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Hugh Howey: Wool (2013, Simon & Schuster) 4 stars

They live beneath the earth in a prison of their own making. There is a …

Review of 'Wool' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This is an interesting little collection of tales that come together nicely in an overarching story.
 
The premise is that we're in a post-apocalyptic future where the atmosphere is highly toxic and corrosive and the last pocket of humanity is surviving in the silo, an underground tower designed to be self-sufficient for as long as it takes for the world above to become habitable again. It's been a few hundred years so far.
 
The only contact with the outside world is via viewscreens fed from sensors on the surface which gradually become coated with a layer of grime, obscuring the image. The punishment for most transgressions in the silo is to be sent out to clean the sensors, which is a death sentence - there's no way back inside before your protective suit is damaged by the corrosive wind.
 
The first few stories are short, the events told from a different character's viewpoint, and introducing us to other people who tell their own stories later on. The final installment is much longer than the others and jumps between characters to give us the full picture about what's happening.
 
The very first story was a great introduction and really set the scene for what was to come. The situation is explained, and we're given a whiff of the corruption inside the silo that isn't evident to most of the inhabitants. I thought I'd seen the twist in the tale a mile off, and I kind of had... but there was more to it. A brilliant start to the