Adam
Added to listOwnedwith 1442 books.
I continue my trek down the rabbit hole of Necromunda novels, luckily there aren't as many as Warhammer 40k. I've made it to Junktion and all I can say is I feel very neutral about this book. It's not a bad book, but it's also not a great book. It is merely an okay little adventure.Part of the problem I had with the book is that it was from a perspective I don't really enjoy reading very much, first person. I've read some books that worked well enough because the story was good like Outgunned (Lucille von Shard #1) by Denny Flowers, but most of the books fall pretty flat for me nad Junktion is a bit of a classic case of what doesn't work for me.Junktion follows around a character named Sinder Kass. He has a job in the town of Junktion that he is extremely dedicated to, lamp lighting. Basically he and several others have the job of maintaining the lighting and electrical systems for the settlement. It's a cool flavorful idea for the Necromunda setting. And I do like the idea that we get to see some life outside of the gangs to be honest. I think the setup and story concept were a very cool idea. From the start we get the feeling that not all things are right in the land of Junktion and there are political machinations at work behind the scenes.So, while I quite like the idea of Kass being a commoner, we never really get to be privy to what's going on behind the scenes very much. Instead of just Kass reacting to everything that goes wrong while still trying to “do his job”, which is all he wants to do. The problem with Kass' job is that it is a tad boring to read about, so when a good amount of time is devoted to explaining how Kass is fixing something, it's extremely dry explanatory text... which you'd expect. But we don't need to go through it that often as readers, once is really enough, after that you can just say “he worked on this thing and moved on”. At one point in the story he gets sent on a long journey to fix lines on a trade route and this goes haywire to the point where he encounters giant rats and scavvies. This felt a bit like an excuse to include giant rats because the models are cool. But in escaping the rats he wound up captured by scavvies, but the scavvies were weird and didn't just kill him and steal his stuff, no, that would end the story. So, instead they kidnap him? I dunno, just seemed out of character for them. At one point he is brought with them to engage a caravan of water being brought to Junktion by The Curse, an escher gang. So, this entire lead up was an excuse for Kass to cross paths with The Curse gang. The thing about this escher gang is that they were really a nice group and they healed Kass' wounds and brought him back to Junktion. Sure, they were going to ransom him back, because even they knew lamp lighters were important, but that's just business and Safine (the leader) was an honorable leader in that regard.Kass, unfortunately returns to Junktion that is now being held by two very frightening gangs. A gang of Goliaths called the Steelheads and a gang of Cawdor. The problem with the Cawdor gang is that they're redemptionists, the most frustrating of the lot to deal with due to their religious zeal and tendency to set everything they don't agree with on fire. The Goliaths are abusive towards Kass, but since they see him as a runt they don't really mess with him much. One of the Cawdor, Hetch, takes a special liking and torments Kass and his friends trying to convert Kass to the redemptionist way. Anyway, things have come to a head really, the town fathers, who originally conspired with the gangs eventually get overthrown kind of, and Kass hatches a plan to call in two other gangs to help, one of which is The Curse. This being a novel with a semi-happy ending, they overthrow the really horrible gangs, but now have the Escher and Berzerkers to deal with. This is less bad though, because at least those two gangs care more about working out trade deals and making money, trust me, it's better than burning everyone.At one point we do get a bit of explanation of the political machinations as told by Guilder Tai to Kass. It's a frustratingly fragmented conversation in the book, meaning some parts of the conversation are laid out, then a bunch of stuff happens to Kass and his friends, then more of the conversation is revealed. Based on the things that happened, it didn't seem like this was necessary. The missing piece of the convo wasn't suspenseful and to be honest, I had no idea it was fragmented until more was revealed later. So there was no feeling, as a reader, that there was any big reveal to be had. A lot of the writing and sub-plots feel this way. They don't feel like they're going anywhere, it never feels like there is much of a greater goal in mind, other than to find a way for Kass to do his job. And I think that's why this novel falls a bit flat for me.In the end, I don't feel this is a must read Necromunda novel. The town of Junktion and the people in it are well constructed. Junktion seems like a cool map to play a game on or even an extended campaign, but as a story of the people? It just doesn't seem well crafted and comes out very dry at times. I think this is only worth reading if you're obsessed with Necromunda and have nothing left to read in the setting.
