… But they never stop to ask just how much time that is.”Ĭenturies later, in the control silo – Silo 1, Donald is among those who work in six-month “shifts” helping to run the other silos, alternating these periods with long intervals of cryogenic preservation.

“Everyone thinks they’ve got all the time left in the world. But as Anna, now working with Donald, presciently observes: Maybe soon, Donald and his wife Helen keep saying, things will improve. But Keene has known Thurman all his life and trusts him he even used to date Thurman’s daughter Anna. Much of the story is told from the point of view of Donald Keene, a young congressman from Georgia who, under the thumb of the elder senator from Georgia, Paul Thurman, gets pulled into the silo project without fully understanding what it is. We also learn the way in which the silos were run following the devastation of the planet. In Shift, we go back in time to 2049 to learn what happened before the silos were built, and how and why they were constructed. She also wants to bring her new friends over to Silo 18, if she can figure out a safe way to do so. She begins her tenure determined to pull the “wool” from over everyone’s eyes and tell them about the other silos. Her boyfriend, Lukas, is now the head of IT at 18, and convinces Jules to become the new mayor. There, she gets to know the very small group of inhabitants, and is eager to help them share the resources of Silo 18, to whence she returns.

At the end of Wool, Juliette (“Jules”) Nichols, age 34, had been “banished” from the silo, and managed, improbably, not only to survive the outside, but to make her way to a neighboring silo, #17. Only the residents of Number One and two designated IT Department workers in each other silo know that there are silos in existence beyond their own.

Originally there were fifty silos, including one “administrative” silo, Number One. Wool is an adult post-apocalyptic dystopia about a world in the future in which the population lives in underground silos following nuclear detonations that destroyed the outside world. Shift and Dust continue the excellent story that begins with Wool (see my review, here). Avoid all spoilers by skipping down to Discussion and Evaluation. Note: There will be some spoilers for Wool, Book One of this saga some spoilers which are marked and have warnings for Shift, Book Two but none for Dust, the conclusion of The Silo Series.

Hugh howey wool series