Shift and Dust are parts two and three (respectively) in the Silo trilogy. I read and reviewed part one, Wool, in 2013; and about a year ago, met the author, Hugh Howey, when he came to Seattle for a live recording of the Slate Audio Book Club.

I read both last month while on my first real business trip (so fancy, I know) and they’re fantastic airplane reads. Easy to read and absorbing – I had read about 200 pages of Shift when I noticed the plane had started to descend and I thought, “really?! It feels like I just sat down!”

But first, I must warn you: though I tried not to include spoilers for Wool in this review, it’s difficult to review parts two and three in a series with absolutely zero minor spoilers for book one.

As I mentioned in my review of Wool, these books were recommended for readers who liked Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy. While I saw similarities in the first book of each series, I can copy/paste some of what I wrote from my review of book two in regards to Shift:

[This book] begins by doubling back in time … We learn what became of a few characters who had been introduced in the first book but whose stories had yet to be told. There’s a lot of back-story in this story, but finally we move to the crux of the plot, [which picks up where book one left off.]

Dust follows a more linear path to conclude the story, but jumps between the two central storylines. There are a number of loose ends left to tie up in the final part of the story, and Howey addresses all of them, although not every single one comes to a satisfying ending.

What I Liked

As I said in my review of Wool, Howey is a smart writer with incredible attention to detail in this story. The closest comparison I can make is J.K. Rowling – do you remember reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and thinking, “wow, great plot twist,” and then getting to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and realizing, “that wasn’t a mere plot twist, that was the setup for the entire rest of the series!!”

I would put the silo saga on par with that – even seemingly inconsequential details are intricately woven into the plot. Every time one of these details came up again later in the series, I was excited and delighted to realize that was important all along.

The details also kept me engaged in the story even after I’d finished reading – to give you a specific example, we meet Donald in the near-present-day portion of Shift and he notices the way another character uses his napkin. Later, a third character, Troy, starts using his napkin differently. Later, when I was sitting down to eat and reached for my napkin, it clicked – the napkin was a symbol for the connection between the two characters.

What I Didn’t Like

Howey employs the style of novel writing where every other chapter focuses on a different character’s story. There are three main characters over the course of the silo saga – Juliette, who we met in Wool is only mentioned in Shift and returns as the central character in Dust. Donald, around whom Shift is focused is still an important character in Dust. And Solo, who we met as a secondary character in Wool, becomes a central character in Shift before returning to a secondary role in Dust.

In other words, the story jumps between countless plot threads. I find this particular style of writing frustrating to read because every scene change takes me out of the story to recall what was happening at the end of the last scene change. I give Howey a bit of a pass on this, because it did work to create a world that was big and complex for the story to unfold.

But on that note, I think that for the magnitude of the world in this story, the ending was too small. Honestly, I was left wondering if Howey gave up on it, or if he deliberately wrote a small scale ending, knowing that Kindle Worlds was in the works. Kindle Worlds allows writers to write and (self) publish stories set in the world of existing novels, and the silo saga is one of them. This might be cynical of me to say, but I have to wonder if that influenced the way that Howey concluded his series.

In Conclusion

I enjoyed both Shift and Dust – they were quick reads, but thoroughly engaging. I have to say that of the three books in the series, Wool is probably the best, but the later volumes add to the proceedings by telling the back story and reaching a conclusion for the central characters.

As a footnote, I always conclude my book reviews with a link to a reputable source for reviews – preferably Publisher’s Weekly or Library Journal. Perhaps a habit leftover from college writing classes, but it makes me feel like my reviews are more “legit,” because I took the time to peruse the professionals’ reviews. Because Shift and Dust were self-published, neither was reviewed in trade publications. Shift was reviewed by The Guardian; Dust by TeleRead (owned by the National American Publishing Company.)

Nearly a year ago, I summarized my reading list from 2013 and mentioned that most of my favorite reads had been post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels. I included two titles from the genre that I hadn’t yet read but planned to … then I promptly forgot about them.

In the lobby of my condo building is a take one/leave one communal bookshelf, which I rarely take from or contribute to as I don’t seem to share the same taste in fiction as many of my neighbors. However, I was in the lobby checking my mailbox one day last month, and spotted a familiar-looking cover out of the corner of my eye – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – one of the books I’d been meaning to read since last December!

source

Never Let Me Go tells the story of a futuristic society that relies on clones for organ donations. One such clone, Kathy, has spent a number of years as a caretaker for other donors, but learns that her time as a “carer” is coming to an end. She reflects back on her life, particularly her memories of her closest friends, Tommy and Ruth.

