Adam
Maybe 3.5 half the time
As usual with Hugh Howey, it took me a long time to read this book. I tend to read other novels throughout reading his books and that trend didn't stop with the third. In fact, it got a bit worse. For whatever reason I can't stay focused long enough to tear through a book of his like other authors. Maybe it's the writing style? I do not know, because the previous two books I quite enjoyed even though they took me a long time to read. Sadly, I think I only half enjoyed this novel.
Unfortunately, I only remember a few details from the prior books and I never reviewed them. I've been going back to re-read some books so that I can write proper reviews, but I'm making the decision to not do that with his books. They just take me way too long to read. Re-reading them just feels so untenable to me. Alas, this will have to stand as my only review.
The massive conclusion to the Silo series has finally been read. Now, my lower rating does not have to do with the conclusion. It's not a bad end to the series, to be perfectly honest. So, that's not why I'm rating this down. My problem is how over written it is. I really feel that we could have done without a solid 150 pages of this book and been able to get all the important and emotional parts of the story. I've started stumbling upon something I prefer in my story telling a lot more and that is a tight story. I'm starting to think they are crafted in a superior way.
The best example I can give of this is that in the mid 2000's there was a writers strike for TV shows. Traditionally stories were told over 24 episodes, now we find ourselves where a whole season can be an 8 to 10 episode story. This has been the greatest thing to happen to television for me. It has forced writers to write stories that are extremely compact and the plight of the "filler episode" seems to be a thing of the past. Well, in some respects, I would love a bit more of a revolution in books like that. Just no filler. <i>Dust</i> has an extremely annoying filler episode at the end of the novel and it really kind of killed the conclusion a bit. Mainly because I was reading through it and wondering "why are we wasting time on this??"
<spoiler> Towards the end of the novel when Juliette and the others are escaping their Silo to go to Silo 17 as it's being gassed... there's a bunch of religious people that follow them. Now, these religious people, as far as I remember, were not a big deal in <i>Wool</i>. I don't recall them even being mentioned and I can't figure out why they were being mentioned in <i>Dust</i>. For full disclosure, I am not a pro-religious person and I am not offended by this book. I am offended by the fact we spent time on it at all because it did not need to be here. Anyway, Elise starts to chase her dog up the Silo from Mechanical and eventually she gets waylaid by the religious nuts. They coax her into whatever part of the silo they staked out and immediately marry her off to some middle-aged guy. Remember, she's like seven. So the first thing these people can think to do now that they left their silo is start marrying children... I don't know, I feel like Hugh Howey had an opinion about religion and needed us all to know? They also go out of their way to burn all the books, because you only need one book to live or some nonsense. I get it, that way of thinking is bad, but this had nothing to do with the book. It's even more overtly a nothing burger, because after Juliette and Solo save Elise and kill the dude burning books, we never hear about the religious people again! Are they part of the group that left with them? Are they still in Silo 17? We don't know. Juliette saved over a hundred people walking out of the silo... were they part of the group? No mention. The crazy dude doesn't go looking for his "wife" and Juliette and her people stayed around for days more after the incident. No one went to go check on the dude that was burning the books... where Juliette and her people were staying. Nothing, just a waste of pages and time.</spoiler>
The filler episode is sometimes rife throughout this book and its more palpable than the others. I also felt like we were short on information. In the arc of Silo 1 I really thought we'd get more insight into why this Thurman guy chose to destroy the world and put everyone in Silo land. Either I don't remember, or he just never really explained why they were needing to get it down to a one silo world... I was kinda lost when Donny and Thurman were talking sometimes. It always felt like Thurman was holding something back and I was hoping it would be revealed later, like in secret files or something. But does Juliette ever find anything out? Nope, nothing. No indication that Charlotte eventually told her or anything either. This is why I hate filler episodes, we could have spent our time doing something more meaningful. And if what we did was meaningful it wasn't explained well enough for me to really get it in the end.
In the end, I do like the world building Hugh Howey did. It's a really interesting world and I understand overwriting to some degree because you want to stay in that world you created. Some filler for atmosphere is sometimes worth it, but some filler is just filler and should be nixed. This is why I am looking forward to the TV series a bit more. I'm hoping they will cut a lot of the filler material out of the books. Stick to just what we need to know to move the story along. Maybe as we get to the end, there will be a bit of a re-write/re-phrasing of Donald's and Thurman's conversations so we can all get deeper insight into why the world is the way it actually is and the end goal of the villian. I was really looking forward to one of those classic villain explains all moments, but I feel like it fell a bit short.
If you've read the first two Silo novels and enjoyed them, this one is still a good book and worth the read. I just think it could have been a great book, because again, the world build and characters are very well written.
