Thursday, August 29, 2013

Book 97: Shift

 
While I ended up liking this novel, or collection of three novellas, it didn't grab me in the same way that its predecessor, Wool, did.  The three stories combined tell the story from the beginning of the silos, and take the reader up to the end of Wool, where Silo 18 has become aware of at least part of what is going on.
 
The first novella flashes back and forth between Donald, who has been elected to Congress, and is involvement in building the silos though he isn't actually aware of what is going on.  Instead he believes he is building a temporary fall out shelter.  Much of this plan is set into notion by the powerful Senator Thurman, a man that helped Donald campaign, and who is an old acquaintance due to Donald's relationship with the senator's daughter Anna. The other half of this section covers Troy's first shift in Silo 1, and what he slowly discovers as shift supervisor.
 
The other two novellas contine to focus on what is going on in Silo 1, revealing more of the end game behind Thurman's plan, and his motivations for his actions, while chronicling one of the rebellions of Silo 18 in one of the novellas, and sharing more of Jimmy's story after the fall of Silo 17 in the third.  The side stories about the other silos were the most engaging for me, though Donald's story is of course the important one for the progression of the series.  Donald was a character that was easy to sympathize with, but he was also approaching his life through a bit of a daze which made the others characters easier to invest in.
 
At this point in the series, I am really curious to see what the outside world actually looks like beyond the 50 silos in this small area.  What happened to the rest of the world?  I'm definitely looking forward to finally getting Dust, and hopefully getting that answer as well as seeing how it all concludes.

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