The novel is split into three parts – in essence: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Kathy narrates the story from her adult perspective, so while the plot is mostly linear, the revelations about her place in the world are woven throughout the story.

What I Liked

First and foremost, I really liked Kathy. She’s sweet and relatable, and a little naive, which makes her the perfect narrator to tell this story. Instead of relying on long winded exposition, which post-apocalyptic novels often fall prey to, most of the explanation of this novel’s world comes through Kathy’s interactions with the other characters.

Also, and this might be a weird thing to like about a novel, I really enjoyed the way it was organized. Every chapter contained a little revelation. Sometimes, it was a character confessing to their true feelings, but most of the time, Kathy and her friends learned something about their world that tested their beliefs. Ishiguro revealed just enough at just the right times, and I was torn between wanting to read slowly to savor it, and read quickly to learn what else would be divulged.

What I Didn’t Like

I really didn’t like Ruth. She was meant to play antagonist to Kathy, so I don’t feel like I *should have* liked her, but I thought the contrast between the two characters was a little too stark. One of the major plot points centers around Ruth tracking down a woman she’d seen in the “real world.” It was necessary to move the plot along, but I didn’t feel like it was fitting of the other characters’ (particularly Kathy’s) behavior to 1. go along with it, and 2. not question Ruth. After this point, Kathy starts to distrust Ruth, so I as a reader, did too, which later made it hard to understand Kathy’s motivation to reconnect with her.

Lastly, while I enjoyed the little chapter-by-chapter revelations throughout the book, every chapter ended with a rather obvious cliffhanger. It was frustrating, because while they worked to keep me reading and engaged, they were a little repetitive and kind of heavy-handed.

In Conclusion

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a really poignant story of someone looking back on her life with a little regret, a little questioning the “what could’ve been”s, but a lot of contentment.

I haven’t yet seen the movie (because I never watch a movie adapted from a book before I’ve read the book unless I’m 100% sure that I’m never going to read the book!) but I hope to, soon, mostly because I like the actors who played Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy.

I returned the copy back to the communal bookshelf in my building’s lobby, and it disappeared after a day or two (unlike some of the cheesy mysteries that’ve languished for … probably as long as I’ve lived there!) But then I spotted on my own bookshelf a copy of Remains of the Day, an earlier novel by Ishiguro, that I plan to read next because I so enjoyed Never Let Me Go.

Here’s the link to the starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.

Bel Canto is that book – the one that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years, that I’ve picked up three or four times but never actually gotten around to reading, that people kept telling me to read because it’s so wonderful, that makes me feel a little guilty every time I see it on the shelf. Finally, I picked it up and actually read it!

It tells the story of the birthday party thrown for Mr. Hosokawa, a Japanese businessman, in an unnamed South American country. The partygoers are taken hostage by a group of terrorists set on kidnapping the country’s president, but the kidnapping goes awry since the president couldn’t be bothered to show up to the party. The terrorists instead take the party guests hostage and everyone lives together under one roof until they can come up with an alternate solution.

This is the second Ann Patchett novel I’ve read; the first was The Magician’s Assistant, which (as I said in my review) was a character story without much plot. Bel Canto was the next book she wrote, and she upped her game: there are more characters, more plot points, more moving parts, and for the most part, all are well written and flushed out. At the core, though, both books are about the same thing: the relationships that form under unlikely circumstances.

What I Liked

The best thing that Bel Canto has going for it is the character Gen, who is Mr. Hosokawa’s translator. In the beginning of the novel, he is just a conduit for characters who don’t speak the same language to communicate, but as the story progresses, he becomes the central character. The way that Patchett incorporated this development is pretty brilliant: in the beginning of the novel, his backstory starts at the moment that he met Mr. Hosokawa, and his dialogue as translator is mostly missing from the writing. When the character comes into his own, we learn the rest of his backstory, and his dialogue as translator is included. Again, I think this is genius writing on Patchett’s part – it’s a subtle shift, but there’s a moment when the character stops being Mr. Hosokawa’s translator and starts being his own person.

And while we’re on the subject of Patchett’s writing, she narrates in third person omniscient, which is so effective in this story. It’s my opinion as a reader that third person omniscient can be horrible, boring and pretentious to read. Patchett uses it sparingly, but effectively, only a couple of times stepping aside from the events of the novel to say things like “here’s what will happen at the end of the ordeal,” or “he would think fondly of this night when he looked back on it in the future.”

