2018: A Year in Books

Noon during an Alaska winter. Hard to tell if it's a sunset or
sunrise as the former tends to start immediately upon the
conclusion of the latter

Ah yes, I'm back. You thought you were rid of me. You forgot you signed up for my mailing list. You scratched your head and wondered "who the hell is Brian Donald Wright" when I popped up in your inbox this morning.

Not so, my friends. I am alive and well, still stomping around in the Last Frontier. Still plonking away at the keys of my increasingly battered and outdated laptop. And I'm here to talk about, well, books!

But first....

A quick explanation of my long absence. I promise to keep it brief and get back to the action. 2017 was a great year for me and my blog, together we plopped out somewhere around 50 blog posts, nearly one a week. Me, my computer and my scattered readers (daring brave souls) whirled about the worlds of my imagination, exploring everything from Mayan ruins, writing pedantry, books, medieval shippery, and more.

2018, well, not so much. This is post number two.

So what happened? Well, in short, I got burned out. I poured so much into my author platform in 2017 that I found myself not having time for the actual thing...writing itself. And, because I hate excuses, I just got lazy.

Well, I'm back. And though I don't expect to return to hammering out a blog post every week, I will try to improve. Blog posts take a great deal of time. Perhaps I need to shorten them? Well, anyways, let's get back on topic.

Did I tell you I missed you?

A Journey in Words

When I wrote this same post last year, I said "Each book not only carries me away into a fictional dimension but also fixes my mind in the time and space where I read it....My year comes back to me, each book a signpost on the adventure that was 2017." Although I did not read as many books in 2018, this holds just as true as before.

When I remember Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, for example, I am taken back to the backcountry cabin where my loving wife, Ella, and I huddled through a chilly pair of January nights. It was here that I read that book's final 100 pages, enthralled right to the end. The second night of this trip I experienced my first earthquake, a 7.9 magnitude shaker that would have made for a great blogpost.... Another Ishiguro novel, The Buried Giant, was the book I lugged to Hawaii in April, so imagining that novel puts me back on those sandy beaches and at the toe of those verdant mountains. And so it goes, a story of my year in the form of the books that followed me everywhere I went. 

The Tomes 

As it were, I read 16 books this year, which I am sad to admit is eight less than last year. Not my best effort, though the sheer number is always what counts and several of these books were quite long. Without further ado, here is a brief look at each of them....

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

A literary classic in the dystopia genre. A group of children who grow up at a peculiar boarding school learn the horrifying reality about their culture and themselves. As usual with Ishiguro's works, Never Let Me Go places the focus on the power of subtle-but-crucial interpersonal moments. This is a unique and poignant piece of literary fiction from the 2017 winner of the Nobel Prize or Literature. 

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch)

Part fantasy epic, part heist tale, The Lies of Locke Lamora is a clever and unique fantasy romp in a gritty, gory setting. Despite its long length Lamora was a page turner and one of the better fantasy books I read in 2018.

Master Assassins (Robert V.S. Redick)

The first installment of an upcoming series by a less-known author, Master Assassins is a well-crafted fantasy epic set in some sort of alternate middle east setting. Engagingly written and with highly developed characters, this is a worthy new fantasy series, though for me it lacked something to take it over the top.

New York 2140 (Kim Stanley Robinson)

Just over a century into the future and part of New York City is underwater after sea level rose 50 feet. A complex and lengthy bit of science fiction that works to be as much a tale of finance and politics than a dystopia thriller. I found this book to be slow and tedious despite it being nominated for several major awards.

Red Seas Under Red Skies (Sott Lynch)

The sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora and continues right along the path of its predecessor. Though perhaps not as fresh as Book 1 of the series, Red Skies does its job as a sequel. I went out and bought book three almost as soon as I was finished.

Sing, Unburied, Sing (Jesmyn Ward)

A National Book Award winner, Sing, Unburied, Sing picks up where novels of the civil rights era leave off. A look at the modern south, and the work still in front of us in race relations in America, with a spice of the literary paranormal akin to the Toni Morrison's classic, Beloved. Despite its well-written prose, I found this book difficult to stagger through.

The Gunslinger (Stephen King)

An outloud re-reading of this classic of speculative fiction. Part fantasy epic, part dystopia sci-fi, part horror, Stephen King's Dark Tower series was what he called his Jupiter in the solar system of his imagination. Although The Gunslinger is perhaps the worst of the seven books in the series, this is where it all begins.

The Buried Giant (Kazuo Ishiguro)

The most recent of Ishiguro novels. Set in post Arthurian Britain, an elderly couple sets out on a quest to uncover an important piece of their history as a strange fog robs them of their memory. Ishiguro straddles the line between fantasy and literary in this book. Though I was largely unimpressed, the ending was one of the most powerful and though-provoking of any novel I have ever read and that is not hyperbole.

To the Bright Edge of the World (Eowyn Ivey)

This brilliant epistolary novel tells the story of a fictionalized version of a post-Alaska Purchase expedition in which the U.S. government was eager to learn just what it was they had acquired in "Seward's Folley" (the pejorative critics used for the Alaska Purchase which was brokered by William Seward). In Ivey's Alaska, the native myths are real and the struggles of the brave explorers and their families back home are visceral. 

Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)

A mega classic of literature, Metamorphosis was an "eat your vegetables" read for me. Every year I try to swallow at least one or two major classics and this year Metamorphosis was my selection. A short novel, Metamorphosis is an interesting albeit a bit dry read. It tells the story of a man who awakes one morning having been transformed into an insect and the repercussions that follow.

The Sword of Shanarra (Terry Brooks)

A 1970s fantasy epic, many people regard The Sword of Shanarra as a re-telling of The Lord of the Rings. I found the parallels to be a little too similar and the book a little too breathy so I did not finish.

A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guinn)

An absolute classic in the fantasy genre, A Wizard of Earthsea is a story who is can be spotted at the roots of major contemporary tales, such as Harry Potter, The Name of the Wind and others. Succinct but original, this book drew me in and pulled me through to its final pages.

Less (Andrew Sean Greer)

A hilarious, poignant and brilliantly written literary romp about a gay novelist who embarks on a world tour to avoid having to either accept or reject an invite to the wedding of a former lover. The winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this novel proved that not all winners of this great award have to be violent or depressing.

