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Proper Gauge
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Wool: Discuss Book 2: Proper Gauge
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Rob, Roberator
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Apr 30, 2013 03:28AM
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For reference: Book 2: Proper Gauge consists ofChapters 8-13 of the omnibus.
Audible time 1:26:15 - 4:17:01.
I must say as I finished book 2, I am impressed at the author's willingness to kill off characters just as you get a comfort level with them. Many authors won't do this but it feels as Howey has done it to advance the bigger story and it all just fits, it makes sense. Just as the death of the sheriff in book 1 did. Really enjoying the story and watching how it all unfolds. On we go to book 3.
Aaron wrote: "I must say as I finished book 2, I am impressed at the author's willingness to kill off characters just as you get a comfort level with them. Many authors won't do this but it feels as Howey has do..."This was the big surprise to me when I read it. While lobbying for this to be a book of the month pick here I talked about Howey broke one of the rules in writing. What I was referring to was that he doesn't introduce the main protagonist until well into book. Most books you meet the main character early and you know that they will be who you follow. In Wool though you end up realizing that anyone can die at any time.
On thinking about what I just wrote I guess it makes sense why Howey did what he did as far as killing off main characters. He first wrote the first section as a stand alone single and didn't necessarily intend to write more in the series so it makes sense for that stories purpose to kill off the main character. Ditto for the second part. Its only after that probably when he realized this was popular to be an ongoing and he started planning characters on a longer term basis.
While book 2 set up a lot of interesting threads (I can do fiber metaphor too! :P ) It wasn't until book 3 that the story really started to hook me. Now I'm staying up later than I should, reading "just one more chapter." If you're on the fence about the story so far, keep going. It gets really interesting from Juliette's perspective.
Book 2 reads very much like a "middle book". The plot's primary purpose is to flesh out the setting and set up the major conflict of Book 3 and presumably the rest of the Omnibus (this perspective is based on just having started Book 4). I'd hold it up as a template of the right way to do a "middle book". It comes up with a plausible reason to do large infodumps on the setting--the Mayor's journey deep into parts of the silo she hasn't been to in years. It has a very nice and poignant character arc going through it that adds its own tension and interest. And it ends on an unresolved plot point that demands you follow through with the next book.
Book 2 was entertaining in a world building way, but meandered a bit compared to the tight plot of the first story. If reviewing this as a separate book I would only give it 3 stars.
I actually love reading world building so really enjoyed this, though i sort of expect a character to die at the end of each book now. Well off to see if that holds true in book 3
just finished book 2. i like it so far. I didn't at first, but it grew on me. it seems he wants to end a section with a death. I hope this doesn't continue. not because i don't like killing main characters (grrm killing people made me come to terms with it) but i don't want it to become a crutch. "oops, section ended. Need to kill someone."
Maybe because the first story was so good, the second story had a tough time living up to it. I wasn't as interested. It feels more like set up for the stories to come: the world building.The whole time I couldn't stop thinking, why don't they have elevators? Maybe they want to keep the sections of the silo separated from each other, but why not a dumbwaiter?
The most interesting thing that could happen in book 2 was (view spoiler)
I really enjoyed this segment. The journey to go down and find Juliette, get introduced to IT, etc. I really loved the mayor and the deputy. Yes, it was definitely intended to build a frame.It's at this point that we also should start thinking that what's going on is a whole hell of a lot bigger than just ... pulling the wool over everyone's eyes ... with fake images shown to people who go outside.
Also, we're already starting to side with certain factions, and we don't even know what's really going on (does anyone in the silo?).
This shit just got real, and it's gonna get deeper.
Mod
Even so I had to say I was suspicious when IT gave them water on the way down so I wasn't surprise.
I agree that this book feels more like a bit of a larger book than part oen did. But it's still largely self-contained, even if it has large hooks for the next book.
I really enjoyed the tour of the silo and love the world Howey built here. It had me searching for maps of the silo, of which I found none sadly.
I hope Howey and Whedon never meet. For their characters' sake.
Sorry for the spoiler. I think I'll go back and add a spoiler tag.
I'm absolutely loving this book. I find myself reading it whenever I can.
D. H. wrote: "The whole time I couldn't stop thinking, why don't they have elevators? Maybe they want to keep the sections of the silo separated from each other, but why not a dumbwaiter?"This is explained in Shift Omnibus which is the sequel / prequel to Wool. Shift starts out with the creators of the Silo and its explained why things were designed the way they were including why no elevators.
