*Buddy Read with Rachel*(BAVR)Have you ever been happily reading a good book? You’re about to find out what happens to the protagonist. Your heart is pounding with anticipation. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the book dumps you into a ridiculously long ass flashback. Everything comes to a complete and utter stop. It’s like being trapped in a meandering shaggy dog story. And of course you’ve got to read the damn flashback, because if you don’t you may not completely grasp the full ramifica...

Continuing the saga of the Silo. . . .I loved Wool, I loved this book! So many questions after reading Wool. Why, for instance, were there no elevators? This book addresses that - sort of. (I wonder if the author received enough emails about that topic that he felt he ought to mention it in his next book?) Shift answers a few Woolly questions, but asks quite a few more questions. I think that every few pages I was going "OMG!"This book is more of a prequel to Wool but should definitely be read a...

It is truly a sorry affair that most sequels just do not turn out right. Well, alright, not most. Some. Can we settle on a lot ? I can start naming now,(The sequel to Blood Red Road, Metro 2034...)and I am sure you can carry on with this list to eternity. In fact, please carry on in the comments! I would really love to find out what sequel drove you mad .So basically, I think we can draw the conclusion that you pretty much have to be J.K. Rowling not to mess up the sequels. So am

I very rarely read science fiction but this series by Hugh Howey sounded so interesting I gave it a chance. The first book was Wool Omnibus which was a 5 star read for me and this second book in the series didn't disappoint either. It's one of those stay up all night I just can't put it down kind of books. The characters are so well crafted and believable even under the bizarre circumstances they are trying their best to survive. The premise is a future time when a group of survivors are living

Showing how it came to a devastating catastrophe in detailed retrospectives, while mixing it up with the current storyline, was hardly ever such a fun and enjoyment to read. Well written, info dumpy preparations, debates, concepts, etc. for meta endeavors such as space colonization, a major war, an election campaign, or, going underground, are something that is often more a thing for hard sci-fi, because writers tend to avoid the extreme effort of putting any exposition in dialogue or action, in...

REVIEW SUMMARY: The sequel trilogy to the best seller, Wool Omnibus, which takes a leap back in time to show how the chaos started.BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A silo architect finds out too late what he’s been building, loses track of his wife and memories, and must uncover the secret behind the silo in order to make everything right.MY RATING: 3.5 starsMY REVIEWPROS: Strong beginning; empathy for major characters; challenging philosophical themes about war and sacrifice to survive as a human race.CONS: Thi...

Hugh Howey is a great idea man and the post-apocalyptic world of the Silos is a wonderful little playground with the potential for great stories. Unfortunately Howey's skills at character-building leave much to be desired and ultimately drags down the entire series. Here's some of the ways Howey fails at writing characters: he never tells us what anybody looks like. Every character sounds the same and has no identifying tics or habits. The relationship of just about every character to every othe...

I really wanted to like this book, I really did. But unfortunately, the writer falls into the same traps he did in Wool. Like Wool, this book tells a fantastic story for the first 2/3 - in this case, I really did love the way the conspiracy built piece by piece before your eyes, and I enjoyed slowly putting it together with a lot of "OMG" moments. If the book had ended after just that, it would have been a 5 star review. However, in this novel Howey seems not to be able to restrain himself from

Shift (Silo #2), Hugh HoweySilo is a series of post-apocalyptic science fiction books by American writer Hugh Howey. The series started in 2011 with the short story "Wool", which was later published together with four sequel novellas as a novel with the same name. Along with Wool, the series consists of Shift, Dust, three short stories and Wool: The Graphic Novel.In a future less than fifty years away, the world is still as we know it. Time continues to tick by. The truth is that it is ticking a...

I will admit, I struggled to get through Shift. While the writing is quite good, I never felt it was as compelling or interesting as Wool. Shift felt more like an addendum to Wool than a novel that could stand by itself. I enjoyed getting some answers about what happened in Wool, yet it wasn't enough to keep me interested.My biggest problem was that I didn't care about the characters, especially the main character, Donald. Before the silos came into play, Donald was a senator. As far as what was...