I continue my trek down the rabbit hole of Necromunda novels, luckily there aren't as many as Warhammer 40k. I've made it to Junktion and all I can say is I feel very neutral about this book. It's not a bad book, but it's also not a great book. It is merely an okay little adventure.Part of the problem I had with the book is that it was from a perspective I don't really enjoy reading very much, first person. I've read some books that worked well enough because the story was good like Outgunned (Lucille von Shard #1) by Denny Flowers, but most of the books fall pretty flat for me nad Junktion is a bit of a classic case of what doesn't work for me.Junktion follows around a character named Sinder Kass. He has a job in the town of Junktion that he is extremely dedicated to, lamp lighting. Basically he and several others have the job of maintaining the lighting and electrical systems for the settlement. It's a cool flavorful idea for the Necromunda setting. And I do like the idea that we get to see some life outside of the gangs to be honest. I think the setup and story concept were a very cool idea. From the start we get the feeling that not all things are right in the land of Junktion and there are political machinations at work behind the scenes.So, while I quite like the idea of Kass being a commoner, we never really get to be privy to what's going on behind the scenes very much. Instead of just Kass reacting to everything that goes wrong while still trying to “do his job”, which is all he wants to do. The problem with Kass' job is that it is a tad boring to read about, so when a good amount of time is devoted to explaining how Kass is fixing something, it's extremely dry explanatory text... which you'd expect. But we don't need to go through it that often as readers, once is really enough, after that you can just say “he worked on this thing and moved on”. At one point in the story he gets sent on a long journey to fix lines on a trade route and this goes haywire to the point where he encounters giant rats and scavvies. This felt a bit like an excuse to include giant rats because the models are cool. But in escaping the rats he wound up captured by scavvies, but the scavvies were weird and didn't just kill him and steal his stuff, no, that would end the story. So, instead they kidnap him? I dunno, just seemed out of character for them. At one point he is brought with them to engage a caravan of water being brought to Junktion by The Curse, an escher gang. So, this entire lead up was an excuse for Kass to cross paths with The Curse gang. The thing about this escher gang is that they were really a nice group and they healed Kass' wounds and brought him back to Junktion. Sure, they were going to ransom him back, because even they knew lamp lighters were important, but that's just business and Safine (the leader) was an honorable leader in that regard.Kass, unfortunately returns to Junktion that is now being held by two very frightening gangs. A gang of Goliaths called the Steelheads and a gang of Cawdor. The problem with the Cawdor gang is that they're redemptionists, the most frustrating of the lot to deal with due to their religious zeal and tendency to set everything they don't agree with on fire. The Goliaths are abusive towards Kass, but since they see him as a runt they don't really mess with him much. One of the Cawdor, Hetch, takes a special liking and torments Kass and his friends trying to convert Kass to the redemptionist way. Anyway, things have come to a head really, the town fathers, who originally conspired with the gangs eventually get overthrown kind of, and Kass hatches a plan to call in two other gangs to help, one of which is The Curse. This being a novel with a semi-happy ending, they overthrow the really horrible gangs, but now have the Escher and Berzerkers to deal with. This is less bad though, because at least those two gangs care more about working out trade deals and making money, trust me, it's better than burning everyone.At one point we do get a bit of explanation of the political machinations as told by Guilder Tai to Kass. It's a frustratingly fragmented conversation in the book, meaning some parts of the conversation are laid out, then a bunch of stuff happens to Kass and his friends, then more of the conversation is revealed. Based on the things that happened, it didn't seem like this was necessary. The missing piece of the convo wasn't suspenseful and to be honest, I had no idea it was fragmented until more was revealed later. So there was no feeling, as a reader, that there was any big reveal to be had. A lot of the writing and sub-plots feel this way. They don't feel like they're going anywhere, it never feels like there is much of a greater goal in mind, other than to find a way for Kass to do his job. And I think that's why this novel falls a bit flat for me.In the end, I don't feel this is a must read Necromunda novel. The town of Junktion and the people in it are well constructed. Junktion seems like a cool map to play a game on or even an extended campaign, but as a story of the people? It just doesn't seem well crafted and comes out very dry at times. I think this is only worth reading if you're obsessed with Necromunda and have nothing left to read in the setting.