Heroes, Gods and Monsters (Bernard Evslin)

This book of mythology covers the major gods of the Greek canon with brief, easy-to-read and remember treatments. For someone like me who enjoys the mythologies and detects their still resonating impacts on modern culture, this book is a great way to familiarize with the basics of the stories without getting bogged down in details.

The Goldfinch (Donna Tart)

A Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the repercussions of a terrorist attack inside a popular art museum and the far-reaching fallout. For me this book was tedious, overly detailed and a massive struggle. I was highly disappointed and didn't finish it.

The Raven's Gift (Don Reardon)

Reminiscent of some of my favorite post apocalyptic novels, The Raven's Gift unfolds the story of rural arctic Alaska in wake of a horrific plague that has wiped out most of the population. Facing isolation and winter, a man and his blind companion struggle to find their way out.

2018 Awards

Best Fantasy

From The Lies of Locke Lamora, The Wizard of Earthsea, and even The Buried Giant, I read quite a few fantasy novels this year. It is difficult for me to select a single one as being the best not because I read so many good ones, but because none of them jump out as being particularly impressive. If I pull back, however, and just go on instinct, the book that feels like it had all the trappings I value in a fantasy novel was Master Assassins by Robert V.S. Redick, a narrow victor over The Lies of Locke Lamora. 

Best Sci Fi

Looking back over my list for 2018, I see a gaping hole in the science fiction genre. In fact, the only two books that might fall in the category would be Never Let Me Go, which I have already listed under "literary," and New York 2140, a book that bogged me down for a month and I was so glad when it was over I made a "yuck" sound when I shelved it. So unfortunately this year, there will be no Sci Fi winner.

Best Literary

Although several of the books on this year's list straddled the line between literary and genre fiction, I ultimately considered five of the books I read this year to be literary. Of these, the one that had the biggest impact on me was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This strange but engaging book showcases the significance of the small events in life, and the poignancy of our everyday interpersonal connections.

Grand Prize

As with last year when I gave my "grand prize" to the winner of the Literary category, I am going to do that again. From this year's books there is none that have stuck with me and none that I find myself talking about or recommending more than Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. As mentioned previously, this book is so poignant, original and strange it has "stuck with me" even though it was one of the first books I read this year. If I were to give out a runner up award it would have to go to To the Bright Edge of the World, another brilliant piece of literary fiction that to me is a perfect example of what great writing is capable of at its highest level.

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. When not reading as many books as I can get my hands on, I blog about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph to giant redwoods, medieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 

2017: A Year in Books

Another year peels off the calendar. As I age, every cycle happens faster and faster.

Seward, Alaska, the place that most epitomizes my 2017

We like to imagine New Year's as some sort of definitive delineation, a border wall keeping the years strictly separate. Every New Year's is an opportunity to redefine and re-imagine ourselves. We engage in all sorts of ludicrous, nonsensical traditions that epitomize this symbolic holiday. From grapes to countdowns. Midnight kisses to "Auld Lang Syne," that song that posits "should all acquaintances be forgot?" Whether meaningful or not, we do lip service to these traditions anyway, and name every year at exactly 12:00 am on January 1st a "fresh start." Our deeds from yesterday are wiped clean. The deeds of tomorrow practically a different life.

This year I'm going to invent a new approach to celebrating this imaginary line in the sand: a look back on what was one of the most varied and interesting years in my life through the lens of the books I read.

Every Book a Signpost Along a Circuitous Journey

Each book not only carries me away into a fictional dimension but also fixes my mind in the time and space where I read it. When I think about The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett, for example, crystalline images of sitting on the porch of a charming bed and breakfast in Medocino, California with the sun lancing down on my bare shoulders and the boom of the Pacific Ocean in the rugged hollows of nearby crags comes instantly to my mind. The sights and smells of that day flood back like a dammed river returned to its former course. I didn't read the entire book while sitting on that porch, probably only twenty or thirty pages. But it is to that setting I will forever return when reminiscing on that book.

Or with Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I recall sitting in the forward lounge of the M/V Malaspina while we lurched our way up the Inside Passage towards our new home in Alaska, the thrill of adventure and the unknown future fresh in my mind. Or mention The Circle by Dave Eggers, and I am curled up in a hotel room in the downtown core of Seattle, edgy and writhing like a fish out of water as a small-town boy in the heart of a huge city.

On and on it goes. My year comes back to me, each book a signpost on the adventure that was 2017.

I began the Homer-esque epic of 2017 in a living room on New Year's Eve, laughing nearly to tears with family and friends and we played a silly board came called Telestrations (sort of a combination of telephone and Pictionary) back in Colorado. I didn't know at the time that the tortuous path of 2017 was already laid out before my feet.

My journey in 2017. Starting in Colorado in January, heading west to California for four months, then up through Oregon, Washington, the Inside Passage to the Yukon and into Alaska. This route is about 3,800 miles and doesn't include several lengthy side trips....

Just a few days later, the blur of towns and states, the rush of miles under the wheels, the hundreds evening beach walks, thousands of vistas of snow-tipped mountains and glinting rivers was underway. Utah, Nevada, California. Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, the Yukon, Alaska.

Books carried me along.

The Tomes

What follows is every book I read in 2017. A grand total of 24. Not bad. Probably not as many as you. But considering the numerous distractions I suffered this year (writing a novel, traveling, job seeking, two major relocations, etc) I think I did all right.

Twenty-four books in 365 days is an average of 15.2 days per book. Such numbers reveal only a partial story. Some of these books, like Ender's Game and The Remains of the Day, were short and engaging, and I blasted through them in a couple of days. Others, like Outlander, were long and tedious, bogging me down and stretching on for weeks. 

Overall, I am proud of what I read in 2017. The list spans a broad spectrum from sci-fi tales like Look to Windward, Ender's Game, and Journey to the Center of the Earth to fantasy romps like American Gods, The Fifth Steason, and Uprooted. Nobel or Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpieces like All the Light We Cannot See, The Remains of the Day and The Underground Railroad to even a few indie books like City of Slaves, Aes Sidhe and Druid's Portal.

