A review by even_steven
Shift by Hugh Howey

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Half of this book is great. The plot is gripping and it serves as an interesting prelude to the events of the first book in the series, ‘Wool’. The other half, made up of parallel narratives of secondary characters interspersed between ‘main plot’ chapters, was unnecessary at best and downright boring at worst. The ‘Mission’ chapters were fine, but the ‘Solo’ chapters were entirely skippable (I skimmed many of the later ones). It’s like Howey thought we were all interested in Solo’s backstory, but I for one didn’t need that story told.

Perhaps that’s the verdict for the whole book - it provides backstory where it’s unnecessary. Part of the joy in reading ‘Wool’ came from the unknown and the mystery. This book explains *everything* to such an extent that the mysteries of the first book are completely unravelled and laid painfully bare. The Star Wars prequels suffered the same problem. Darth Vader was a much more interesting character with the snippets of his past we were given in the original trilogy; we did not need the prequels to laboriously tell the story of Anakin Skywalker. Similarly, ‘Shift’ makes the mistake of over-revealing the events leading up to ‘Wool’.

The Mission chapters fully explain the historical uprising in Silo 18 that was more interesting when it was imagined as some amorphous event of the silo’s past. The Solo chapters give us a window into the mind-numbing daily life of a character that wasn’t *that* interesting from the first book: a literal man-child who would be the sidekick in a B-grade Sci Fi film - like the feral kid in ‘Mad Max 2’. Did we need *his* backstory? I love ‘Road Warrior’, but I certainly didn’t need a prequel telling me that particular story (the jury’s still out ‘Furiosa’).

All that said, the ‘Donald’ chapters are great, and following that character’s experiences through to the end was really enjoyable. It’s the aspect of the story that warranted the callbacks to ‘Wool’, and I found myself gobbling up those chapters to see what happened next with the narrative. So, on the whole, there’s a lot about ‘Shift’ to like, but it’s weighed down heavily by what can only be described as filler throughout.