September 2021 BotM - Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey

[Jim]

The Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey is our September 2021 read for the 2000 & up reading period. IIRC, Howey started as a self-published author & became one of the few who was picked up by an established publisher. The omnibus is the first 3 of his Wool novelettes packed together into one book.

[Leo]

It took me a while to find out what the structure was of this series. Series is called 'Silo'. Silo contains the works 'Wool', 'Shift' and 'Dust'. This is the reading order, but if I'm right Shift is a prequel for Wool.
Wool and Shift each are series on their own. Wool contains 5 stories, Shift has 3. Apparantly Howey has announced recently that he is writing a next book in the Wool series.
So, we're reading an omnibus, but it's only the first book in a series of 3. I started early because I wanted to read the whole Silo series. But I'm finding out it is a lot of pages alltogether and the story is developing rather slowly. I will see how far I will get.

[Jim]

I guess I didn't remember correctly. I do remember really liking it & plan to reread it with the group since it's been 7 years since I last read it.

I guess I should have read my own review:
Apparently this was published in 5 parts, the first a short story that was haunting. The second was OK & it got better with each episode until the final piece, much longer than the first, was hard to put down.

I've read a lot of post apocalyptic SF & was surprised at how new & different this was in many ways. It actually surprised me at one point. That's unusual. It took a fairly standard trope & twisted it into something new.

[Ed]

Leo wrote: "... Wool contains 5 stories ..."

The first story can stand alone. So you can read only that one story if you wish. It was popular, so he wrote more. Then the whole collection was popular so he wrote others.

I read the entirety of "Wool" and enjoyed it. It isn't the most original story in the world. It feels a lot like classic SF, mixed maybe with some ideas from videogames. But it is entertaining.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I'm still finishing this one - I've got probably another week or two to go. The first part was the worst of the bunch. It's over-written and slow, but the extra little twist at the end did make me smile. The second part was also slow and over-written, focusing more on "world building" or lengthy descriptions of the silo itself and how it is set up. It was somewhere around the third part that I started enjoying the story, although the author still uses three sentences where one would do just fine.

[Dan]

I checked out Wool from the library and thought, initially, it was, at 500+ pages, only the "first installment." I thought, "No way I'm reading the "omnibus" on this one. Then, surprise, I find out the short parts within the novel are actually the five installments.

Like RJ notes, my biggest issue with the series is the author's redundant redundancy and obsession with painfully describing and repeating the most pedestrian, meaningless details. He repeats the same thing; repetition is what he does over and over and over. He'll describe something, and he'll describe it again. He repeats a lot.

[Papaphilly]

This is not the perfect book. It has its flaws. Yet, I enjoyed it immensely and it is truly character driven. I really like the world building and the repetition is both irritating and a useful tool to show the repetitive lives these characters live.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

The part I enjoyed most is how the silo is stratified in a reflection of class society, with the mechanics and blue collar types down below. There are some very interesting thoughts woven in here when viewed as a metaphor for society as a whole.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

But of course the most unbelievable thing was the IT Dept. Come on! You really expect me to believe that IT could do all this without anyone filling out a ticket first? Most IT departments at companies I've worked for can't do anything more exciting than organize a 64-player deathmatch in Call of Duty. ;-)

[Ed]

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "But of course the most unbelievable thing was the IT Dept. ..."

IT at large companies is incredibly bureaucratic, but so is everything in large companies. In smaller companies they can be very efficient.

[Dan]

I'm with you RJ: As a current cog in a bureaucratic machine, the IT department is the least organized. For my money, if any group has the savviness to maintain order from the shadows and enforce compliance proactively, it's the fine folks in payroll...

[Papaphilly]

As with anything, it is forced to work. The book does explore and explain the bureaucratic problems including trying to fix things. I love the idea of the runners. I also love the idea of cleaning of the glass lens.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Dan wrote: "For my money, if any group has the savviness to maintain order from the shadows and enforce compliance proactively, it's the fine folks in payroll..."

