From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1)

Hugh Howey

Start date: May 1, 2013

Finish date: May 31, 2013

Discussion: 2013 Reads

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2013 Reads

ANHoD: Looking to buy Within the Sanctuary of Wings in Paperback
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What Members Thought

Jun 19, 2013 Harold Ogle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Part an adventure of the "Paranoia" RPG adapted as a murder mystery, and part the embodiment of the eternal rivalry between engineering and IT departments everywhere, Wool is an enjoyable yarn about a self-contained community that has lived underground for so long that its people can't fathom living any other way.

The book features a series of protagonists, all of whom are sympathetic for their rebelliousness - who doesn't like a rebel? - and who each pull at some scrap of knowledge with no inkli Part an adventure of the "Paranoia" RPG adapted as a murder mystery, and part the embodiment of the eternal rivalry between engineering and IT departments everywhere, Wool is an enjoyable yarn about a self-contained community that has lived underground for so long that its people can't fathom living any other way.

The book features a series of protagonists, all of whom are sympathetic for their rebelliousness - who doesn't like a rebel? - and who each pull at some scrap of knowledge with no inkling of the consequences. It starts with a whodunit premise (why have so many people gone crazy enough to be sentenced to death lately?) and proceeds from there.

The book made me very aware of our cultural fetish for engineering, reminding me of various other books that called my attention to this aspect of how we think in the world today, such as the Guardians of the Flame series, the Cross-time Engineer series, and so on. In Wool as in so many books, the engineers are the heroes who drive all the action and advance civilization (even if they're not called engineers in Wool until very late in the book). The emphasis is on things in such books: the plot revolves around objects that engineers make, because the challenges in the plot are set up as physical challenges that can be solved through feats of engineering. This is a marked contrast to books where science is the focus (Charles Sheffield's almost-unreadable books spring to mind), adventure is the focus (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack Williamson), whimsy is the focus (Neil Gaiman), or character is the focus (Cormac McCarthy), to name just a few examples of differing approaches to writing. I really enjoyed this book, but its engineering challenges really stood out to me, particularly because there were logical gaps in the setting that were obvious except that, from an engineering view, they were just "givens." For instance, why have children's books from Before in a society that was hell-bent on suppressing any knowledge of that time? These sorts of questions, while interesting, are too existential to be tackled by engineering characters, whose job it is to solve mechanical problems. Hilariously, late in the book (view spoiler) This engineering focus was more of an observation than anything that made me dislike what I was reading, however. It was just a little bit more blatant than many other engineering-focused stories I've read. I really enjoyed this novel. ...more

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Jun 09, 2013 kvon rated it really liked it

Shelves: librarybook, digital

Claustrophobic post-apocalyptic. Juliette vs the Man, who want to keep the people in small communities without knowledge of the wider world. Evil sociology.

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Apr 09, 2014 Oblomov rated it really liked it

An interesting dystopian future novel set in a silo holding one of the last remaining human populations, a location with many hidden secrets which if disclosed could lead to revolution and chaos, but which impose a hidden totalitarian control upon the citizens. The story focuses on what happens when some of these secrets are disclosed; will the silo fall
, will it return to its cloistered state or can a new more open society be formed capable of facing the future and the challenges that it will ...more

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May 23, 2013 Joanna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: post-apocalyptic

Like most of us I'm royally sick of the post-apocalyptic craze. Don't get me wrong, I love it but so much of it is utter crap that's been rehashed. This book though, it's different. After the first section with the sheriff and his revelation I was hooked. Then the mayor's. And Juliette's. And so on. This book weaves layers on layers and just keeps you wanting more. Loved this book. Highly recommend to people sick of this genre. It's perfectly dark and grim and makes you despair for humanity, but ...more

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Mar 07, 2014 Chadwick rated it liked it · review of another edition

So, for what it's worth, I read this greedily. I finished it in a day. Great escapist fiction. That being said, most of the characters are very poorly written. The main character, Jules, has fairly incomprehensible motivations. Her love interest, Lukas is a garbled mess. The rest of the cast consists of mostly indistinguishable clichés. The setting is well-drawn, but the whole thing feels like a videogame. You may well enjoy reading this, but you might feel dirty the next day. ...more

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May 21, 2013 Emily rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi

that. was awesome.

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Jul 22, 2014 Nick Hershberger rated it it was amazing

Simply fantastic.

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May 11, 2013 Chad rated it it was ok

I found myself flipping through pages just to finish...aspects of the plot were interesting, but relationships between characters could have been better developed over time.

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