SHIFT by Hugh Howey (Book Review)

. . .

 

I hate this book.

 

Maybe hate is too strong a word. Disappointed and let down is probably a better descriptor. After all, there were some good parts scattered in bits and pieces till the end. Anyway, I’ve always hated prequels and this book only confirms why.

 

You know what’s going to happen to the characters before the book is over.

 

A prequel is inherently a mystery killer. If it’s not done properly, it can turn your fascinating character into a really boring drone that is carried by the winds of the plot. I’ll give you very brief example from a videogame I played called Splinter Cell Conviction.

 

Bear with me here, I promise it’s relevant.

Splinter Cell Conviction

In Splinter Cell: Conviction you play as Sam Fisher, a father who is seeking revenge against the people who killed his daughter. Interesting premise right? Only one problem, 99% of it is all through a FLASHBACK!

 

So that means from the start of the game, you know that your main character Sam Fisher isn’t going to die. Why? Because another character is telling you what he did and there’s no way his story is going to end early with the death of the main character. (Though if it did that would have been one heck of a shocker.)

 

Everything you do in the game becomes null and void. You know you’ll survive until you reach present day.

 

In contrast. The game Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater was one of the finest prequels I’ve ever played. It’s difficult to go into detail without this turning into a review about video games so let’s just say that this prequel put more focus on characters that you’ve never heard of before. It wasn’t about the main protagonist who players were familiar with (Snake). It was about his mentor, The Boss.

Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater

LET’S “SHIFT” BACK TO THIS BOOK SHALL WE?

 

This book is a prequel that really didn’t need to be over five hundred pages. SHIFT is the origin story of the silos and answers the question that was on everyone’s mind. How did the world in WOOL turn into a toxic wasteland? This was perfect ground to cover for a prequel and one that I was extremely interested in reading about.

 

There’s only one teeny tiny little problem.

 

The question is answered in the first quarter of the book. You know when you go to watch fireworks and anticipate when that big, bombastic grand finale is going to hit? SHIFT throws the grand finale at you right at the beginning and then leaves you wondering why you’re still standing at the park staring at the swirls of smoke in the sky.

 

The character Donald is uninteresting, Anna is barely a presence, Helen wasn’t given a big enough role, Thurman was bland, and Jimmy lacked agency to make his chapters interesting. Essentially, SHIFT revealed its biggest mystery too early and the characters didn’t have enough agency to make them interesting to read about.

 

Let’s start with Donald. He’s the one that helped build the silo and became a congressman of some sort. Who cares? It was just an excuse to get Donald to start planning and building the silos under the guidance of Thurman, who’s one of the masterminds behind the silos. For the beginning of the book we follow Donald as he’s assigned to this ultra top secret project. He’s working late, away from his wife, is being tempted by his old flame Anna, but something was off.

 

He’s boring! Donald doesn’t have quips, doesn’t have a sense of humor, doesn’t even push the envelope to do something that challenges the norm. Instead he becomes what Catelyn was for Game of Thrones, a vessel for the plot.

 

Now, unlike Catelyn. He did have significantly more agency than she did but that’s not saying much considering she had none to begin with. He does attempt an escape and does commit some ‘heinous’ deeds but all Howey succeeded in doing is making him into an unlikeable character. You can’t even hate him, you just feel ambivalent towards him which is the worst thing that could happen to a character.

 

And that’s weird because I LOVED WOOL and couldn’t stop reading it. (No really, you should check it out. My review here: My WOOL review

 

I kept on reading anyway because I still had some interest in the book but it was waning fast. When I reached the chapter that introduced Jimmy Parker, that’s when the train officially flew off the tracks.

 

Minor spoilers ahead.

 

Jimmy Parker’s chapters serve as the backstory for ironically, one of my favorite characters from WOOL. Solo.

 

Everytime I read one of Jimmy’s chapters, I literally said aloud, “Why the hell did I just read this?”

 

Indie author’s take note. If you let your character go along with the whims of others or don’t give them an objective beyond survival. You will create uninteresting and boring characters/chapters. For Jimmy, his motives didn’t extend beyond finding something to eat and finding a place to poop. It was the equivalent of Cast Away, except less exciting, no motivation to escape and no Tom Hanks.

 

For Donald, the fact that he was so willing to go along with Thurman’s plan and did nothing to resist it made him into a terrible character. He never questions, never resists, never speaks up. The only time he actually does something is when the plot finds it convenient for him to do so. I was not surprised to see that other readers felt the same way.

 

It seems to me that SHIFT needed to stay a novella in order to keep some of the mystery alive. If the book had ended when the world did, it would have been a great addendum to the start of the next book WOOL. Instead it dragged on and on and ended up becoming more convoluted and nonsensical than it should have been.

 

-Why was Senator Thurman and a few other people who are NOT WORLD LEADERS, responsible for the decision to create silos?

 

-Who the heck gave the OK to end the world anyway? It was unclear who actually did the deed and what was implied would never, ever happen in the real world (which its based off of).

 

-The Pact made no sense. Why bother having 50 silos if the plan was to eliminate all but one?

 

-What was the purpose of Solo’s chapters? His backstory could have easily been told in two chapters or less. There was no point to it except to get us attached to a character that has no bearing on the plot.

 

-Who the heck was the Old Crow? Why did she remember? It would have been so much more interesting if the old lady was Helen which is where I thought the book was going. What a disappointment.

 

-Why the heck was Donald unable to get over his wife? I totally understand loyalty and grief but what he did after made no damn sense.

 

Throughout this review you may have noticed that I left out the chapters involving Mission Jones. Well, I actually enjoyed his chapters but I didn’t love his chapters. Following Mission was a taste of what it was like reading WOOL. It makes you curious to visit a silo and is easy to visualize what life would be like below ground. Unfortunately, I already got this in WOOL and was looking for something new and exciting to discover.

 

My last point that I want to make is on a more technical level. I read the physical copy of the book and noticed that the author did the interior layout himself. Although I thought the book cover was pleasing, I found some minor issues with the physical copy that should have been ironed out. Namely, chapters that started with a giant letter A, the sariff font would overlap with the normal text font and make it look like it got double highlighted.

 

The interior needed another review before sent to the printers. Also, I felt that the prose was very “telly” and not “showy.” There were some metaphors and similes Howey used that really made me question what the heck he was talking about. “Like a wet shadow.” What does that even mean? A shadow cannot get wet. It makes me think of maybe a shadow undulating over an ocean current but that wasn’t what was happening in the scene.

 

When I read WOOL I thought the prose was fantastic. Not amazing but certainly clear enough to make me visualize the world. For some reason in this second book I felt that the prose was much weaker. I couldn’t see the characters, couldn’t clearly visualize the world, and found myself just reading along rather than imagining what was happening.

 

Maybe I was spoiled by George R. R. Martin’s marvelous prose in A Song of Ice and Fire but I just couldn’t get into Howey’s writing this time around.

 

Overall, I’d definitely have to say to skip this book if you liked the 1st. Sometimes questions are best left unanswered and this is a case of where you shouldn’t know how the world ends.

Wilmar Luna

Wilmar Luna

Couldn't be a superhero in real life so he decided to write his own. When he's not creating empowered female characters he can be found watching films, reading books, and playing lots of video games. Buy his books here: https://www.thesilverninja.com/purchase/