Oh you're not kidding. The Accounting Department rules most companies the same way they have sex: with an Iron Fist. Middle Management is terrified of Accounting.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

And as for IT, I often joke with my friends that the IT Help Manual looks like this:

Step One: Advise user to restart their machine

Step Two: If step one does not fix the problem, advise user to get under their desk and wiggle all the wires.

Step Three: If step two does not fix the problem or successfully electrocute the employee, advise them to create a ticket.

Step Four: Go back to sleep.

[Jim]

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "And as for IT, I often joke with my friends that the IT Help Manual looks like this: ..."

That seems like a good plan!
:)

[Ed]

I just literally told a user to restart. So, I'm at step one.

[Infosifter]

I just started this, and the idea that outcasts have to clean the viewing screens is making me so furious that I'm vividly imagining dancing in front of the windows while waving my hands and yelling Na-na-na-na-na! There's no earthly way I would clean those windows! Am I the only ruthless rebel?

[Leo]

I still don't understand why they all clean the screens. And I also don 't get why the people don't clean them wearing a protective suit and go back inside afterward.

[Papaphilly]

Leo wrote: "I still don't understand why they all clean the screens. And I also don 't get why the people don't clean them wearing a protective suit and go back inside afterward."

Kellie wrote: "I just started this, and the idea that outcasts have to clean the viewing screens is making me so furious that I'm vividly imagining dancing in front of the windows while waving my hands and yellin..."


I thought about this aspect long and hard when I read it. First: if you do not clean the screen, someone else will be forced into the same situation. The condemned understand this and this is their last action to try and extend another life as theirs was extended. Remember, when is someone put out? Just as the screen becomes useless. If you dance around and flip them the finger, maybe the next one will be you family or lover. Second: It is the last act for the Silo. Everyone has a role to fulfill as does the condemned. You do your role, it is expected. This is ritual. Rituals are taught and developed.

[Infosifter]

If the condemned know this, then they know that people are being thrown out unjustly simply to clean a window! Unthinkable, and any society that would do it should end the sooner the better!

[Leo]

Papaphilly wrote: "First: if you do not clean the screen, someone else will be forced into the same situation. ..."
Good thinking, you came up with more than I could. But I think this was not exactly the case? People are sent out because they did someting wrong. And on your way to sudden death, you are asked to clean the screen please. Like Kellie I think I'd refuse politely. And probably find a nice stone to give the screen another treatment.
I just started Shift this morning in the train to work. And in the first pages another question bothering me was answered right away: why do only a few people know of the history of the Silos? So maybe continuing the series brings me the answer of the cleaning question too.

[Infosifter]

I think the silo is a better metaphor for a large company than for a society in general because there are a lot of obvious holes in the logic of the development of things. For example, why are there no elevator platforms, even for moving cargo? I know this can be done with pulleys, so lack of power from the generator doesn't answer the question. And why are people sleeping stacked in bunkrooms in one area and leaving big open conference rooms unused in others? Wouldn't you reconfigure the internal spaces as needed? And what's with the obsession with quiet in the nursery? Neither childbirth nor caring for infants are quiet processes, or even processes that require quiet at least not on the level demanded. Is it all just rules for the sake of rules and busywork to keep peoples minds off the things someone wants their minds kept off?And why on earth would you forbid thoughts of the outside while centering your whole society around a viewport ??? That seems insanely paradoxical! It's funny; I'm usually the person who can overlook all kinds of major plot holes when I like a story, so not sure why these seem so glaring to me, or, since I'm so frustrated with all of these details, why I'm so compelled to keep on reading! I hope I get some answers to at least some of these questions at some point…

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Leo wrote: "I still don't understand why they all clean the screens. And I also don 't get why the people don't clean them wearing a protective suit and go back inside afterward."

IT confuses the cleaner by showing them a screen that fools them into thinking the outside is actually green and beautiful. They clean the screens to try to show everyone inside how wonderful it is outside. Then they die because their suit is made to fail and they can't survive outside. I don't think they would be allowed back inside anyway, even if they tried to get back in and their suit would last. And they would need to survive the fire-purification in the airlock which their suit is definitely not designed for.