I grew up watching Indy on screen in the 80's, so I've been pretty familiar with the movies given how many times I've seen them. The only books I had were some scholastic books about the movies and there was a series of Choose Your Own Adventure style books at one point, I had some of those... but I don't remember them. I also only found one of the books when I was cleaning out some stuff at my parents house. As an avid book collector I am surprised I missed out on the initial printing of this back in 1991, but I picked up all of them around 2008 when they were repressed. Probably to go with the long awaited fourth installment of the movie franchise. MacGregor writing in 1991... these books should be closer in feel to the original films. This is sort of the case, but it is certainly not on par with the greatness of the films really. But, what can one expect from a first foray into trying to bring this character to the page in a long form novel.
Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi is more a prequel to the films, where we get insight into the development of Indy's character on his way to being the hardened adventurer we meet in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In this story, set in the 1920's, we meet Indy as he is graduating from university. This is sort of the only area of the book I had a bit of a problem with. I suppose MacGregor was trying to portray some level of high minded hi-jinx of college students... but for me this sort of felt way out of character. In the beginning he makes a statement of free speech by hanging the founding fathers of the U.S., and while the statement made sense, the hanging didn't make as much to me. I feel like the trouble Indy often got into was more to do with him trying to do the right thing and then things going weirdly wrong. I don't know, it just didn't seem like that's what happened here.
Anyway, after this we move more into the proper setting. Indy in the PhD program. Here we find him in Paris, France, where he is going for a linguistics doctorate. One of his professors, Dorian Belacamus who is an archeologist, is... as one can expect an incredibly beautiful Greek woman. It's an Indiana Jones story... at some point it needs to follow the Bond formula of having a different woman for every installment... I mean why would anyone want to read about a power couple with real staying power... (for the record, the power couple is honestly one of my all time favorite setups and there just aren't enough around). I digress, in any event, she lures him to Greece to try and pique his interest in archaeology so she can convince him to switch majors. Do they end up sleeping together? Of course they do... So, this is all very predictable, just as its very predictable in the movies!
Well, now the adventure can truly begin, because Indy finds himself in some power politics plot between Belacamus and her real lover Alex Mandraki. (That's right, the villain women is always sleeping around, of course of course.) The draw for going to Delphi is that there was an earthquake which apparently unearthed some hidden objects, but the big draw was the vapors were appearing again. I knew nothing of Delphi, other than that scene in the movie 300, so I rather appreciated MacGregor's explanations of whole point where Pythia would inhale the vapors and babble about stuff, which then required the special priests to interpret her predictions... which they would basically use as a method to sway political decisions. Ancient history, what a hoot. When they arrive at the dig there's already a bunch of hubbub about the vapors and a secret sect thinks Dorian could be the next Pythia. So between Belacamus trying to just do her job, plotting with her boyfriend and now this sect coming into play there are a lot forces vying for the vapors of Delphi.
Things really come to a head when the King of Greece gets involved, because he would naturally need to view the site.Essentially, Mandraki, who is a high ranking official in the military, wants to make a play against the king. He is going to use the backdrop of the vapors as a literal smoke screen to cast the king into the crevasse to plummet to his death. I don't think he planned on Belacamus becoming Pythia, but I'm sure he'd be fine ruling through her ideas. The secret sect is eventually done away with by Mandraki in one fell swoop. Only Indy and his friends from Paris manage to escape and eventually manage to tell the king the truth of what really happened. Enough evidence exists that the king believe Indy and eventually moves against Mandraki.
In the end, I did think this was a pretty decent book. Despite the predictability, and the time of its writing, I was able to look beyond some of the flaws and just enjoy it for the adventure it is. I think MacGregor did a pretty good job trying to cast a somewhat more doubtful Indy in his younger years. The budding college student, unsure of their future, looking off in the distance of time trying to figure out what they really want to do and reconciling the baggage of past mistakes and familial expectations. While, reading about a less confident Indy was a bit jarring at first, I did get into it and it really did make sense amidst the time frame... however, I do look forward to any novels that cater to the more hardened adventurer version of Indiana Jones. Perhaps I will find one in my pile of books as I read these in order of release.