What I Didn’t Like

The other main character is the opera singer, Roxanne Coss, and maybe it’s because I just recently read the New Yorker profile of Scarlett Johansson and the critical responses by the likes of Slate and the LA Times, but I’m left feeling like this character was underwritten. Maybe this was intentional on Patchett’s part, but there’s a stark contrast to how Gen started as a translator and became a flushed out and multidimensional character and Roxanne started as an opera singer with whom all the men fell in love and ended exactly the same.

In Conclusion

I liked Bel Canto … but between the several people hounding me to read it and how much I loved the other Patchett novel, I had very high expectations and it just couldn’t quite meet them. It’s a lovely, well-written book, and if you haven’t already read it, it’s definitely worth reading. I just don’t want to build it up too much, because it doesn’t quite live up to the expectations that I had going in.

Here’s the link to the Publisher’s Weekly review.

I know this is the second book review I’ve posted in a week, but I’ve been reading a lot lately – mostly due to being laid up with a cough that I can’t shake. That part sucks, but the good news is I chose some great reading materials.

Ann Patchett’s The Magician’s Assistant is the story of Sabine, who has just been widowed by the man with whom she made her living performing magic. They had an unconventional relationship, and after his death, she learns of his family in Nebraska who he’d kept secret from her for their twenty-two years together. Sabine is devastated to find this out, but she decides to meet them, and gradually becomes involved in their lives.

There isn’t a whole lot to describe in the way of plot: this is the story of a woman coming to terms with her husband’s death and finding out that she didn’t know him as well as she’d thought.

What I Liked

Can I say everything? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be exaggerating by much if I said so. As I’ve said, it isn’t a plot-driven novel, but there’s still a story to be told, and Patchett tells it well. The characters are the crux of the story – they’re all well flushed out, they’re interesting, they’re people who I wanted to hang out with and get to know over the course of the novel.

One of my favorite things about reading this book was the way dreams were incorporated. Sabine never dreamt before her husband passed, but suddenly begins to have vivid dreams in which she learns more about him and tries to reconnect with him. The dreams themselves aren’t what impressed me, but moreso the way Patchett wrote them: all the action in the book is written in the past tense; the dream sequences are written in the present tense. This simple switch in tenses made it so uncomplicated to read.

What I Didn’t Like

This is kind of a cop-out, because it’s as much a commendation of the writing as it is complaint, but it drove me crazy how Patchett would describe Sabine performing magic tricks without explaining the trick! It’s very clever and well done, and left me feeling like I was watching a magic show: I knew there was a trick to it and wanted to know how it was done, but she never said!!

Actually, there was one element of the story that didn’t quite work for me – Sabine is wary of meeting her husband’s family, but as soon as they show up, she’s driving them around Los Angeles and inviting them into her home. I’m willing to give it a pass, because, well, the story wouldn’t have gone anywhere if she hadn’t, and Patchett does subtly remind her reader that Sabine is grieving and not making fully rational decisions.

***

In Conclusion

I can’t say enough how much I loved this book. It’s easily one of the best that I’ve read this year.

Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review – here’s the link.

Both of my parents are fans of Patchett’s books, and my mom lent me her copy of The Magician’s Assistant … um, maybe two years ago?! My dad and I were talking recently about The Twelve and he mentioned that Patchett is one of his favorite authors, and I remembered that I’ve had copies of two of her books that I borrowed from mom and/or dad sitting on my bookshelf. Now that I’ve read this, I can’t believe I put off reading it for as long as I did. I’m excited to read more of her novels.

In June, while I sat in the LA airport reading, Joel was in Portland at Powell’s Books, where he picked up a copy of Wool. The next day, since I’d finished my book on the plane and needed something new to read, I ordered a copy of The Passage, not knowing about Joel’s purchase the day before.

When the package came from Amazon, I tore it open excitedly and showed Joel my new book. He was surprised. I asked why. Well, here’s what Amazon recommends for people who enjoyed The Passage.

And what they recommend for people who enjoyed Wool.

We’re not a particularly romantic couple, but there are times like this when we’re on the exact same wavelength and I am sure we’re perfect for each other.

… That was a very long lead in to a post that actually has little to do with our relationship, other than the fact that we’ve taken to saying “you should read XYZ book when I’m finished with it. I think you’ll like it.”

I finally got around to reading Wool a couple weeks ago, and both Joel and Amazon were right in predicting I’d enjoy it.

It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, where Earth’s atmosphere has turned too toxic to support life, and the remaining population lives in an underground structure called a silo. It’s hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, because Howey introduces some plot twists in even the earliest chapters, but here’s what I will say: Wool contains all the necessary elements of a good dystopian tale. There’s a class system, access to knowledge is forbidden, technology has been used against people, and – of course – an uprising.