If you go on to Shift it starts hundreds of years before Wool but its not a continuous narrative so there will be time jumps where you follow new characters. The end of Shift finally moves forward past the end of Wool.
I agree with Tom in that I was highly suspicious of IT. Bernard seems to believe he is really running the silo, not the Mayor.Did anyone else get the feeling someone was going to die before we knew anything was wrong? To me, the optimistic tone felt too much like what Holsten expressed outside.
Well, on to Book 3.
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Even so I had to say I was suspicious when IT gave them water on the way down so I wasn't surp..."
Thanks DH although it doesn't need a spoiler tag. It was my own fault for reading this bit before I had actually finished. You did nothing wrong.
IN fact, you might want to remove the tags, because some people may feel it's a spoiler of later books. Spoilers of Book 2 should be OK in here.
I really liked this section. It was great to see a narrator that wasn't young. The forbidden love was great. Seeing them set out on the adventure through the silo to rekindle their youth was heartbreaking. It was a great way to introduce the world through the eyes of someone who loves where they live and the people in it.
If this was a standalone book, I'd have been disappointed - there's just too much world building, and too little happening. Taking 2 days to descend a spiral staircase serves only to highlight how stupid it is not to have at least a series of dumb waiters installed. It's not like they are lacking a big shaft in which to install it...Speaking of which, they are living in what is effectively a half-mile high column of air (using round numbers of 150 floors at 10ft per floor), and that has to be subject to considerable vertical microclimate variations both of temperature and pressure. Probably a condensation layer (ie clouds), thermal winds, pollution layers & variations in air quality... On the bottom floors, water boils at 102 degrees, standard atmospheric pressure is 1069 HPa, I'm sure this would have an impact on the people living there, just as living in a high altitude city has an impact. Yet despite the world building, I got no real feel for the depth to which they were descending.
We are now 0 for 2 in terms of central characters surviving their sections. This is starting to breed in me a mistrust of Howey, and a reluctance to attach to his characters. If it continues I might not bother with the next book.
As soon as Bernard said "you won't outlive the next sheriff" (paraphrased) followed by "fill up their water canteens" I thought to myself, just hit them over the head with a crowbar, why don't you.
IT seem to have established themselves as the villains. I'm guessing some form of coup is in our near future...
Mod
Given the trend so far, I hope she manages to survive the third book.
I'm surprised no one mentioned/is discussing the Mayor's dying thoughts that the poison was meant for the deputy.
Why would IT want to kill him? Because he suggested Jules? Or maybe they wanted him out of the way so he couldn't support the mayor and/or the new sheriff.
Can't wait to see what happens next.
Mod
Yeah that's interesting about the poison being meant for the deputy. Howey makes a point earlier of indicating that Bernard watched the Mayor and the Deputy handling each other's water. So I think he knew which bottle to poison.
Mod
Ah yeah. I missed that. Still it's a risk he kills the wrong person. Then again, maybe he considers there to be no downside.
I didn't really think about the problems with not having an elevator or dumbwaiter until someone else mentioned it. Having people walk everywhere didn't really bother me since power is valuable and there are a lot of communities where people walk everywhere. But, as I began to think about it I realized that it really doesn't make sense in terms of moving supplies. There are a lot of different floors that have heavy machinery. And as someone who works with heavy machinery, I can't imagine carrying that kind of stuff up and down stairs. It just isn't practical for a person or a group of people to try to carry that type of stuff up/down stairs. They really need a freight elevator :-)
I think the slow pacing put emphasis on the mission the Jahns and Marnes embarked upon.I also picked up on the way down that Howey drew attention to the refilling of the canteens on the way down. I had suspicions then..
IT are certainly furthering their controlling arm. With the deletion of previous uprising in book 1, and now an attempt to influence the top dogs in the Silo.
Jules is a brilliant character too. Reminds me of my wife! haha.
Tom wrote: "Yeah that's interesting about the poison being meant for the deputy. Howey makes a point earlier of indicating that Bernard watched the Mayor and the Deputy handling each other's water. So I think he knew which bottle to poison. "Sharp reading, I didn't pick up on that, will have to re-read that bit. I'd thought they'd only started switching water bottle drinking after they'd left IT on the way back up. I'd read it as IT wanting to kill the Deputy as a sort of warning, or to get their own chap in as the new deputy, but now the ramifications of killing the Mayor instead are much greater, calling much more intention to themselves than they'd wanted. Either way works of course, and sets things up nicely for book 3...