2017 was a great adventure. And the books that carried me through it were journey in their own right. 

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)

A Pulitzer Prize winning tale about a blind girl in the midst of WWII-torn France. This stunningly beautiful tale might perhaps take the prize as my favorite book of 2017. All the Light was one of those books which just reading it probably made me better writer.

American Gods (Neil Gaiman)

A modern fantasy classic. A battle between gods of the old cannon, like Odin and Loki, against the new gods (internet, television, etc). American Gods won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2002.

The Circle (Dave Eggers)

A near-future sci-fi in which today's over-saturation of social media is taken to its logical conclusion. Hints of 1984, but where the power to watch you comes from a Google/Facebook-like company called The Circle and all of its vehement followers.

City of Slaves (Abby Goldsmith)

An excellent indie tale (published only on Wattpad for now) about a civilization of mind-reading humanoids who enslaves all other inter-galactic races. Intriguing implications of mob rule, the internet, and other social phenomenon throughout.  

The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

An uncomfortable literary dystopic novel in which a hyper-conservative, patriarchal society subjugates women for their own benefit.

The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi)

A Nebula and Hugo Award winning dystopic sci-fi about a future empire in Thailand where food is scarce and tightly-controlled by Monsanto-like gene corporations, and people can be mulched for the fuel contained in their decomposing bodies.

The Fifth Season (N.K. Jemisin)

The first book in the Broken Earth Trilogy and winner of the 2016 Hugo Award. A massive earthquake has sent the world into a "fifth season," a state of near-apocalypse. Orogenes, humans with the power to influence tectonic activity, are deplored, exploited and persecuted by society. 

The Obelisk Gate (N.K. Jemisin)

Second book of the Broken Earth Trilogy and also the 2017 Hugo Award winner. The broken society settles into its new state as the continued apocalypse wages all around.

The Stone Sky (N.K. Jemisin)

The conclusion to the Broken Earth trilogy and my guess for the winner of the 2018 Hugo Award. The ancient battle between the "Evil Earth" and humans finds its dramatic end.

Look to Windward (Iain M. Banks)

Part of Banks's "Culture" series, Look to Windward posits intriguing and prescient notions about artificial intelligence and future society.

Player of Games (Iain M. Banks)

As a futuristic society of human/AI symbiosis known as the "Culture" expands their holdings into the galaxy, they discover a race who plays a most interesting and complex game with the highest stakes. The Culture sends in their best player of games into to conquer it.

Druid's Portal (Cindy Tomamichel)

A small-press novel, Druid's Portal unfolds the story of an archaeologist who mistakenly travels through time into Ancient Rome in pursuit of a thief. The tale includes, adventure, mystery and romance.

The Color of Magic (Terry Pratchett)

This whimsical faux-fantasy is the introduction into Terry Pratchett's cultural phenomenon known as Discworld, a flatearth land of nonsense, side-splitting humor, intriguing characters, and even a sentient, finger-eating treasure chest full of gold.

Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)

A 1991 classic that helped launched the "time-traveling romance" genre into the mainstream. A WWII nurse inadvertently travels back to 18th century Scotland. 

Wool (Hugh Howey)

Another dystopic sci-fi. The world's air has become poisoned so thoroughly humans are forced to live in massive, underground structures known as "silos." A web of conspiracy, lies and murder is uncovered and the distinct hierarchy of the silo is upended.

Court of Twilight (Mareth Griffith)

A urban fantasy novel that uncovers the world of trows in Ireland.

The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead)

Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award (a feat only accomplished by seven or eight books in history), The Underground Railroad is not exactly a joy to read, but it is important. America was built on slavery, genocide and subjugation. This tale humanizes that terrible time in our history with brilliant understatement.

Aes Sidhe (Fergal Nally)

An indie novel written by writer friend and colleague, Fergal Nally, Aes Sidhe is a fast-paced thrilling fantasy ride that draws its power from folklore and legendary traditions such as King Arthur and, of course, the Aes Sidhe.

Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow)
A massive yet engaging epic biography that covers the life of one of the most intriguing and fascinating of all America's founding fathers. This massive tome was also the inspiration to the smash Broadway hit, Hamilton, which became a cultural phenomenon and perhaps the greatest play thus far of the 21st century.

Uprooted (Naomi Novcik)

A finalist for the Nebula Award, Uprooted is a page-turning fantasy tale of a village girl named Agnieszka who lives on the border of a malicious forest known as "the Wood." Agnieszka is taken by a mysterious wizard to his castle to function as his servant and disciple in his efforts to counter the Wood's horrible power.

This House of Sky (Ivan Doig)

Perhaps the most brilliantly written prose I read in 2017. Having grown up the son of a struggling rancher in rural Montana, Doig baffles me how he learned to write so brilliantly. This House of Sky is Doig's memoir. It unfolds his life in Montana and the unique drama that encapsulated his family.

The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)

When Ishiguro won the 2017 Nobel Prize for literature I admit I didn't know who he was. I decided I better find out. For most of The Remains of the Day I couldn't decide what was so great about it. It is very slow paced and rambles on for pages and page about things like what makes a great butler. In the last few pages, however, the book turned on its head, making me reconsider what I thought about everything else. 

Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)

Ender's Game is a modern sci-fi classic. Though there are some who object to Card based on his occasionally inflammatory social commentary, and the apparent misogynistic nature of his tales, Ender's Game nonetheless is a page-turning romp that contains elements of Star Wars-esque space opera as well as the placing-children-in-the-fatal-heart-of-conflict nature of Hunger Games.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne)
I picked this up at a thrift store for a couple of quarters because I occasionally like to read the classics. Jules Verne is without question one of the grandmasters and original minds of science fiction. However, by modern storytelling standards this tale probably would never have gotten off the ground. This is an unfair comparison, however, as it was written a century and a half ago and is one of the foundation blocks of the genre. It still reads fairly well and contains an interesting tale of adventure and science.

There it is, a journey through space and time and the strangest corners of my imagination and the imaginations of the authors who guided me there. 2018 is sure to bring wonders of all sorts. New people, places and yes, of course, books. I hope to see you there!

