I picked up the box set of Silo during Amazon’s fantastic book series sale in December. I had watched the first season of the Apple TV+ show and was curious about the books. I had read a review that Hugh Howey had disappointed with the ending, but I was willing to give it a try.
BOOK I – WOOL
The trilogy begins with a character fans of the show will be familiar with – Sheriff Holston. His wife had volunteered to clean a few years ago, and now he wishes to join her. You see, the inhabitants of the silo live underground. The air outside kills everything, and residents can see the outside through a viewscreen on the top floor. The camera that feeds the screen can get covered in dust, and needs cleaned on occasion. Those who want to go outside, who want to leave the silo, or are deemed trouble makers, are sent out to clean that camera. And none live long enough to make it out of view.
Holston gets his wish. He is assisted into a suit built for the conditions outside by his long-time deputy, Marnes. When Holston is outside, he sees a view that is so different from the one on the community screen – instead of the destroyed world of brown dead landscape he sees bright green plants and deep blue sky. So, of course he cleans, as everyone should see what is out there. But as the reader, we know it’s a deception. The question is, Why?
Marnes chooses Juliette Nichols as the candidate for Sheriff. Marnes and the silo mayor, Jahns, take the long trek down to the bottom of the silo where Juliette works in Mechanical. During this journey, we learn of Marnes and Jahns relationship as friends full of regrets at what could have been. This part of the story is more fleshed out than the TV show, and I found it to be even more heartbreaking.
Juliette as a character is stoic, a problem solver, has some natural leadership tendencies, slightly broken, and fairly stubborn. I can relate. She accepts the position of sheriff after negotiating a ‘power holiday’ – reducing the power silo-wide so Mechanical can fix the main generator.
And of course we have Bernard, the head of IT, who is more in charge of the silo than the mayor. We learn he’s in contact with Silo 1, and our characters are living in Silo 18. In the book, his character is somehow more creepy and ruthless than portrayed on the show.
Juliette wants to know why Holston went out to clean, why her lover was killed, and why the silo works the way it does. She pokes the bear hard, and it’s decided to put her out to clean. But somehow, she survives. Juliette doesn’t clean the camera, instead she walks out of sight.
Speaking of the show, season 1 only covered a bit over a third of the story in Wool. There will be spoilers after this point.
Juliette survives the trek over to a neighboring silo – 17. She’s got a new set mysteries to solve; Why is there another silo, and what happen to those that used to live in this one?
A lot happens in the rest of Book I. Mechanical stages an uprising that goes badly for all. Lucas, who Juliette met while she was Sheriff, is chosen to shadow Bernard as head of IT. We meet Solo/Jimmy, a survivor of Silo 17. And Juliette makes it back to Silo 18.
At first I thought Wool was an odd title for story in a dystopian future about characters living in a silo underground. But with the slow revealing of truth, I realized it was in reference to wool being pulled over eyes – a purposeful deception. There are still mysteries without answers at the end of Wool.
I do enjoy the pace of Howey’s writing. He tells the story without embellishing things like the TV show did. The show writers added so much extra plot and conspiracy to a fairly straight-forward story. They have got their work cut out for them adapting the rest of the trilogy.
BOOK II – SHIFT
It’s pretty obvious why Book II is named Shift. The book opens up with a new character, Troy, being awoken from cryo-sleep for his first shift. (After a couple of chapters, I was worried that Juliette had disappeared from the story like everyone’s favorite Myfanwy. Don’t worry, Jules will be back in Book III!) The first section of Shift toggles between Troy in year 2110 and Donald in 2049. Troy doesn’t have memories beyond the Silo ‘orientation,’ while Donald is one of the architects.
Donald is a new senator called to ‘The Senator’s’ – Therman’s – office. In this timeline, nanobots are used for healing, but there is fear they can be used as weapons too. Thurman has created a plan to save the world, and cryptically explains his plan and asks for Donald’s help. Working with Therman’s daughter, Anna who happens to be his ex, they plan the structure and architecture of the silos. Donald struggles to understand what he is working towards, and when he learns a part of the truth, he descends into a deep depression. His sister, an armed forces drone operator named Charlotte, assists Donald by using her PTSD to get a prescription for him in her name. By ignoring the signs, Donald is taken by surprise when Therman creates the perfect situation to populate the silos.