Mod
That was my issue as well. I didn't notice when they left the first time, they were packing each other's water, and Bernard took note of it.
When reading the second story I was trying to take in just how immense the silo complex is. Howey mentions each step on the spiral staircase is 10 inches high. Taking this into consideration as well as the fact that Jahns used a walking stick I estimated each level to be roughly 150 feet in depth. This means the complex is roughly 6 miles or more deep. What I got from this story was my outlook of a business in general. That the most important people in any organization are those in the lower echelons. It shows just how many people it takes to pay the salaries of those in the top levels. If the lower levels collapse then the functionality and viability of the entire organization is affected.
A quote from The Breakfast Club kept springing to mind. Brian : Did you know without trigonometry, there'd be no engineering? Bender : Without lamps there would be no light.
I agree with others who say the first 2 stories are a bit slow. I, too, feel he hit his stride by story 3.
I do love that this is not a dialogue driven story. It is a rare thing as of late.
Not sure that can be right - the temperatures and pressures would be massive. The deepest of the deep mines today is only 2.4 miles (3.9km) and the ambient temperature down there is something like 60 degrees C. And the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Just think about the crushing pressure on submarines in deep water and translate that to rock...
I liked this section. It was really slow though, but ended with some excitement. Something about how this guy writes I really like. Just keeps me involved and it has a flow I can get into. I felt the exact opposite when I was reading Dragonflight, the writing really turned me off along with the story.
It has been a good book so far.
Rob wrote: ".I'm surprised no one mentioned/is discussing the Mayor's dying thoughts that the poison was meant for the deputy.Why would IT want to kill him? Because he suggested Jules? Or maybe they wanted him out of the way so he couldn't support the mayor and/or the new sheriff..."
What is a greater punishment? Death or guilt over your lover dying?
I love the fact that he kills off the first main character after some development. Really adds a dark feel to the book.
Tim wrote: "Howey mentions each step on the spiral staircase is 10 inches high. Taking this into consideration as well as the fact that Jahns used a walking stick I estimated each level to be roughly 150 feet in depth. This means the complex is roughly 6 miles or more deep."I'm not sure I follow. Did he mention somewhere that there were (150 feet)*(12 inches)/(10 inches per step) = 180 steps per level?
I'd think more like 10 feet per level. At 146 levels this would be 1460 feet or just over a quarter of a mile. Is a quarter mile deep for a mine?
I think somewhere (maybe in a later book, maybe in Shift) he mentions 30 feet per level, or 30 feet of something separating the levels, or something like that. Anyway something in between the 6 mile and 1/4 mile estimates sounds right to me.
If it were above ground, it would be the tallest building in the world ... but not several times taller than the tallest!
Somewhere above I estimated half a mile, but that was based on an inability to divide 1500 by 5280 (who said maths was a necessary skill?)6 miles is impossibly deep, purely based on temperatures and pressures. 2 miles is very improbable, since that's still considered "extremely deep" by current standards, and none of Howey's description suggests any of the problems associated with that kind of depth.
10ft, while the standard above ground floor spacing is probably too small underground, where you'd want an extra margin to allow for flaws in the bedrock (assuming each floor is just tunnelled out, and they don't build their own floors & ceilings in a big void). So a 3x safety factor seems reasonable (based on ignorance), which would mean a depth to the bottom of 0.83 miles (4380ft). It's about as deep as Meteor Crater is wide. That certainly seems plausible (again, based on ignorance).
I adored this story, and something I am noting is how quickly I'm getting attached or at least interested in the characters. I know who these people are, and I'm interested in what happens to them. The two characters who have died lead me wondering what effects their ghosts will have, how their actions will be reflected in future stories.I think the story stands alone in that there is a definite thread to follow throughout: the story of the relationship between Jahns and Marnes. I loved the way we first got subtle hints of a connection between them which built until we really wanted to know why these two were not together, and only then discovered the story of Jahns' marriage to Marnes' now deceased best friend. That was wonderfully done.
I'm very interested in finding out more about IT. So far they have definitely been set up as villains, but I feel like their is more to the story than that.
Great pick this month.
I really enjoyed this part of the story but I didn't see the mayor or the deputy as main characters. I could feel the author using them as plot elements as I was reading them. You could almost feel like he was using them as motivational elements for Juliette. I love Juliette so far she just seems like a very strong woman and I am looking forward to how he fleshes her out.