EPILOGUE: My 2017 Book Awards

My personal awards for 2017. The "best of" list from the 24 books I read this year.

Best Fantasy 
The Fifth Season (N.K. Jemisin)
This is a tricky one for me because The Fifth Season is one of those genre-bending books that occasionally tips into science fiction. However, of the three books in this series (all of which I read in 2017) it is the most fantasy-like, and was an engaging, page-turner.

Best Sci-Fi
The Player of Games (Iain M. Banks)
This was a bit of a toss-up between this book and Wool by Hugh Howey. However, I found that the ideas in The Player of Games, like many Banks novels, are the type that make you wonder "how did he come up with that? His writing always seems startlingly prescient and predictive of a believable trajectory in our technological future. Additionally, this book was a page turner and kept me on my toes right up to the blistering conclusion.

Best Literary
All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
Fresh out of college, I was a bit of a book snob and read "literary" novels exclusively. Now, I like to dabble in books of almost every ilk. Literary Fiction may be hard to define, nevertheless I feel confident that at least four of the books I read this year would land on those shelves in most bookstores. Each of them was amazing and I felt like a better writer after reading them. However, I just loved the way Doerr tackled an over-used topic like WWII in a fresh and intriguing way. The prose was painfully brilliant, and the complex characters and thematic development are what tip me into giving this book the nod over the others.

Best Non-Fiction
Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow)
It is a bit embarrassing to admit I only read two non-fiction books this year, this one and Ivan Doig's memoir, This House of Sky. Both were brilliant in their own ways and very hard to compare. One is a biography of a colonial-era founding father, the other an autobiography that details life in the American West of the mid-20th century. I'm going with Hamilton because, despite its brick-like appearance and massive attention to detail, it was an engaging and enlightneing page turner. I found myself wishing for someone, HBO or Netflix or Showtime, to adapt it into a drama series. If I didn't have so many projects already perhaps I would start scribbling up a screenplay....

Grand Prize: Best Book
All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
There it is, my grand prize winner. I just can't say enough about it. Brilliant, complex, critically beloved (Pulitzer Prize winner) and commercially successful. This is my kind of book. It tickles the literature major and the writer in me and remains a powerful glimpse into one of the most fascinating time periods in world history, yet does so in an interesting and original way.

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. When not reading as many books as I can get my hands on, I blog about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph to giant redwoods, medieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 

Five Books that Left Me Feeling Icky

A well-written novel is one that makes you feel something. But what if that something is discomfort? Disgust? Anxiety? Revulsion? Important books never shy away from tackling difficult subjects: repression, gender roles, crime, deceit, violence, tragedy. Occasionally, however, a book submerges me in such torrent of desolation I feel I'm drowning in its turbid waters.

There have been several books over the years that I literally shoved away when I reached the bottom of the last page. Whether it revealed something uncomfortable about society or some dark place inside my own mind, the book left an icky stain in its wake.

Here are five books that left me with this profound sense of dis-ease.

Gone Girl- Gillian Flynn (2012)

Gillian Flynn's 2012 blockbuster Gone Girl is a perfect example of a novel that left a gray cloud hanging even after it departed. The way Flynn manipulated my emotions to generate a sense of utter helplessness was an incredible feat of writing talent. Gone Girl made me genuinely fear meeting a true psychopath (and I mean a clinical psychopath, as this word is often tossed around incorrectly). But despite the uncomfortable nature of the story, I blasted through its 400+ pages like a meth addict: red-eyed and sleepless, twitching with compulsion when I was forced to put it down. I hated and loved every paragraph.

There is no doubting Flynn's skill. Gone Girl has an engaging narrative structure, riddled with twists and turns. The novel is a vortex that slurps readers into a macabre abyss where the monsters are real and the bottom is too dark to see. This psychological thriller is an exhilarating yet troublesome glimpse into the broken corners of the human mind. How well can you ever truly know a person? If you are married you might find yourself looking sidelong at your spouse as you pour through these pages.

The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood (1985)

Margaret Atwood's neo-classic The Handmaid's Tale unfolds the story of a dystopian society where women are subjugated by a ruthless patriarchy. It seems more relevant today than ever. As with Gone Girl, I battled a sense of helplessness throughout, which I suppose means Atwood succeeded in rendering a high degree of empathy for the main character. The Handmaid's Tale is disgusting, frightening, and its conclusion left me without a sense of true resolve to unwind the ugly tension that built as the story progressed.

Stylistically, the writing is brilliant. Atwood infuses literary qualities that have stymied critics from applying the damming "sci-fi" label. Instead, The Handmaid's Tale toes the line between genre and literary fiction, winning the 1986 Nebula Award and hitting the shortlist for the Booker Prize, one of the most coveted writing awards in the English language. When I reached the final pages, however, I found it hard to recommend The Handmaid's Tale to friends, instead I was mostly just glad it was over.

The Circle- Dave Eggers (2013)

Dave Eggers is a literary hero of mine and when I saw a book of his was being adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks and Hermoine (oh, I mean Emma Watson) I was intrigued. What I discovered, however, was a story that evoked many of the same discomforts I already possessed about the rapidly expanding role of social media in society. The Circle exists in a highly uncomfortable near-future dystopia that clearly reveals how compulsory participation in social media can devolve to a point where the digital record of an experience becomes more important than the experience itself. The sacred privacy we once cherished is now increasingly subjected to full public syndication.

Critics often compared this novel to Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 and for good reason. The Circle updates these classic stories but still echoes a familiar discomfort. The real-life rate in which technology and social media avenues like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are expanding lends chilling verisimilitude to the events in The Circle. I resent the way social media has altered the structure of friendship. Too often I feel compelled to make my rounds through Facebook just to keep my friends from accusing me of neglect. The modern invent of drones and compact cameras like GoPros have allowed your digital self to be broadcast from anywhere on the planet, from hundreds of fathoms beneath the surface of the ocean to the icy summit of Mt. Everest. No place is sacred. Every experience must be shared. The Circle left me queasy, wondering how far society will take this need to divulge even the most mundane moments of everyday life.