I grew up watching Indy on screen in the 80's, so I've been pretty familiar with the movies given how many times I've seen them. The only books I had were some scholastic books about the movies and there was a series of Choose Your Own Adventure style books at one point, I had some of those... but I don't remember them. I also only found one of the books when I was cleaning out some stuff at my parents house. As an avid book collector I am surprised I missed out on the initial printing of this back in 1991, but I picked up all of them around 2008 when they were repressed. Probably to go with the long awaited fourth installment of the movie franchise. MacGregor writing in 1991... these books should be closer in feel to the original films. This is sort of the case, but it is certainly not on par with the greatness of the films really. But, what can one expect from a first foray into trying to bring this character to the page in a long form novel.
Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi is more a prequel to the films, where we get insight into the development of Indy's character on his way to being the hardened adventurer we meet in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In this story, set in the 1920's, we meet Indy as he is graduating from university. This is sort of the only area of the book I had a bit of a problem with. I suppose MacGregor was trying to portray some level of high minded hi-jinx of college students... but for me this sort of felt way out of character. In the beginning he makes a statement of free speech by hanging the founding fathers of the U.S., and while the statement made sense, the hanging didn't make as much to me. I feel like the trouble Indy often got into was more to do with him trying to do the right thing and then things going weirdly wrong. I don't know, it just didn't seem like that's what happened here.
Anyway, after this we move more into the proper setting. Indy in the PhD program. Here we find him in Paris, France, where he is going for a linguistics doctorate. One of his professors, Dorian Belacamus who is an archeologist, is... as one can expect an incredibly beautiful Greek woman. It's an Indiana Jones story... at some point it needs to follow the Bond formula of having a different woman for every installment... I mean why would anyone want to read about a power couple with real staying power... (for the record, the power couple is honestly one of my all time favorite setups and there just aren't enough around). I digress, in any event, she lures him to Greece to try and pique his interest in archaeology so she can convince him to switch majors. Do they end up sleeping together? Of course they do... So, this is all very predictable, just as its very predictable in the movies!
Well, now the adventure can truly begin, because Indy finds himself in some power politics plot between Belacamus and her real lover Alex Mandraki. (That's right, the villain women is always sleeping around, of course of course.) The draw for going to Delphi is that there was an earthquake which apparently unearthed some hidden objects, but the big draw was the vapors were appearing again. I knew nothing of Delphi, other than that scene in the movie 300, so I rather appreciated MacGregor's explanations of whole point where Pythia would inhale the vapors and babble about stuff, which then required the special priests to interpret her predictions... which they would basically use as a method to sway political decisions. Ancient history, what a hoot. When they arrive at the dig there's already a bunch of hubbub about the vapors and a secret sect thinks Dorian could be the next Pythia. So between Belacamus trying to just do her job, plotting with her boyfriend and now this sect coming into play there are a lot forces vying for the vapors of Delphi.
Things really come to a head when the King of Greece gets involved, because he would naturally need to view the site.Essentially, Mandraki, who is a high ranking official in the military, wants to make a play against the king. He is going to use the backdrop of the vapors as a literal smoke screen to cast the king into the crevasse to plummet to his death. I don't think he planned on Belacamus becoming Pythia, but I'm sure he'd be fine ruling through her ideas. The secret sect is eventually done away with by Mandraki in one fell swoop. Only Indy and his friends from Paris manage to escape and eventually manage to tell the king the truth of what really happened. Enough evidence exists that the king believe Indy and eventually moves against Mandraki.
In the end, I did think this was a pretty decent book. Despite the predictability, and the time of its writing, I was able to look beyond some of the flaws and just enjoy it for the adventure it is. I think MacGregor did a pretty good job trying to cast a somewhat more doubtful Indy in his younger years. The budding college student, unsure of their future, looking off in the distance of time trying to figure out what they really want to do and reconciling the baggage of past mistakes and familial expectations. While, reading about a less confident Indy was a bit jarring at first, I did get into it and it really did make sense amidst the time frame... however, I do look forward to any novels that cater to the more hardened adventurer version of Indiana Jones. Perhaps I will find one in my pile of books as I read these in order of release.
Added to listOwnedwith 1440 books.
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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.
