The cast members of Silo, the television show based on Wool.
Hugh Howey's Wool is a solid dystopian novel; however, it is held back by its origins as a short story. The inspiration behind the new Apple TV series Silo follows Juliette, a mechanic from the bottom levels of a silo that is believed to be the last remaining part of civilization after nuclear warfare. The silo was built on a "pact", a type of constitution made after a rebellion that destroyed generations-worth of information and data from the silo. The main rule of the pact: do not request to go outside. If citizens do so, they are sent to clean the camera that provides images of the outside world through various screens around the silo. The sheriff of the Silo, Holston, is sent to clean after his wife finds unsettling information about the rebellion and the corruption of their government, which triggers the entire sequence of the novel. Juliette, a mechanic who is highly inexperienced in law enforcement, had helped Holston on a previous case that was covered up by the mysterious judicial branch, which leads him to promote her to the role of Sherrif as his dying wish. After this, the novel covers all of the pillars of a dystopian such as corruption, the discovery of the civilization's history, the discovery of other humans, and the existence of a main villain behind all of it. Even though it stumbles through various dystopian tropes, the story remains captivating due to its well-written main character. The main issue with the book, though, is the formatting. Wool was first written as a sixty-page short story mainly about Sherrif Holston and his wife before evolving into a combination of various short stories that connect. This format makes the novel feel choppy, jumping from one storyline to another with little filler. The fact that they are short stories also takes away the element of surprise, with issues explained immediately since they weren't supposed to last that long in the first place. Despite the jumbled nature of the chapters, Wool is a worthy read, especially if you want a more mature trilogy of dystopian novels.
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