The Road- Cormac McCarthy (2006)

For those who haven't experienced a Cormac McCarthy novel, it is difficult to articulate the strangeness prevalent in every one. McCarthy oscillates between tongue-baffling run-on sentences to understated fragments like diminutive brush strokes. He drops mystifying vocabulary with casual elegance and renders impressionistic scenes that read like a Renoir painting. His novels are often suffused in explicit violence, hyper-masculinity and suffocating darkness that plumb the grim corners of the human condition. He is brilliant, yet I lurch between admiration and profound disgust for his work.

The Road is often considered McCarthy's magnum opus. It was the novel for which he won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. The Road is set in the ashy, despairing aftermath of an apocalypse, the nature of which the reader never learns. A man and his son, who aren't given names, plod through this tragic landscape dodging cannibals, thieves, and the burden of their own grief. Like Gone Girl I became gruesomely addicted to The Road. I didn't want to eat or sleep. As I was immersed in McCarthy's sordid world, I grew paranoid of the people around me, wondering which might try to rob me or perhaps make a meal of my meaty limbs. When it was over, I was convinced Earth was thoroughly doomed. Should we ever come to such a place as found in The Road, I think I'd prefer to swan dive off Niagara Falls than linger like a revenant who hasn't quite realized the world and everything in it has died. To mine for something positive, I suppose The Road depicts man's perseverance in the face of the direst of circumstances. There is no doubt The Road is brilliant. Just don't expect a warm, cheery tale full of hope.

The Talented Mr. Ripley- Patricia Highsmith (1955)

It comes as no surprise that when Gone Girl came out, the New York Times Book Review labeled Gillian Flynn as a modern incarnation of Patricia Highsmith. The Talented Mr. Ripley is a psychological thriller in the same vein, one that gives you a glimpse into the paranoid, thoroughly diseased mind of a master at manipulation. As the main character's crimes spiral out of control, I, too, was drawn deeper and deeper into his storm. Every solution he forges leads to five more problems. But Tom Ripley is indeed talented, even if labeling his skill as "misapplied" is the understatement of the morning.

Deciding whether to empathize or deplore him was perhaps the main tension of the novel for me. By the time I was halfway deep I was thoroughly engaged, pulling for his deceptions and manipulations to succeed and terrified his incredible ruse would come to screeching and spectacular end. I found myself making excuses for him: he was forced into a chain of events beyond his control. He never meant for it to go so far. He was a train without breaks barreling on a downhill track. Deep down he really had good intentions. Ultimately, however, I was disgusted with myself for ever siding with him. What did that reveal about me? Did that mean that with the exact wrong circumstances I, too, could end up so terribly derailed? When the book was over I tossed it away and let the detritus of my life swallow it into its depths, hopefully forever. 

Final Thoughts

What is interesting about these novels, is that every single one of them were "page turners" for me, books I read while I ate, bathed, and brushed my teeth. I awoke from sleep eager to pick back up where I'd left off at 2 a.m. the night before. Though none of them left me blushing with praise, and I might even have said I hated some of them, they have all stuck with me through the years. Perhaps there is something about a novel like this, one that thrusts you so far out of your comfort zone you need a map to get back, that has a uniquely powerful effect on a reader. A primary goal for an author is to elicit a reaction. The stronger this reaction, it could be argued, the more effective the writing.

There are few responses as a reader more memorable and more powerful than discomfort, anguish and desolation.

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. When not reading books about psychopaths, I often write about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph to giant redwoods, medieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions 

This Broken Earth

Massive damage from the Good Friday Earthquake
of 1964 near Anchorage, AK

March 27, 1964. Good Friday. The Aleutian Subduction Zone--where the Pacific tectonic plate collides with the North American plate--suddenly ripped loose, unleashing a massive magnitude 9.2 earthquake. It was the largest seismic event in North American history and the second largest ever recorded in the world.

For nearly five minutes the ground rolled and buckled, heaved and plunged. When the land finally settled, the damage was catastrophic. In some places the ground had risen as much as 38 feet. In others it had sunk nearly the same amount. Downtown Anchorage was in ruins.

Even more destructive than the quake itself, however, was the tsunami that raced across the Pacific Ocean.

Inundated within minutes were Alaskan communities like Portage, Whittier, Valdez and Kodiak. The waves clawed onto the shores, running up as much as 220 feet above average sea level. And it didn't stop there. The tsunami sped across the broad ocean, moving nearly 500 mph, striking the west coast of the United States. Thirteen people were killed in Crescent City, California and another five along the coast of Oregon. The tsunami was eventually registered in a least 20 countries, including Japan, New Zealand, Peru and even Antarctica.

By the end of the day, at least 139 were killed and some $311 million dollars in damage had occurred.

Believe it or not, this is eventually leading to a book review....

Seward, Alaska immediately after the quake

Near the exact crosshairs for this incredible event was the little town of Seward, Alaska, the place where I now live. Though the town was rocked by the massive earthquake, Seward was mostly affected by the large tsunami which flooded through downtown, destroyed much of the old harbor and laid to waste the bulk of Seward's economy, killing 12 of the tiny town's citizens in the process.

Nearly a mile of Seward's coastline fell into the ocean, and burning oil from a destroyed refinery was washed inland, sometimes nearly a mile, by the tsunami. The land was cracked and fissured. The Earth was broken. It must have seemed like Hell.

This Broken Earth (An Earthquake-related Book Review)

(Note: there may be a few spoilers in this review. Though I was careful not to reveal any major plot points, since I am reviewing a sequel even my description of the setting may give away some important points of the series's first installment)

So since we are on the topic of massive earthquakes, it seems only fitting to segue into a fantasy novel that is about, well, massive earthquakes....

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin is modern fantasy series which replaces a stereotypical medieval setting with a distant future on a nearly unrecognizable Earth. The planet, ravaged by rampant earthquakes and massive tectonic motion, has reformed into what is, apparently, a new, one-continent Pangaea.

Another pleasingly original notion in the The Broken Earth is that the "magic" comes not from wizards, witches and warlocks but from "orogenes," people with the incredible ability to harness orogeny, which according to dictionary.com means "the process of mountain making or upheaval."