What I Liked

Wool is a highly engaging, plot driven story. It’s a page turner. In fact, I tore through its 600 or so pages in just a couple of days – the last couple of books I read were heavy and character driven, so it was a nice break to sit down with something that’s fast paced and still smartly written.

I say smartly written for two reasons: one, the dystopian world of the silo turns out to be more complex than it first appears, and the complexities are well thought-out. Howey reveals a little at a time and in just the right order, so that I always knew there was more coming and was eager to keep reading to learn more. The other is that Howey cleverly wove wool (as in, the fiber) (and yes, I’m making a pun) into the story – there are wool cleaning pads used by those banished to the outside world; one character is a knitter and uses wool yarn; and the little reveals of the dystopian world bring to mind the phrase “to pull the wool over someone’s eyes.” These little references are minor and not important to the plot, but they make it obvious just how painstakingly Howey thought through this story, which makes me want to read closely to make sure I can notice and appreciate those little details.

What I Didn’t Like

One of the things that drives me crazy as a reader is when an author introduces a character, I become invested in them – their intentions, their story – and then that character is killed off. It’s a pet peeve of my mom’s that I inherited, because once she pointed it out to me, I started noticing it everywhere! Way too many authors use this, even though it’s manipulative and not very good writing. Howey does this more than once.

On a related note, one of the deaths has a “whodunnit” quality, and while it’s implied who was responsible, it’s never said outright so we never get the satisfaction of the killer being found out or confessing to his (or her!) misdeeds.

***

In Conclusion

I recommend Wool if you’re looking to read a good dystopian novel.

One of the things that’s been mentioned in nearly every review I read of this novel (as well as in Howey’s author bio) is that it was originally a self-published e-book, which was eventually published by Simon and Schuster based on the success of the e-book. It proves how much fun this is to read – enough people told their friends about the book that eventually it went on to be a bestseller. That said, Joel actually had a difficult time finding a copy (and is continuing to have to hunt for the remaining books in the saga.) Powell’s seems to be the only brick and mortar store selling it.

Howey has since written two more installments, called Shift and Dust.

Here’s a link to the Publisher’s Weekly review.

The Twelve is second in a post-apocalyptic vampire trilogy, sequel to The Passage, which I surprised myself by loving.

It’s hard to read The Twelve without comparing it to its predecessor and, well, how to say this … The Passage is superior. But here’s the thing – The Passage was predictable and trope-tastic. It followed a well known formula and told the story really well, and with interesting characters. With those established, The Twelve could take a less trodden road, and this story surprised me more than its prequel.

PSST – Major spoilers for The Passage ahead …

The Twelve begins by doubling back in time, to just after the events that created fourteen vampires in the not-too-distant future. We learn what became of a few characters who had been introduced in the first book but whose stories had yet to be told. There’s a lot of back-story in this story, but finally we move to the crux of the plot, which is the characters of the First Colony, along with heroine Amy Bellafonte, using what they’ve learned from the events of The Passage to defeat the remaining eleven virals infected with the vampire virus.

What I Liked

On the whole, my number one favorite thing about The Twelve is Alicia, one of the members of the First Colony who we met in book one. I didn’t really understand the character in the first book, but what Cronin does with her character here is fascinating. Many of the characters in these books are either entirely good or entirely evil – Alicia is one of two, maybe three, characters who can do atrocious things and yet we are completely sympathetic. She’s very well flushed out. Also, the teaser in the back of my paperback copy for the final book in the trilogy centers around Alicia, and it has me on edge for the next book!

You may recall from my review of The Passage that I went in to it expecting a post-apocalyptic dystopia, and was surprised to find it read like a horror novel. It’s here in The Twelve that we get to see the Orwellian society that’s been constructed on the pretense of keeping humans safe. I want to say so much about this part of the book, but don’t want to give too much away — here’s what I will say: I’ve been devouring dystopian fiction ever since I read The Hunger Games series, and the society in this novel holds up to some of my favorites that I’ve read in the past six months. There are assigned worker roles! Brutal leadership! Propaganda! An uprising! … I’ll stop myself there.

What I Didn’t Like

Like I’ve already said, there’s a lot of back story to this story. I was surprised, and not in a good way, at the start of the novel to go all the way back to the start of the first novel and revisit some of those events. Cronin has said that he intends to do this in each of the novels and to keep adding more layers of the story as he tells it. In this case, I don’t think it really worked. There are a couple of distinct plot lines in the 2015 part of the story, and only one of them gets any kind of resolution in The Twelve. On the one hand, this will make the next novel more compelling for me as a reader once it comes out; on the other hand, it made the beginning of this novel drag.

