In this second volume in the New York Times best-selling Silo series, Hugh Howey describes the catastrophic events that led to the creation of the silo— and the beginning of the end

In 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN) outlined the hardware and software platforms that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. The technology has an almost limitless capacity for good—but in the wrong hands, it could have an equally boundless capacity for evil.

In the same year, the CBS network re-aired a program about the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma. A simple pill, it had been discovered, could wipe out the memory of any traumatic event.

At almost the same moment in humanity’s broad history, mankind discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall, and the ability to forget it ever happened. With this godlike power at their fingertips, can humanity be trusted to create a new—and better—world? Or is it doomed to bring about its own destruction?

After years of having the Silo trilogy on my TBR list, I finally read the first book, Wool, this fall. It’s a fascinating, mind-boggling science fiction story set several hundred years in the future, in which the last remnants of humanity live in an underground silo 144 stories deep. The world outside is barren and toxic; to exit the silo means instant death. And so, Wool explores the shifting social dynamics of this claustrophobic world, where generations are born and die with no actual memory of the silo’s origin, and where cyclical uprisings against the silo’s power structure could spell the end of all life.

Book #2, Shift, takes us back before the beginning. Structured similarly to Wool, Shift was originally published as three stories, now bundled together in one large but compelling volume. Several storylines blend together in alternating timelines. In one, we meet a young Congressman, Donald, helped into office by a powerful older Senator who has a project for him. Donald was once an aspiring architect, and the Senator asks him to work on a new construction plan inspired by one of Donald’s early designs.

In another storyline, it’s about 100 years later, and inside a silo, there’s trouble brewing. Some people seem to have memories of a world before, and the silo’s leaders can’t allow that to continue. There are secrets that should never be revealed, and the powers-that-be see destruction as preferable to the truth coming out.

Later in the book, we see what’s become of Donald’s project, what the Senator brought about, and how that all leads to the world of the silos. Elsewhere, and in another timeline, we also get to know Jimmy, a character important in Wool, and learn more about his background and how he’s survived.

Shift is complicated and confusing, yet also quite powerful. There’s a lot to keep track of — multiple timelines, silos identified by number (making it difficult to remember which events happen in which silo at which point in time), and many characters, some of whom appear over the course of centuries thanks to the cryotechnology that enables workers to remain frozen for decades and then be woken for their next shift.

I found the first section of Shift especially powerful, seeing a representation of our world and how it ends thanks to a combination of unrestrained technology and ruthless people in charge. In the later two sections, life and death inside the silos are dramatic and often quite dismal, and some sections left me a little disconnected, as the tangled story arcs can be challenging to follow. Because the overarching story is rooted in people guarding explosive secrets and tampering with memory, readers are left to sort through narratives that often feel incomplete. This is likely by design, but it can feel frustrating to devote so much time to this lengthy, complicated book and still feel like answers are missing by the end.

Overall, Shift is compelling and disturbing and hard to put down. Despite the rotating characters throughout, there are plenty to care about and connect with. Getting to understand the origins of the world introduced in Wool deepens the overarching sense of doom and chaos in these books. I’m intrigued enough to want to see what happens next.

With one book left, I hope to finish this trilogy before the end of the year. Next up: Book #3, Dust.

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