The series's first novel, The Fifth Season, begins in this futuristic Earth in the immediate aftermath of a enormous earthquake, a "ten pointer at least," which has launched the civilization into post apocalyptic survival mode. This unprecedented earthquake, which would dwarf even the massive 9.2 that rendered so much destruction here in Alaska, has laid to waste all of the careful constructs of the human culture known as The Stillness.  

Amazon scores: 222 reviews
5 star: 77%; 1 star: 1%

As some may recall, I reviewed the The Fifth Season in a blog post on March 16th, giving the original, Hugo Award winning installment a "4.2 out of 5 stars." I praised Jemisin for bringing something fresh to the fantasy genre and for her pleasingly complicated story structure. Today, I would like to take a look at The Obelisk Gate, the second in the unfinished trilogy.

One of the things that was so enjoyable about The Fifth Season was discovering the strange and interesting world of Jemisin's creation and learning about the unique structure of the world's "magic." The novelty and adventure were what made the pages of The Fifth Season cascade away (I read the novel in just a few days). In comparison to its predecessor, however, The Obelisk Gate unfortunately strikes out.

The setting for the second installment in the series is disappointingly static. Although the town which the main character, Essun, now lives is interesting (it is constructed inside the heart of a massive geode) the primary group of characters never leaves it. This underground setting quickly begins to feel claustrophobic. As a reader who was delighted in the first novel, I desperately wanted to explore more of this world but was instead forced to remain underground in a bizarre, hard-to-visualize crystal city whose walls seemingly shrank in around me.

Another disappointment in this follow-up was how The Obelisk Gate failed to live up the pleasing complexity of The Fifth Season. In the first book of the series, I found Jemisin's cleaver weaving of its the three plot arcs distinctly gratifying. In the sequel, however, no such intriguing complexity exists. Instead, the second plot arc is instead rather frustrating and actually even a bit uncomfortable. I found myself almost wanting to skim through it and return to Essun's story, which (as previously mentioned) was already proving to be a significant let down. 

And  then there is present tense, second person...

Why? Please, can somebody tell me why? Half of the novel, Essun's story, is written in irritating second person. In my opinion, and feel free to differ, this unconventional move does nothing positive for the story but instead only presents a significant obstacle that the novel has to overcome. It's like cruising along a scenic road and running into a sea of potholes. You have to bump and grind your way uncomfortably through it to navigate what should have been smooth and beautiful. It feels like a forced concept, a heavy-handed attempt at originality. For my money, this novel would have been far better without it.

At this point I feel like I have been overly harsh on The Obelisk Gate and it's not entirely fair. If so it's only because I liked the first novel so much I felt like The Obelisk Gate was a missed opportunity. I still blazed through the story in a matter of days and there's no doubt I will read book three when it comes out this fall. There was plenty quality writing, the premise is still fresh and original, and the action plays out into an exciting and page-turning conclusion. The novel's weaknesses (which most reviewers on Amazon didn't seem to mind as the novel has some of the best scores a book can get) were a mere dip in the series that I believe the third installment can can easily redeem. 

In the meantime, I can't help but wish we had an orogene here in Alaska that might be able to stop the next major earthquake, should one happen again.

*** Overall I give The Obelisk Gate three out of five stars 

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If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for my mailing list. I blog about all sorts of crazy, educational, entertaining, and occasionally funny topics from what makes an effective first paragraph in a novel to giant redwoods, medieval sailboats, the ancient Mayans and more. If you do sign up, you will get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these works in progress that are constantly haunting me, I might send out an email letting you know. In the meantime thanks for reading.

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions

The Failures of Social Media Marketing (or You Don't Have to Have a Twitter Presence to Be a Writer)

Big Brother is watching you. No, not Big Brother. Big business. Well, some might suggest Big Brother is too. Not to mention all your friends, family, Twitter pals, Facebook foes, potential employers, potential girlfriends, etc., etc., etc. The digital eye is lidless and can spread its focus with near-omniscient precision like Sauron leering down on his hapless minions from Barad-dûr.

This blog article is inspired to a greater and lesser extent by two of the most recent books I have read: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Circle by Dave Eggers. After a personal marathon of genre fiction—mostly fantasy and science fiction with the occasional thriller mixed in for good measure—I felt the call to return to my roots as a literature major and tackle some modern literary fiction from two of today’s most influential writers.

Here is a quick rundown of each:

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr-2014)

Amazon scores: 26,621 reviews
5 stars= 72%
1 star= 2%

This incredible WWII novel is a modern literary powerhouse. Not only was it the victor for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize, it saw sweeping success in the mainstream, staying atop the bestseller list for 118 weeks. For months I could hardly go anywhere without seeing it on a bookshelf or hearing someone exhorting its merits. Books seem to call to me in this way, and I decided at last to succumb and discover for myself if the hype surrounding this instant-classic was deserved.

In short, it is.

All the Light takes on an ancient topic: war. Even more specifically it re-examines the exhausted setting of WWII which has played host to so many books and movies I was skeptical that a fresh take on this subject was still possible. Not only did All the Light prove my preconceptions wrong, this incredible novel made it clear that even while tackling the most overused settings it is still possible to create something beautiful, fresh, intriguing and successful.

All the Light is the story of a blind girl, Marie-Laure, in the midst of occupied France. Thrust into a rapidly crumbling world without the benefit of her sight, Marie-Laure struggles to cling to the anchors that have kept her dark existence grounded: her father, her books (in braille), and the familiar streets of her corner of Paris, a detailed model of which her father tediously constructed so she could learn the city layout with the touch of her fingers. As this carefully controlled world shatters around her, the reader simultaneously learns the story of Werner, a German orphan whose virtuoso understanding of radio technology shoves him unwillingly to the front lines of battle to perform a grim and haunting duty for the Nazi war effort.

As the war progresses the two characters’ stories spin in ever-tightening concentric circles until both plots whirl together into a frightening, surprising and dramatic crescendo at the book’s conclusion.

At this point you are probably wondering how a novel set in war-torn 1940’s Europe ties into my original thesis about the shortcomings of social media and the discomfort engendered by this hyper-information age.

