From reading the first two books (there are five books in the omnibus) I thought I would not like Wool. They are not interesting as sci-fi. It is just very well presented personal drama in a slightly mysterious setting. I read the rest anyway, and it is the same all the way through. But it grew on me anyway. The personal drama and the slight mystery is presented so well, that you cannot avoid getting invested.
I say the setting is slightly mysterious, because it is full of non-surprises, like the person who looks like the mastermind of a conspiracy turns out to be the mastermind of a conspiracy. The cliche answer is always the correct answer. But the fantastic presentation makes this a non-issue.
The presentation is highly detailed. The silo has 144 levels, and I bet Hugh Howey has an actual map of all of them drawn in detail. I personally feel like I could navigate this silo fine after reading the omnibus. The detail is not limited to physical details. We get a constant narration of most characters thoughts. If someone has to take the stairs (and this is the substance of 90% of the pages), we are always updated about exactly how tiring it is, where their mind wanders through the climb/descent, what state of repair the stairs are, and what it is a metaphor for. In many other books, if a character cuts something, the tool used may or may not get mentioned. Here, we know exactly which knife we are talking about, the characters feelings about the knife, and which pocket the knife goes back to after the cut. Example:
She sat down and rubbed her legs, her thighs and calves tight from the most recent hike up. She may’ve been gaining her porter legs these last weeks, but they were still sore all the time, the ache in them a constant new sensation. Squeezing the muscles transformed that ache into pain, which she somehow preferred. The sharp and definable sensations were better than the dull and nameless kind. She liked feelings she could understand.
It may read like I am complaining, but I am not. This approach is not my cup of tea, because I am terrible impatient and would rather lack details about leg rubbing than waste time on reading this. But in Wool it is done so well, that it had the intended effect on me too. Reading about leg rubbing puts you in the shoes of the character and reinforces your connection with them, even if you tried to resist. It pulls you in.
And the detail work counteracts the cliches too. Okay, maybe the mastermind of the conspiracy is obvious. But their exact personality is not. The characters are all fleshed out to amazing detail. They become real persons, and a real person is never a cliche.
What is it with the cold in the deeper levels? I have never been to mine, but I thought they were hot. Temperature is supposed to increase by 1 centigrade with 40 meters of depth. 144 levels could be around 400 meters, so the deep down should be 10 centigrade warmer than the up top.
Earth was made uninhabitable to humans. Okay. But why make it uninhabitable to all life as well? Perhaps it is easier to just kill everything, but I am not so sure. Like, plants have very different needs from animals. Anyway, my preferred theory is that this was done to wipe out the ALIEN INVADERS!
They are waiting for hundreds of years before going back to the surface, to make super sure that everyone is killed. Supposedly the worry is other people in enemy silos or bunkers. But why worry about that? Why not just go back to the surface and live in peace, or kill them the old-fashioned way? Most of the Earth is empty, and everyone who was part of the original conflict is long dead. Being so cautious seems off. I again take this as support for the explanation based on ALIEN INVADERS!