Maybe 3.5 half the time
As usual with Hugh Howey, it took me a long time to read this book. I tend to read other novels throughout reading his books and that trend didn't stop with the third. In fact, it got a bit worse. For whatever reason I can't stay focused long enough to tear through a book of his like other authors. Maybe it's the writing style? I do not know, because the previous two books I quite enjoyed even though they took me a long time to read. Sadly, I think I only half enjoyed this novel.
Unfortunately, I only remember a few details from the prior books and I never reviewed them. I've been going back to re-read some books so that I can write proper reviews, but I'm making the decision to not do that with his books. They just take me way too long to read. Re-reading them just feels so untenable to me. Alas, this will have to stand as my only review.
The massive conclusion to the Silo series has finally been read. Now, my lower rating does not have to do with the conclusion. It's not a bad end to the series, to be perfectly honest. So, that's not why I'm rating this down. My problem is how over written it is. I really feel that we could have done without a solid 150 pages of this book and been able to get all the important and emotional parts of the story. I've started stumbling upon something I prefer in my story telling a lot more and that is a tight story. I'm starting to think they are crafted in a superior way.
The best example I can give of this is that in the mid 2000's there was a writers strike for TV shows. Traditionally stories were told over 24 episodes, now we find ourselves where a whole season can be an 8 to 10 episode story. This has been the greatest thing to happen to television for me. It has forced writers to write stories that are extremely compact and the plight of the "filler episode" seems to be a thing of the past. Well, in some respects, I would love a bit more of a revolution in books like that. Just no filler. <i>Dust</i> has an extremely annoying filler episode at the end of the novel and it really kind of killed the conclusion a bit. Mainly because I was reading through it and wondering "why are we wasting time on this??"
<spoiler> Towards the end of the novel when Juliette and the others are escaping their Silo to go to Silo 17 as it's being gassed... there's a bunch of religious people that follow them. Now, these religious people, as far as I remember, were not a big deal in <i>Wool</i>. I don't recall them even being mentioned and I can't figure out why they were being mentioned in <i>Dust</i>. For full disclosure, I am not a pro-religious person and I am not offended by this book. I am offended by the fact we spent time on it at all because it did not need to be here. Anyway, Elise starts to chase her dog up the Silo from Mechanical and eventually she gets waylaid by the religious nuts. They coax her into whatever part of the silo they staked out and immediately marry her off to some middle-aged guy. Remember, she's like seven. So the first thing these people can think to do now that they left their silo is start marrying children... I don't know, I feel like Hugh Howey had an opinion about religion and needed us all to know? They also go out of their way to burn all the books, because you only need one book to live or some nonsense. I get it, that way of thinking is bad, but this had nothing to do with the book. It's even more overtly a nothing burger, because after Juliette and Solo save Elise and kill the dude burning books, we never hear about the religious people again! Are they part of the group that left with them? Are they still in Silo 17? We don't know. Juliette saved over a hundred people walking out of the silo... were they part of the group? No mention. The crazy dude doesn't go looking for his "wife" and Juliette and her people stayed around for days more after the incident. No one went to go check on the dude that was burning the books... where Juliette and her people were staying. Nothing, just a waste of pages and time.</spoiler>
The filler episode is sometimes rife throughout this book and its more palpable than the others. I also felt like we were short on information. In the arc of Silo 1 I really thought we'd get more insight into why this Thurman guy chose to destroy the world and put everyone in Silo land. Either I don't remember, or he just never really explained why they were needing to get it down to a one silo world... I was kinda lost when Donny and Thurman were talking sometimes. It always felt like Thurman was holding something back and I was hoping it would be revealed later, like in secret files or something. But does Juliette ever find anything out? Nope, nothing. No indication that Charlotte eventually told her or anything either. This is why I hate filler episodes, we could have spent our time doing something more meaningful. And if what we did was meaningful it wasn't explained well enough for me to really get it in the end.
In the end, I do like the world building Hugh Howey did. It's a really interesting world and I understand overwriting to some degree because you want to stay in that world you created. Some filler for atmosphere is sometimes worth it, but some filler is just filler and should be nixed. This is why I am looking forward to the TV series a bit more. I'm hoping they will cut a lot of the filler material out of the books. Stick to just what we need to know to move the story along. Maybe as we get to the end, there will be a bit of a re-write/re-phrasing of Donald's and Thurman's conversations so we can all get deeper insight into why the world is the way it actually is and the end goal of the villian. I was really looking forward to one of those classic villain explains all moments, but I feel like it fell a bit short.
If you've read the first two Silo novels and enjoyed them, this one is still a good book and worth the read. I just think it could have been a great book, because again, the world build and characters are very well written.