Andrew Smith's Reviews > Wool

My son has been watching an adaptation of this dystopian tale on Apple TV. He suggested it might be something I’d be interested in. No alien creatures or inter-galactic battles, he promised. Instead, a depiction of a dystopian future for people housed in massive structure, referred to as the silo, reaches more than a hundred floors down into the earth. I decided to give it a go, going the audiobook route.

There’s quite a few unknowns here, particularly how it came to be that people are forced to confine themselves inside this structure. What is clear, though, is that the toxic environment outside is such that it can not be survived, even for short periods dressed in a protective suit. In fact, such are the strict rules in this environment that even the suggestion that you’d like to explore the space outside the silo is sure to give you a one way ticket to certain death: you’re immediately forced out into the wasteland, where you’ll perish within minutes.

Gradually, a picture starts to form this place, governed by an elected mayor and with it’s own security team led by a sheriff. The holders of these positions are based at the top, near the surface. Further down, there are floors set aside for farming, IT, accommodation, and, at the bottom, the power unit that keeps everything going. Following a relatively small cast of characters, we start to get a sense of how the whole community works, it’s stringent rules, and, yes, its harsh punishments for disobedience.

In feel, the closest comparison I can come up with is Andy Weir’s book The Martian. Good character development, a really tangible sense of claustrophobia, and a decent dose of persuasive (if hard to decipher) science underpins both stories, making them stand above most science fiction novels in my eyes. I didn’t know where this story was eventually going to take me, but before long I’d become totally invested in a number of the characters and so, as I approached the end of the book I found myself desperately hoping for some kind of positive outcome for them. The ending, when it came, was surprising and satisfying – I’ll say no more than that.

There are already thousands of mostly very positive reviews of this book on Goodreads, so 6 view is not that of an outlier. I’ve already downloaded and commenced listening to book 2 in this trilogy (a prequel) and have purchased a copy of book 3, too. If these episodes offer anything like the experience I had when listening to book 1, then I know I’m in for a treat.