Anthony Doerr, Boise native and now official writer-in-residence for the state of Idaho, was virtually unknown before the publication of this novel and found this incredible success with no Twitter presence. That’s right. Though he does have a website and a Facebook page (both of which, it appears, are a response to his success, not the cause of it) Doerr has no Twitter account, one of the classic pillars of any modern author's platform. Let me repeat: 

Anthony Doerr found major mainstream literary success without Twitter!

There has always been something slightly uncomfortable for me about social media. I was a latecomer to Facebook (not joining until 2011, long after most of my friends) and was even more tardy to Twitter, which I did not start using until January of this year. Even now I harbor many misgivings about the effect such cybersocial vehicles have on our culture. While they have greatly enhanced the flow of global information and opened the possibility of success for independent authors and self-publishing models exponentially, they have also created the ultimate platform for hate and anonymous negativity to diffuse throughout the globe. Such vehement cruelty is the hilt of the wedge driven between opposing factions of our world, and (in my opinion) one of the most efficient weapons that has led to the erosion of civil discourse in modern society. Of course, it would be hypocritical for me not to acknowledge my own reliance on social media platforms to promote an article criticizing the very same platforms.

But I digress....

This idea, that there is something toxic undermining the benefits of social media, brings me to the second book I wish to discuss, The Circle by Dave Eggers.

The Circle (Dave Eggers- 2015)

Amazon scores: 3,151 reviews
5 star: 28%
1 star: 11%

Regular followers of my blog may recall that I have mentioned Dave Eggers several times in recent months. As I earlier attempted to elucidate, I'm filled with simultaneous frustration yet profound admiration for Eggers as a writer and a literary figure. I struggled with his 2000 memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The brilliance of this breakthrough book is without question but its convoluted style makes reading it a dizzying exercise in patience and focus. On the other hand, I admire Eggers deeply for his creation of 826 National, a rather brilliant non-profit whose primary function is to promote reading and writing skills among children (one of my primary goals also). In addition, I can’t help but feel a measure of hero worship for him for founding McSweeney’s, now largely regarded as one of the top literary journals in the world. Eggers' impact on modern literary writing goes without saying.

When I saw that Eggers' latest novel, The Circle, was being adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, I was intrigued and decided it was past time to give his work another chance.

First of all, let me say I was pleased to discover that The Circle had none of the over-written trappings of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Instead it is very accessible and readable novel. In fact, it feels more like garden-variety dystopian science fiction of the near-future variety than his usual hyper-intellectual literary fiction. The Circle takes the mores laid out by books like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 and translates them into the modern vernacular.

In essence this novel is about the dangers of social media gone awry.

In the novel, a mega corporation called The Circle (basically an amalgamation of Google, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter) has come to be so powerful that it begins to infiltrate into every detail of people’s private lives. Politicians are pressured to become transparent (wearing high resolution cameras at all times so that constituents have 100% access to all meetings, dealings, votes, etc). There is a hyper-focus on social media participation, leading everyone to spend most of their time writing “zings” (essentially tweets) about nearly every mundane daily task. Eventually the company becomes so pervasive they begin promoting programs they claim could eliminate crime and vastly improve healthcare, like implanting tracking chips in children to make them traceable for life and thus eliminate kidnappings, or creating wearable bio-monitors that chart and give unlimited global access to everyone's person’s health 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Eggers’ own discomfort with the inauthenticity of social media communication is clear both in the novel and in his own actions, but he offers no workable solution. Instead he seems to conclude this movement towards an entirely social-cyber existence is inevitable. Things have progressed so far, the novel suggests, that this dystopian society where nothing is private and every personal detail is completely available to everyone is the inevitable and inexorable conclusion of this digital age we have created.

As mentioned, Dave Eggers has a relatively minor presence on social media. Here is yet another wildly successful novelist who does not have a Twitter account. Of course, it should be acknowledged that having become rather famous before the advent of Twitter or Facebook, Eggers had a distinct head start from the rest of us still on our quests to promote our work. However, his lack of social media presence combined with his chilling and terribly realistic portrayal of the potential consequences of our information-dense cyber reality forms a clear thesis that our ushering-in of an age where information is increasingly syndicated in unprecedented ways comes at a terrible cost: the death of uniquely personal and authentic experience.

Social media is a great tool, but as with any tool it can be misused. Many modern voices pressure today's aspiring writers to participate heavily in social media promotion: you must have a platform! Perhaps they're right. Perhaps the only way us not-yet-broadly-known writers can raise our voices above the ambient noise is to stand upon the digital platforms and project our voices into the cosmos. Or perhaps this is just a myth promoted by those in charge of constructing The Circle.

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I am in-debted to my readers. Without people to endure the words on my pages, I will vanish like the dodo. If you liked this post, feel free to comment below. If you didn't like it, feel free to comment below. I'll be your friend forever if you consider signing up for my weekly newsletter. You'll get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these numerous books I've been working on, I might send out an email letting you know about that, but that's it! In the meantime thanks for reading.

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions

Hugh Howey's Wool: Proof that the Indie Model Can Work

A few weeks ago the hunt for a new book commenced. 

The preceding months I'd been slaying fiction like a mighty dragon hunter, seeking novels and their treasure troves and taking them down with heroic abandon. I justified the ever-mounting expense to my wife by claiming that the mountain of paperback corpses piling up in our house was the product of crucial "research." (Mostly, however, I have come to suspect she's the damsel every hero actually needs: one not in distress but who accepts her hero's foibles out of the genuine goodness of her heart.) I harbor closely guarded and grandiose illusions (delusions?) of myself as a fiction writer, and every fiction writer worth his salt knows the best way to hone his craft is to study examples of those who've mastered it already.

I needed a new book to slay. I wanted to find a new writer I'd never read, but I also wanted something current to help me decipher the trends in speculative fiction and unlock the mystery of the modern audience.

Amazon scores: 12,970 reviews
5 star- 75%; 1 star- 2 %

Thus after a tedious scouring of the dark wilderness of Wikipedia, Amazon, and Goodreads, I stumbled at last upon my next worthy adversary: Wool.

What made Wool so intriguing was not just that it had an astonishing 12,000 customer reviews on Amazon (the vast majority of which were 4-star and above), or that it had made the NYT bestseller list and was optioned for an upcoming movie. What interested me most was that, at least during its rise to glory, Wool was a self-published novel. 

