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

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What Members Thought

Apr 25, 2013 Veronica Belmont rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sword-and-laser

Some books take a while to dig into. The first few chapters set up the story, introduce you to the main characters and build a framework for the tale to come.

Wool sets up the story too, but in a heartbreaking and gripping way that has you consuming the book as quickly as possible, if only to learn the answer to: "that's not really about to happen, is it?"

There are moments in Wool when I wondered if maybe the book was too dark. I mourned for characters and didn't know how they would possibly get ...more

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Jun 05, 2014 Stephanie rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, audio, fiction, 2014reads

I finally broke down and read this one after the avalanche of everybody, everywhere really loving it and talking about it got so enormous that it could no longer be chalked up as some Fifty Shades of Grey-esque hysteria. I think the tipping point was that it was a pick for the Sword and Laser Podcast book Club and both hosts really liked it.

In case you are the one person who hasn’t heard, Wool started out as a self-published dystopian novella. It occurs sometime in the future when the only rema I finally broke down and read this one after the avalanche of everybody, everywhere really loving it and talking about it got so enormous that it could no longer be chalked up as some Fifty Shades of Grey-esque hysteria. I think the tipping point was that it was a pick for the Sword and Laser Podcast book Club and both hosts really liked it.

In case you are the one person who hasn’t heard, Wool started out as a self-published dystopian novella. It occurs sometime in the future when the only remaining humans are confined to living in huge underground Silos because the outside environment is so toxic. The omnibus edition pulls together five shorter stories into a longer continuous narrative. For me the breakdown seemed more natural as three distinct parts: the shorter tale of the sheriff which starts the book, the shorter tale of the Mayor and then a longer story centered on Juliet. One leads to the others and they work well as combined.

The premise is that basically there are secrets. Lots of secrets. And there is something that just doesn’t smell right. The question it poses (which I’ve seen before, most recently in the YA novel Across the Universe by Beth Revis) is how best to keep humanity going when there are a just a few of you and you live in tight quarters – tyranny or complete freedom and honesty? Humans are pretty good at surviving but we’re also pretty great at self-destruction. It’s a pretty interesting moral question that ultimately there’s only one right answer to – or is there? :0) It cracked me up that the big bad was IT. Of COURSE they’re the evil ones! Anyway, it’s a book where there are lots of things to figure out and twists and turns. It’s also got a well-developed society and culture that is easily believable.

I thougth the first two short stories focusing on the sheriff and the mayor were really excellent. If the book had just been those two short stories or had just been all about the Mayor I likely would have adored this book. Both of these characters were WAY more interesting to me then Juliet, or Bernard or Lucas. Unfortunately, most of the book focuses on the stories of these folks and I also felt like there were some storytelling mistakes made in this latter 2/3rds. One of the characters has a change of heart which seems to come out of nowhere. A romance is attempted but I felt it was pretty superfluous and fell flat. Basically the emotion in this latter part of the book felt more forced and clunky then in the highly genuine first two stories.

I also have to mention the narration which in my opinion was really horrible and may have affected my feelings about the book. A lot of Minnie Goode’s voices were cartoonish, particularly her men. She also gave many of the characters really thick and disparate accents which if they had all been cooped up in this Silo for generations wouldn’t all their accents have flattened out? I don’t envy the job she had – there is a pretty large cast of speaking roles but all the more reason to have employed someone who was particularly good with voices to read the audio. If I hadn’t paid money for it I would have put it down and picked up the print at the library.

Final Verdict: It was good and I liked it. Check it out but for the love of god not in the audio version!
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Sep 25, 2014 SW rated it liked it

Fun, with a good sense of tension and a constantly deepening mystery. Some, shorter, chapters seem to exist to fill in cracks, while many chapters end with a sudden twist/cliff hanger without much build. It got old. As such, the prose is a little fatty, and I found myself skimming chapters just to find out what happens at the end, instead of cherishing what happens along the way.

Still, I was excited about getting to that ending, and I'm interested to find out what happens next. ...more

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