindle World entries from other writers and honestly view the loose ends as intentional threads for others to grab onto and build on. I believe these loose ends were intentionally placed gifts from Howey to other writers he is trying to mentor and I thought it was a nice and – in many ways – humble action on the part of a very successful author to his fans. Personally I’m considering dipping my toe into the waters of writing and I claim the story of the puppy. Don't cross me on this. See the last paragraph for what happens if you invoke my wrath. In the end I can’t really muster up anything but respect for the accomplishment of Mr. Howey’s trilogy. It was an impressive story that I sunk several very late nights into and everyone at work has been asking me all week whether or not I’ve taken up a side hobby of mainlining heroin. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve pulled the 2am trick several nights in a row and it’s a testament to the strength of the story and the strength of the writing that I did it. I am very late to the party but I’m glad that my wife put me onto this author and these books. I’ve already picked up his other writings and will get back to them over the next few months. It's cliche, but Howey has another reader for life. Unless he does something to the puppy.

I have really enjoyed the Wool series and I have now read Dust twice. I originally read it fresh off the pre-order, but then life got in the way and I didn’t review it right away. So I thought it would only be fair to re-read a few passages or so to get back the feel of it, which ended up with me re-reading the entire book. I did enjoy the book and I still think Juliette is a great character though she does get incredibly lucky pretty regularly considering the odds she is up against, etc. I’m not saying nothing bad ever happens to her. Lots of bad things happen to Juliette. In fact, sometimes it seems that there is someone following her around with a bag of ‘bad things about to happen’. Nevertheless, in the overall scheme of things she comes out of it pretty well. There didn’t seem to be as much tension to this story and I wasn’t as thoroughly engaged even the first time around. It was still a good story, but it just didn’t grip me the way the original story did when I read it in the omnibus. I think part of that is due to this being kind of a wrap-up of the story. An example might be that I love a good mystery thriller; however, when everything has been revealed sometimes I feel a little let down not because it wasn’t a good story, but because the adventure and mystery are over. It’s kind of like that slump after an adrenaline high. I got the same feeling at the end of the book Perfume by Patrick Suskind. The tension held in the dark, drab, conspiracy controlled world of the silo is hard to keep alive when you move on. Since I do not have any suggestions on how to make the story itself better or end it differently, I definitely see the predicament of trying to wrap it all up. I don’t know if there was a better way to end it or if a different way would have been better. This ending seems to be what might be the best we could hope for were we stuck in one of these silos and trying to save the lives of our friends and families. So in the end Dust is 4 out of 5 stars for me. I really liked it and enjoyed the read, but it wasn’t quite as powerful for me as the original. Just because you don’t love the final book of a series as much as you did the previous ones does not mean it isn’t a good book or series. It’s just that some portions of the story were more powerful than others or at least that’s my opinion. Overall, it was a good read both times. I am very excited to see what Ridley Scott does with the movie version as he is one of my favorite directors and I feel he might bring the correct degree of ‘dark’ to the movie. Keeping my fingers crossed and waiting to see what happens.

Howey spins an inspired tale of world building not off the Earth or on the Earth but beneath the Earth. With characters so compelling they will take up residence in your mind, the “silo trilogy” will take you on a remarkable adventure that you will want to revisit over and over. Truly an impressive work.

O livro mostra que muitas pessoas agem e outras tem medo de agir. Ás vezes nós até sabemos o que é certo fazer mas temos medo de agir, de irmos para frente e fazermos o correto de acordo com nossos pensamentos e valores. Gostei muito do livro e indico ele para todos.

I heard of Silo thanks to the series and decided to read the books too. From the minute I picked up Wood, it took me 3 days to finish it. I simply could not put it down. Massive thank you Hugh Howey for such an entertaining, terrifying, crazy story! I cannot wait to read the rest.

I had the impression that this is written just to close the story and unviel the mistery. But done quickly and badly. The single hero onemanshow (woman actually) is dominating. Too bad!

Very good