Nila soldiers on with Hugh Howey’s WOOL series with Third Shift – Pact.
Third Shift: Pact by Hugh Howey
Published January 25, 2013 (Available for Kindle and for other e-readers)
Review by N.E. White.
The eighth instalment in Hugh Howey’s WOOL series continues filling in the blanks.
Did that sentence sound familiar? It might, considering that’s almost exactly the same sentence I used to start my review (http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/919.html) of the last instalment in this series.
As an invested reader in this series, Third Shift seems essential because we finally get an idea of what Senator Thurman and his posse really had in mind for all the people trapped in the Silos. However, even so, I get the feeling that once the story returns to Jules, this particular volume in the Silos story could have easily been skipped.
Blasphemy, I know. How can someone skip a volume in the middle of a series? Quite easily if it mostly re-hashes the last instalment and the only new material tells the backstory of a secondary character in the initial WOOL series.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let’s back up. Allow me a few paragraphs to summarize the story so far. We’ve gone a long ways into the Silo stories and some of you new to Hugh Howey’s best seller might be a little lost.
The story of the people of the Silos (circular, deep structures buried in the ground) starts with Wool I, a novelette that tells the sad story of Holston, a sheriff who ultimately has to watch his wife die. He then goes on to learn a secret about their silo and follows his wife into the deadly world outside. If you read nothing else (in your entire life), you should read Wool I.
In Wool II – Proper Gauge, we pick up the story of Silo 18 through the characters of Jahn and Marnes, along with a host of other characters that will draw you so far into their world you will not want to leave.Wool III through V (Casting Off, The Unraveling, and The Stranded) weaves the devastating tale of how a closed, controlled society ultimately falls apart when secrets are held and the inherent trust we place in those who are in charge is shattered.
Through the demise of Silo 18, we learn there’s more than just one Silo and there’s something far bigger and sinister going on. That’s where the current series comes in. The Shift series (First, Second and Third Shift) fills us all in on just how the remainder of humanity is living underground in a bunch of (poorly) engineered silos.
That story is told through Donald Keene, a congressional representative, Senator Thurman, a control freak, and Anna, his daughter, along with a few others. Safe in Silo 1, for centuries after the initial apocalyptic event, these characters and handful of men control the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In theShift series, Mr. Howey weaves their tale in with the events that happen in the adjacent silos. And while this story-telling technique is effective, and each of the characters Mr. Howey draws is worthy of exploration, by the time this reader got to Third Shift, I was over this story line and sooooo ready to get back to Jules (Juliette from the initial WOOL series).
The revelations in this volume did not warrant so many words. It seemed poor Donald was forever coming in and out of the cold freeze for no reason at all except to kill the people who knew anything about what truly drove them underground. At one point, I began to question Donald’s motives. Knowing Mr. Howey, this is probably a deliberate move and important to the overall story, but it really felt like the author was still finding the story.
So, yes, folks, in my opinion, you can skip this one.
With that said, I did find a lot to like in Third Shift. Mr. Howey has a knack for world-building details that will surprise you in their clarity. His characters are real, enough so to make you think you’ve met or know someone just like them. The story of how Solo ultimately becomes the recluse Jules finds at the end ofWool V is heartbreaking.
I’ve also noticed a change in Mr. Howey’s prose. While he has always been an excellent writer, concisely describing the world and illuminating character details through action, his nuggets of poignant sentences and phrases have been regulated to quotes or first sentences. However, in this volume, I found a lot more of these ‘stay-with-you’ sentences. I don’t know if that’s because I was bored with the story and started to notice them, or if the author is just using them more often. Either way, they have left me with clear images that I hope will end up in the movie.
“And a haze of chalk fell through the air like the ghost of unwritten words.” ~ Hugh Howey, Third Shift
N.E. White, April 2013.
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