Living in Silo 1 is much different than 18. There is still the viewscreen in the top cafeteria, but no stairs – only elevators. Those awake and on shift are fed blue pills with every meal. These drugs are to keep the memories of before orientation forgotten. Troy has issues, as the drugs do not seem to be working on him. So he stops taking them, hoping to remember. And he remembers that he is Donald. (It really didn’t come as surprise that Donald and Troy are one in the same. If that was meant as a twist, it failed.)
We learn later the blue pills are placebos, and the drugs are in the water. The effects were blocked for Donald as he was taking powerful antidepressants before he was frozen. Troy or Donald… I don’t think Howey wanted the reader to like him. Donald lacks a solid moral compass and choses to do what’s best for him. Donald even attempts suicide by going outside, only to be dragged back in by Therman and put in deep freeze.
During Donald’s first shift in Silo 1, there was an uprising in Silo 18. One of the beloved teachers could remember everything from before, and taught this forbidden knowledge to her students. This knowledge created problems for IT and Silo 1, things got out of hand and Silo 18 was reset. This uprising happens a generation or two before Juliette’s story.
This brings up a question that Howey never answers. How did Silo 1 reset Silo 18? Through the air, or through the water in the same manner as Silo 1 residents? There is no mention of water pipes traveling from Silo 1 to any of the other silos. Only that scientist would tweak the formula to ensure a reset in Silo 18. How did it get over there?
And finally, we learn about Solo and the uprising in Silo 17 though his experience as a scared teenager named Jimmy. His dad was the IT head, so there was enough advanced notice of Silo 1’s attempt to kill 17, that Jimmy’s mom and dad got him to IT and locked him away in a hidden bunker. Silo 1’s attempt to kill 17 failed somehow.
Jimmy hid away in the IT bunker until he was discovered by an older couple. He shot them dead, only wanting to survive. He believed he had killed the last of Silo 17’s residents, and started referring to himself as Solo. Meanwhile, Donald is woken for a second shift but discovers his identity has been switched with Therman. Anna, Therman’s daughter, leaves him a cryptic message that Donald is too slow to understand. Donald kills Anna and Therman for deceiving him and putting him in the Silo.
When Donald finally understands what Anna was trying to tell him, he wakes his sister Charlotte to help him unravel the mystery of the outside. Donald also begins regularly calling Lukas in Silo 18. And finally in the last pages of Shift, Juliette is back.
There is a ton of plot movement in Book II. Howey’s pace is quick, moving the reader from story to story. Connections are revealed, and mysteries are solved that bring up new questions to answer. Overall, Howey has setup what should have been an epic landing in Book III.
BOOK III – DUST
Dust reminded me of Mockingjay (third book of the Hunger Games) in that the pacing was uneven and often too rushed. Dust could have also used a bit more time in the editing phase – There were a few sections in the book where a paragraph was practically repeated from one page to the next. Mysteries of the silos were explained by exposition. “This character must have done this, and that is why this happened that way.”
In Dust, Juliette’s character comes off as flat, instead of someone who has conquered an insurmountable thing and has a new lust for life. She is ultra focused on connecting Silo 17 to 18, and ruins relationships to accomplish her goals. She works to expose the digger she found in the silo schematics and use it to tunnel between the two silos, regardless of the danger.
Donald is equally blind in his quest to get revenge on Therman and those who killed the world outside. He remembers his wife Helen, and wishes he had lived with her instead being put in his current position. He is driven by some need to discover what is on all the servers. He also has regular calls with Lukas in Silo 18 – and sometimes the mayor, Juliette.
Howey doesn’t stick the landing to Silo. I wonder if it would have been better if he didn’t return to the stories of Juliette and Donald. Could it have been better if Book III was from the perspective of Silo 40? (Joe Abercrombie’s The Shattered Sea is three books, with three sets of perspectives, telling one complete story. And it’s amazing.)
I wish that Silo had a better ending. It’s such an interesting premise to a dystopian future. Howey can build characters, but fails to write their evolutions, leaving the reader to assume that Donald and Juliette managed to redeem themselves – I’m not sure they did. The ending of Dust is so disappointing, I have no interest in reading the short story collection included in the box set. It also leaves me to ask, will the Apple TV+ series manage to end it better?