Shift, as the impressive science fiction follow up to Wool, proves that Hugh Howey can write - and write well. This is a prequel, but is, in my opinion, better read after Wool in order to not destroy the unique aspects of reading Hugh Howey's first work. I would say that together Shift and Wool appear as better versions of The Maze Runner series. Not only are they far more mature in their approach to their particular topics but they possess and infinite amount more plausibility and depth. The wa...

2022 reread:I see that I started this on the exact same day four years ago but finished it almost two weeks earlier back then. Huh. Anyways, I very much enjoyed it once again. But just like in 2018 I didn't much care about Mission's POV. This slowed me down quite a bit this time around. But I think I have generally become a slower reader since then. Probably. The book? Good.Buddy read with Linda, Tyler Came Late And Left Early and Future Diane.2018 review:This is the second book in Hugh Howey’s

Warning: Spoilers for "Wool", the previous book in the series.While the title "Shift" actually refers to the time that one works, it's definitely a shift in the storytelling of the series. This volume goes back in time and tells the story of how and somewhat why the universe of "Wool" exists. It is a tale of politics, paranoia and nanotechnology. Yes the world ends in a somewhat SF cliche way, but it is still told with a great amount of talent, which makes those cliches forgivable. Although we g...

The Shift is comprised of three parts: Legacy, Order and Pact, which if you have read Wool, promises answers to some of your questions. I have read some complaints that the characters in The Shift were too flat, not fleshed out enough to become invested in. It is true that some of these characters did come across as mere shadows but I cannot help but get the sense that maybe that was the point.In brief, Legacy tells us about what is happening in the world prior to the destruction we have seen an...

UPDATED! PARANOID RANT NEAR THE END WITH SLIGHT SPOILER!The second volume of Howey's Solo trilogy takes us back to the origin of the silos and introduces a few good guys - Donald in particular - a few bad guys - Thurman although we are not sure until Dust exactly how evil he is - and some ambiguous characters - Anna (well, you'll need to read Dust to see how this turns out). It is an interesting idea with the nanobots and the Noah's Arc concept. The suspense is done quite well with time shifting...

SpoilersReally good. I enjoyed the first two stories in Shift but the best story by far was the last one (Third Shift), as it focused on one of the more interesting arcs from Wool.-I was initially disappointed that Shift was a prequel, I wanted to read more about the characters that were in Wool, especially Juliette, Solo and the kids. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to get invested in the prequel story or the new characters — although the characters weren't quite as endearing as those in Wo...

Last night I was tempted to give this book two stars out of sheer frustration, but that wouldn't be fair. Yes, it's nowhere near as good as its predecessor, the excellent _Wool_. And yes, it's not what you'd call really good. But I did read it straight through, and with no regrets.What Shift does well is provide context and explanations for much of the culture and history (or lack thereof) that we saw in Wool, and that's cool. As a sort of Simarillion, this prequel book works. The last few pages...

Immediately after finishing the Wool series, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Hugh Howey had finished Third Shift, which meant that Shift Omnibus was complete, and I could dive right into it.Shift provides some much-needed backstory for the Wool books, namely who designed the Silos, why, and most importantly, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? (Sort of...more on that later...).Hugh manages to do it all with his usual engrossing style. Dare I say I'm pleased to be able to see his evolution as a wr...

My rating is 4.5By the second part of the book Silos is a little less good, but the first part of the trilogy. But the story is still great, very well written and keeps us tense all the time. The story leads us to the time of construction the silos and is accompanied by the main figure congressman Donald, who gets the task of the president to make drafts for silos. Though he accepts a job, it does not attract him much, because he takes that job away from the family. But this job will bring him s...

Very savvy of the author to pen Shift after releasing Wool. The latter scooped me in immediately, whereas Shift took somewhat longer to lure me into its clutches. That's okay, I was already invested and there is a lot of information to be gleaned here. To those of you who want your Wool-ish questions answered, you can find them in Shift.You will learn how the silos came into being and why. Shrinks are in charge of the insanity (I love that!). Working stiffs are working a never-ending mind-numbin...