And after that part of the story, before we get to catch up with the characters from 97 A.V. who we left, literally, mid-chase at the end of The Passage, there’s an interim cast of characters (one of whom we met at the end of The Passage.) This part of the story is important and interesting and belongs in this novel — if I could rewrite it, the novel would begin at that moment in the story (the 2015 parts should either be told in the next book, as several threads were left hanging and we’ll surely see those characters again, or in The Passage which would be a more linear telling of the story.)

Lastly, without giving too much away, there are so many characters and so much action in the climactic battle scene that it was really difficult to follow what was happening.

***

In Conclusion

While I didn’t love this book with the same gusto as The Passage, it was also a compelling read and I enjoyed spending time with (most of) the characters. I’m excited to see what’s in store in the third installment.

What I missed in my reading of The Passage but became abundantly clear about 13 pages in to The Twelve (or maybe I should say 12 pages in … har, har) is that this is not merely a really long horror story about vampires. This is an epic tale of humanity and salvation … with vampires.

Here’s a link to the Publisher’s Weekly review.

It’s 2015. Gas costs $13 a gallon, and New Orleans is left destitute and mostly abandoned after Hurricane Katrina’s follow up, Vanessa. This is the world of Justin Cronin’s The Passage.

A paleovirologist who aims to cure disease and save the world teams up with the medical research branch of the Army, whose goal is to create a super soldier. After being infected with a mysterious virus, a scientist, twelve death row inmates, and our hero, six-year-old Amy Bellefonte, are transformed into vampires.

The book is split into eleven parts; starting in the not-too-distant future and explaining the origin of those first fourteen infected with the vampire virus; then moving through the next century as the last colony of humans struggles to endure. There are a few retrospective blurbs from the year 1003 A.V. (after virus) that I wish had gotten a little more airtime.

What I Liked

Cronin’s writing style is … really effective. It’s pretty and fun to read, and the book was well paced: there were moments when I was holding my breath and frantically turning pages to find out what would happen next, but those were dispersed between sections when I could get comfortable and read more deeply. And Cronin was smart enough to put the more complex plot points into those mellower parts of the book.

In addition, vampire/horror/post-apocalyptic novels are rife with tropes. The classic vampire mythology is present here, but with a twist (and it’s not that the vampires sparkle or glow.) They’re usually referred to as virals or smokes or jumps. They’re attracted to, rather than repelled by, the scent of garlic. A bullet or an arrow through the heart works as well as a wooden stake to take one down (atom bombs prove effective, too.)

The cast of characters is pretty huge, which meant there were several I could relate to. There was also a really nice balance between male and female characters, and racial diversity, and religious beliefs, and across a range of ages. I’m not saying that good books need to have an assortment of characters with all these different backgrounds and world views, but in the case of The Passage, it enhanced the reading experience because there was this huge range of insights to the world as it was affected by the vampiric virus.

What I Didn’t Like

Cronin’s writing style is … verbose. Effusive. Dare I say it — over the top. My copy of the book is a mass-market paperback (the size that would fit on the little display in the grocery store) and it clocked in at 890 pages. The hardcover edition, according to Amazon, is 780 pages. This book is LONG, and could have been much shorter with some of those overly descriptive passages edited out. (I will give credit where credit is due – the plot driven sections were fast paced and without all those extra words. Again, I liked the pacing.)

The dark hair and speechlessness of our protagonist, Amy, reminded me a little too much of the creepy girl in The Ring. Who knows, maybe Cronin wanted it that way (who am I to comment on authorial intent?)

And one last thing – it’s a major pet peeve of mine as a reader to be introduced to one cast of characters, spend a hundred (or in this case, three hundred) pages getting to know them, and then for them to disappear and a whole village full of new characters to be introduced. It *sort of* worked in this case, since the plot moved so far into the future, and since there were almost 900 pages to fill, but it’s something that really bothers me. Especially when authors, as Cronin did here, bring one of those characters back at the very end of the novel, by which point I’ve completely forgotten who they were.

***

In Conclusion

OMG, I loved this book – don’t put too much stock in my complaints about the length, it took me all of ten days to read it. I recommend it, but with a caveat: if you read this, don’t go thinking (like I did) that it’s merely a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel. It is, but it’s mostly a horror novel.

Here’s the link to the Publisher’s Weekly starred review.

The Passage is part one in a trilogy (part two, The Twelve, was released late last year, with part three due in 2014.)