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teenageread · 2 months

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Review: Wool Omnibus

Synopsis:

This Omnibus Edition collects the five Wool books into a single volume. It is for those who arrived late to the party and who wish to save a dollar or two while picking up the same stories in a single package.

The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months. My thanks go out to those reviewers who clamored for more. Without you, none of this would exist. Your demand created this as much as I did.

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

Plot:

For the entire population, there has not been life outside of the silo. One hundred and forty-four floors, the silo was their home, with the only idea to the outside world being at the top, only giving light for the first few floors. Rules are stricken, everyone has a job to benefit the silo, one that they shadowed for when they were teenagers, and claimed when they were old enough. Jobs from the IT department, farms, mechanics to keep the generator running, to the sheriff and their deputy, and finally the mayor. This is all Holston had known, as he was sheriff of the silo. Him and his wife Allison had won the lottery, meaning that they had the entire year to try to get pregnant, their one chance of getting a child. That was the year his wife died. Stricken by a sort of madness, Allison broke the laws of the silo and was sentenced to their only punishment: The Cleaning. The Cleaning was for those who broke the law and were sent out to clean the lens of dirt and dust that had gathered there from the last cleaning. They are, in a way, scrubbing their sins away. The Cleaning is a death sentence, as after the lenses were clean you were trapped outside until the natural world took you away. Bodies lined the hill from past cleanings until the dirt covered them as well. Three years ago, Holston watched his wife do the cleaning, and now it is his turn. His job as the sheriff was to uphold the law of the silo, and yet he was the one who broke it. Holston's oldest friend Mayor Jahns knew why Holston did it. The Holston she knew died three years ago with his wife, and this was just an empty shell of a man. It was her job as mayor to find a new sheriff, as Deputy Marnes was unwilling to move up. For Jahns that does not matter as she already has the girl in mind for the job: Juliette. Smart, confident, and hardworking Juliette has been working as a mechanic since she was a shadow. Now one of the only ones to keep the electricity running, Jahns believes Juliette will be willing to make the tough choices to do what is best for the silo, exactly as a sheriff should. Juliette on the other hand does not like the job, she rather be stuck at the bottom of the silo, than have an office at the tippity-top. Still convinced by Jahns that she could actually change something, Juliette agrees and begins her ascent. Life at the top is not what she expected, learning the truth about the silo and more, Juliette puts everyone she knows at risk, not just from the law, but at risk for another uprising.

Thoughts:

At first no one was willing to publish Hugh Howey's work. Self-publishing short stories, Howey got noticed by the internet and his story skyrocketed. Now on the New York Times bestseller list and nominated for many awards, this story makes the top five science fiction books on Amazon. Wool the first in the trilogy was what you would expect: lots of background, slow, and introducing all the characters and their back story. Divided into five parts, each is a little story of their own taking the point of view from Holston, Jahns, Juliette, Benard, Lukas and more as the story progresses. Not such a high rating? Well the story was plot dense, meaning lots of information, and backstory but not a lot of action. Getting the Omnibus version (all five books at one) makes this story five hundred pages of purely nothing. Near the fourth and fifth part is where things start “heating up” (so from nothing to some bubbles) but by this point you are already four hundred and some pages in and would rather be done and rush the ending, then take the time to enjoy it. The concept of this sci-fi world is interesting, making it a memorable post-apocalyptic story that still has more to go.