Wool

Read as part of the Apocalypse Now Reading Challenge 2016.

Method of the world's destruction: toxic poisons released into Earth's atmosphere.

I am amazed this book hasn't gotten more press, but considering it was a self-published Amazon success story, perhaps it's great that it has done as well as it has.

This is a five-part omnibus edition of the five novellas that Hugh Howey originally published through Amazon. I found it in a hardcover edition in my local library and in a trade paperback in the bookstore where I work. These post-apocalyptic dystopian novels take place in an underground silo that is 100 floors deep, to protect the people inside against the dead earth outside. The nature of the disaster is unclear, but the very air is full of toxic chemicals that human beings cannot breathe. There is a hint that someday all of it may clear up and the world may be fit for human habitation again, but in the meantime all the food for the people is provided by several giant hydroponic farms that are fertilized mostly by human shit and the bodies of the dead (who are buried there with words that acknowledge that their bones will nourish the generations that follow).

Information is strictly controlled by something called The Pact, which forbids anyone to ask about the outside world; and if they say they want to go out, they are sent out in a primitive Hazmat suit to clean the lens of the cameras that are their only view of the outside world, and not permitted back in. It's a mystery why everyone actually does clean the lens, especially when they say they won't, but they always do, until their suit fails and they lie dead on the ground surrounding the silo. Population is firmly controlled and people are only allowed to reproduce if they win a lottery, which gives them the right to try for a year. Society is firmly stratified and people wear clothing in colours that indicate their professions, and of course the most highly valued and wealthiest live near the top of the silo, while the mechanically-oriented folks who keep the machines that make life possible running live at the bottom. As a metaphor for class warfare it's pretty heavy-handed, but it makes its point well enough. The people speak in fear of an "uprising" in the past that was terrible and chaotic, and they don't want it to happen again, so questioning of the system is strictly forbidden and people are only given as much information as the people in power believe they need to know; for their own good, of course.

The first story centers around a sheriff whose wife discovered a secret about the silo three years past and then asked to go outside. He decides to join her because he thinks he's discovered what the secret was that she knew. Of course he's just scratched the surface, and I can't tell you any more without spoiling the whole thing for you.

The second story centers on the elderly mayor of the silo who decides to journey down for a visit to the lower levels for the first time in years, on the surface in order to recruit a new sheriff in the form of a girl named Juliette (Jules to her friends) who works in Mechanical. Really it's kind of a dissertation on aging, and on letting life's opportunities pass you by because you want to play by the rules, and the ending is quite a surprise so I'll leave it at that.

These stories only set the stage for the rest of the book, which is about Juliette's tenure as sheriff and the unexpected problems she encounters that blow the lid right off the secrets that the silo is keeping.

This is an extended dissertation on class warfare and on the disturbing implications of not trusting people to make rational decisions for themselves; or in trusting them to do so. And that's about all I'm going to say because to tell you anymore would wreck it completely. An excellent book that was difficult to start but riveting to finish. Highly recommended.