Kellie wrote: "If the condemned know this, then they know that people are being thrown out unjustly simply to clean a window! Unthinkable, and any society that would do it should end the sooner the better!"

Very true. I wonder if the author means us to view this metaphorically and look at the injustices administered by authority figures in our own world.

[Leo]

Kellie wrote: "why are there no elevator platforms, even for moving cargo?..."
In Shift I just read there were elevators, in the beginning. So I guess in time something happened and they had to be removed or just broke down.

[Leo]

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "IT confuses the cleaner by showing them a screen that fools them into thinking the outside is actually green and beautiful. They clean the screens to try to show everyone inside how wonderful it is outside. ..."

Ah. I wondered why bother to make that little screen, because people seeing it die in a minute anyway. So it is to make them clean. Well, that raises other questions but I'm starting to suspect it's best for my appreciation of the book to leave some of those a question :-)

[Infosifter]

Agreed, some things here just don't make logical sense. If I thought it was beautiful outside, I would take my helmet off to prove it to myself before I tried to prove it to those on the inside by cleaning. Also, the outcasts know that after every cleaning the outdoor landscape appears the same, so they should realize that something is amiss and the cleaning wouldn't change anything on the inside. Still, this series is fascinating in a unique way and despite all the nagging questions I'm continuing with it, and will probably read the rest of the Silo series.

[Oleksandr]

I started the book as so far quite interesting. There are a lot of books that thread in RAH's path of multi-generation ships top get a closed society, so an alternative Fallout-like setting sound interesting

[Oleksandr]

My review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I mention handwavium but don't spoil it in the review. I have one big - the very idea of using defect parts to guarantee cleaners' death is wrong - they can drop before cleaning or live till they are behind a horizon. Much easier way it to have some kill switch in them!

A much smaller issue is that after Juliette went quite deep under water, she had no problems with fast accent - no decompression sickness caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompression.

[Dan]

It's those little nits in this rug, isn't it? The problem is the author creates "rules" so he can provide drama and conflict when characters become victims to them or rise to challenge them. Hell, all fiction is basically that, but Hugh's "rules," by and large, make little logical sense and so, for me at least, the drama never feels real because the situation doesn't make much sense in the first place: "We live in a Silo, we have a lot of stairs, we sentence people to die by exiling them outside and hope they'll clean the lens of the cameras so we can climb those stairs for picnics looking at the dreary scenery outside through cleaner lenses."

I enjoy the characters, and I enjoy portions of the novel where the action is ratcheted up and well-paced, but the underlying bedrock of the whole drama is cracked to start with.

[Kateblue]

I guess I also read 5 "installments"

I agree with the "slow" comments, but I still found it worth reading. Here's my review. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And Z, you are so right. I agree that decompression should have been a problem when Juliette swam back up. But even worse, I think that she would have run out of air long before she resurfaced, given the description of the length of her downward travel

Leo wrote: "In Shift I just read there were elevators, in the beginning. So I guess in time something happened and they had to be removed or just broke down.."

Or they weren't fixed because elevators allowed to much mobility of information and rebels.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I thought about the "bends" during that section of the book but to be honest I didn't find it less believable than many other things in the book, so I ignored it.

[Oleksandr]

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I thought about the "bends" during that section of the book but to be honest I didn't find it less believable than many other things in the book, so I ignored it."

I guess that reading SF, the ultimate 'what if' calls for suspension of disbelief, but e.g. for me currently non-scientific faster than light drives are ok, but naked unmodified people walking the Moon aren't

[Papaphilly]

What is wrong with naked people?...8^)

[Oleksandr]

Papaphilly wrote: "What is wrong with naked people?...8^)"

But he Earthlings will see them watching in the sky :)

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Oleksandr wrote: "I guess that reading SF, the ultimate 'what if' calls for suspension of disbelief, but e.g. for me currently non-scientific faster than light drives are ok, but naked unmodified people walking the Moon aren't"

I get ya, and I agree. By the time we got to the underwater part I just had already abandoned the idea that anything in the book was really going to be realistic, so I kind of chuckled and let that one go.