Order WOOL here
One of the last thing Mayor Jahns had told her had proved truer than she could imagine : people were like machines. They broke down. They rattled. They could burn you or maim you if you weren't careful.
I remember the first time I played FALLOUT, on my desktop computer, a lifetime or two ago. The apocalypse was the coolest thing, back then. In that broken down universe, you had complete freedom, yet complete responsibility over your actions. We now live in an era where post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction are a hot thing. Whatever caused your end of the world : zombies, a nuclear bomb, a virus or a giant lizard, it's a good excuse to put star-crossed lovers in the midst of all this and sell it to kids. So how can post-apocalyptic fiction get original again? WOOL may not be a complete answer, but it's going in an interesting direction.
The WOOL novel you can buy in stores is, in fact, an omnibus of five novellas author Hugh Howey had previously self-pulished with great success. That's why the point of view keeps drastically shifting before settling on its heroine Juliette. Howey explores the mythology of his universe where humanity is reduced to live in a giant silo, because the outside air has become poisonous. He does it through the point of view of victims of the silo. Juliette was slotted to become another victim of this abusive, incestuous universe, but everybody underestimated what strength of character, hope and survival instinct can do to a person. WOOL is the story of Juliette's survival and how it redefined an entire world.
Let me be honest here. I was primed to be as critical as I could with WOOL, due to my sheer boredom with post-apocalyptic fiction. It's a genre I used to love and I want something new to happen to it. Folks, WOOL might not be 100% original, but it won me over. Good fiction tends to do that to me. It takes a while to take off, it requires patience, but when Juliette takes control of the narrative (around page two hundred), WOOL become truly engrossing. She's a great lead character. Unlike most female lead characters, she is not overly preoccupied by men or by the idea of falling in love. Hugh Howey the ''torture your darlings'' writing motto at heart and puts Juliette through living hell. What transpires of Juliette is her incredible strength of character. It's been a while since I rooted for a character the way I rooted for her.
''And now you see why some facts, some pieces of knowledge, have to be snuffed out as soon as they form. Curiosity would blow across such embers and burn this silo to the ground.''
Not every idea in WOOL is original, though. The class warfare plotline was obvious and telegraphed. It wasn't a part of the novel I enjoyed much. The remapping of Juliette's universe in Silo #17, her conversations with Solo (my second favorite character in the novel) and the incredibly amount of danger she went through to go home were what made WOOL special to me. Howey ties both plotlines together rather beautifully, but I would have loved Juliette to have a more hands-on role into what was unraveling and it implied making Silo #18 struggles slower, less obvious. It did look like a reenactment of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS at times. Especially with the mechanics all living in the silo's lower floors and all wearing overalls. A little too much borrowing went on there.
I'm kind of amazed I liked WOOL as much as I did, but I read to find this amazement. To have novels hook me up when I lower my guard. Hugh Howey's terrific mastery of fiction fundamentals (strong prose, thorough character arc, simple but efficient structure) and his steampunk approach to post-apocalyptic fiction worked a number on me. Enough maybe to pick up a sequel sometime. There is a rather long figuring out process with WOOL, where its author is setting up the basics of a universe, but once it picks up steam, it's one solid novel. It should be your next stop if you're into this post-apocalypse thing.