Tim wrote: "... the temperatures and pressures would be massive. The deepest of the deep mines today is only 2.4 miles (3.9km) and the ambient temperature down there is something like ..."I agree that 6 miles would be impossibly deep. The description, however, implies that going down just a few levels takes hours. This is without having to press through traffic. Let's not even get to the point brought up in the 3rd story about distance.
As a side note, taking into consideration the population of the silo shouldn't there be 2 staircases, one up and one down? Am I just being too logical?
Tim wrote: "As a side note, taking into consideration the population of the silo shouldn't there be 2 staircases, one up and one down? Am I just being too logical? "I'm pretty sure that you can go either direction since they are foot-powered. ;)
It does seem a little odd that they've got all sorts of redundancy and backup systems, but only one staircase.Distance is likely to be a factor of the diameter of the shaft and thus the effective pitch of the spiral, and whether each landing has the the same orientation (e.g. North), or whether they are staggered at 90 or 180 degree intervals or something else entirely (if those factors are mentioned in the book, then I missed them).
The stairway thing gets even more interesting during Shift, so keep reading!
Did I read write that they have the ability to dig deeper. How big do you think each floor is?
For the depth issue of the silo, I'm going to suspend my disbelief about temperature and pressure. It is most certainly more than 10ft per level if it takes 2 hours to go 20 levels in high traffic though. I used to work in a mine and it would take me about 3 hours to climb down 2000 feet worth of ladders and checking up on equipment on the way down.I'd give a guess that each level is about 100ft each, the whole silo being 3 miles deep.
Ruth wrote: "...relationship between Jahns and Marnes. I loved the way we first got subtle hints of a connection between them which built until we really wanted to know why these two were not together, and only then discovered the story of Jahns' marriage to Marnes' now deceased best friend. That was wonderfully done."I agree! Their relationship was beautifully set up. I was probably more attached to these two characters than I was with anyone else in the book - we took the long journey with them, and watched as they rediscovered old feelings for each other and tried to work out what it meant. The world-building in this section was great, but this brought an emotional center to the trip that I loved.
(And then, as Tom said earlier, we got Joss Whedoned. Hard.)
Sophie wrote: "For the depth issue of the silo, I'm going to suspend my disbelief about temperature and pressure. It is most certainly more than 10ft per level if it takes 2 hours to go 20 levels in high traffic ..."I read their slow tackling of the stairs as being due to their age, porters were zipping by them all the time... I was on the stair climber machine at the gym yesterday and sure I did 42 floors pretty quickly but I'm young and that was assuming 10ft ish floors most likely. I admit I was pretty dead and wouldn't have wanted to do any more. :p
Is it too early to decide that Bernard and IT are who is rebelled against throughout history and that they need to die?
Katie wrote: "Sophie wrote: "For the depth issue of the silo, I'm going to suspend my disbelief about temperature and pressure. It is most certainly more than 10ft per level if it takes 2 hours to go 20 levels i..."I have a theory that different floors are probably thicker than others. Apartment floors are probably about 10ft, but Mechanical or the farms? I'd bet anything that they'd need more height. Also, for stability sake, the deeper you go, the more support is needed for everything on top, so "dead space" or unexcavated rock between levels would increase the deeper you went.
I doubt Howey put that much thought into it, but it's my headcanon xD
Some of the world building in this section really didn't work for me. I am another member of the "why the frak don't they have dumbwaiters?!?" crowd. But, also, at one point a porter runs past carrying garbage for the recycling center and I'm thinking, "why isn't there just a garbage chute?" It might sound nitpicky, but there were more than a couple of these little things that just bugged me.I felt the water poisoning was very telegraphed. Bernard seems so obviously evil just on their first meeting that I really thought he would poison their canteen water on the trip down.
My love of the first "book" helped carry me through this one. Also, the character, unlike some elements of the silo, are very well built. The relationship between Jahns and Marnes is compelling. And I think the introduction of Juliette is well done.
I'll be interested to see if we get a definitive answer on whether Bernard was trying to kill Jahns, Marnes, or both of them. If he saw they were both drinking from the same canteen, did he think the poison would kill them both? Would he be happy just to have either one of them out of the way?
Yeah, I'm looking forward to a good old-fashioned revelation sequence from Bernard, as cliché as it can be.
