Shift Review

Title: Shift
Author: Hugh Howey
Date Purchased: 11/27/2017
Price Paid: $2.11
Date Finished: 6/13/2021
Rating: 3/5

In previous reviews I’ve spoken about how challenging it can be to write the middle book of a trilogy. You’re trying to balance the momentum of the first book with new advancement of a story. It’s not always done well, and I’m surprised some trilogies even see a book three with how poorly the second installments are put together.

Hugh Howey pitched all normal conceptions in the bin when he wrote Shift. Even though this is the middle book of a trilogy, it is for all intents and purposes a prequel that tells the story of how the events of book one came to be. While this is an interesting concept, it’s also kind of an odd way of approaching things.

So. Does it work?

To start we’ll give the requisite spoiler warning. If you haven’t read Wool and think you might, best to move along at this point.

With that out of the way, let’s dig in. Shift is a book told from two points of view. Well, technically three, but it’s really only two. More on that later. The first is through the eyes of Donald Keene, a junior senator that is heavily involved with the creation of the silos. The second concerns Jimmy (or “Solo”), the resident of Silo 17 that Juliette meets when she stumbles upon the other Silo after her cleaning.

The parts of the book dealing with Keene are interesting – you see the start of the project, get to understand how many layers of secrecy were involved, and watch as he gains an understanding of what’s going on. We meet Senator Thurman, the mastermind behind the silo project, as well as a host of other ancillary characters. This is interesting because you want to know how things came to be.

I should note that time is played with a lot here – each chapter starts with the date, and we traverse a lot of years between the chapters concerning Donald and the ones concerning Jimmy. I credit Howey with clearly labeling these chapters so we aren’t left wondering where we are in the timeline.

Looking at the half of the book dealing with Solo? I could have done without those parts. Sure, it was mildly interesting to see how he survived and watch him go through his own struggles. But I found myself not caring at all about his story. We know where things end up for him, so in the context of a second book it just seemed out of place.

I had mentioned that there are technically three viewpoints. The third is through the eyes of “Troy”, a worker in Silo 1 that is in charge of things during his shift. I found these parts neat – to a point. It was interesting to learn that hundreds of men were put into a cryo sleep, woke up to work a six month shift, and then were put back under. Memories are a weird thing here as most people don’t have a recollection of anything prior to their shift.

As you might expect, there’s a twist here and I wish it wasn’t one you could see coming from a mile away. “Troy” is actually Donald, just hundreds of years later. This creates a bit of an interesting motivation for Donald’s character in the future, but was kind of telegraphed which removed some of the surprise.

This book is probably closer to a 2 1/2 than a 3, to be honest. I enjoyed the parts with Donald, but really could have done without the bits with Solo. I think this might be due in part to another series that did too much flashback work, but it just didn’t work out for me.

Final Thoughts: I enjoyed half of this book, and could have done without the other half.