My attitude towards self-publishing so far has been mixed to cynical. Constantly harangued on Twitter by writers not so different than myself trying to sell me their self-published books, I find myself often utilizing the “look inside” feature on Amazon to scrutinize the first pages of these numerous suitors. Occasionally, I’ve found some interesting enough to load onto my kindle. However, though it pains me to say it, the results have almost always been grim. But with 12,000 reviews and a heap of accolades, it seemed Wool might be the indie champion to defy my conclusion that self-published novels, for all their good intentions, are simply inferior.

The Novel

For those, like me, who are latecomers to the Wool phenomenon, let me provide a brief synopsis. Wool takes place in a dystopian future where an unspecified apocalyptic event has rendered the atmosphere fatally toxic. The world of Wool, therefore, is a massive underground complex known as the “silo” that winds hundreds of levels into the ground. Every birth in the silo requires a death, and when such a chance arrives, couples must enter a lottery for permission to conceive a child.

While this premise was not unbelievably original, when taken with the novel's stunning success, I was intrigued enough to give the world of Wool a fair chance.

THE GOOD

The Beginning 

One of the biggest faults I’ve noticed in many self-published novels is a beginning that fails to “hook." My recent investigation into what makes a first paragraph effective suggested that readers respond to the engagement of emotion and the raising of questions the reader has to have answered. In this difficult task, Wool performs exceptionally.

The first line of Wool reads: “The children were playing as Holston climbed to his death.” Immediately, I wanted to know how and why this character was going to die, and why there were children "playing" in proximity to an unfolding tragedy. This first line had the type of emotional/question-raising intrigue I had found so effective in other books. 

But a novel cannot hang on the anchor of a strong first line or even a first paragraph no matter how well-written. A good novel sets the stakes high and doesn’t disappoint.

The first chapter of Wool paints a vivid portrait of this underground world. The description is believably textured and engaging. The world-building, even in this confined setting, feels painstakingly vast.

Howey increases the intrigue with the introduction of the silo's system of capital punishment where the condemned are sent on a one-way voyage to “clean” the digital sensors above ground in the toxic air so the people below can view a clear projection of the outside world on a massive screen in the cafeteria. Why the cleaners never fail to complete this task despite knowing they will only survive long enough to finish the job before succumbing to an agonizing death is one of the foremost questions of the beginning of the novel. And why do the silo's citizens, who treat these cleanings as a sort of holiday, invest so much in a projection of the burnt, broken and lifeless world littered with the corpses of all those who have been "put to cleaning"?

Pushing forward, Howey reveals that Holston’s wife had decided abruptly three years before the novel's outset to voluntarily clean, a form of suicide her reasons for which she never adequately explained. For three years Holston watched the projection, fixating on the crumpled form of his deceased wife, before deciding to follow. 

It becomes obvious there is something amiss about all of this. Something not quite honest about either the digital projection, the cleaning process, or the silo itself. 

Good Characters

Good novels, even some of the best, don't sound particularly original when you distill their plots to a handful of sentences such as you might find on the back cover or underneath the title on Amazon. What makes a novel great is most often the strength of its characters. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is just a mediocre James Patterson knock off without the intrigue of Lisbeth Salander. The Hunger Games sounds much like Ender's Game without the fully fleshed enigma that is Katniss Everdeen. In this once again Wool delivers.

Juliette is the heroine of the dystopian world of Wool

The pecking order of the silo is apparent: the grunts are tucked away at the bottom; the important people live near the top. The novel's principal heroine, Juliette, works in Mechanical, the department on the silo's lowest level. Juliette is underpaid and under-appreciated, but she is hard working, humble, intelligent and charismatic enough to generate a loyal following among her co-workers. She possesses an uncanny sense on what works and knows exactly how to fix what doesn’t. While this, at first, applies to the mechanical workings that keep the power, water and food systems of the silo running, it is later revealed that this is also a metaphor for her comprehension of just about everything. In other words Juliette is a tough, badass chick brimming with charisma and intelligence and you cant help but cheer for her all the way to the end.

Pacing

Wool is a novel that keeps the pages flowing. Never is there a section that lags enough to hamper the story's flow. Even expository sections are engagingly executed. The novel doesn't lean too heavily on bang-bang action, though there is a generous serving of that too. Wool is constructed on interesting philosophical underpinnings that transcend mere action and suspense. 

Dystopia as a Cracked Mirror

One of the joys of good dystopia is what we can learn about our own world. As a projection of a possible future that reflects our cultural trajectory, dystopia reveals the potential consequences of modern actions when taken to their logical conclusions. In Wool, the silo is a microcosm for today's Earth. Howey harbors deep convictions about corruption, classism, the warping/withholding of knowledge and science, and the value of honest interpersonal connection and deep familial bonds. None of this, however, is forced on the novel so that it impedes the story but rather flows with and sharpens the plot at every step.

THE BAD

Plot Holes

There were a few plot holes in Wool that distracted from my suspension of disbelief. The absence of an elevator in the silo seemed distinctly implausible. The vast number of stairs required to march from the top to bottom (or visa versa) is a major obstacle routinely examined but never explained. I suppose the cause could be the scarcity of electric power, or perhaps some conscious decision of the silo’s creators to maintain its clear hierarchy. To me, however, it seemed that an elevator or lift of some form would be essential to this type of construct and the lack of one felt simply ludicrous.

Crumbles into Action Thriller

I’m a sucker for adventure over action. In the first 2/3rds of the novel the driving force tension centers on unlocking mysteries, exploring this strangely unique world, and trying to uncover who is behind the apparent corruption. This was far more interesting than the last third where battle sequences, action, and fighting become paramount.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, Wool is a worthy page turner and a fine example of dystopian, post-apocalyptic science fiction. The strength of the characters, particularly Juliette, as well as the intriguing world building is more than enough to overcome the plot holes and its eventual and unavoidable devloution into an action thriller. The book is a fast and engaging read and even though it is somewhat long (over 500 pages) I reached the end wishing for more. 

Out of five stars I would rate Wool a strong four

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I am in-debted to my readers. Without people to endure the words on my pages, I will vanish like the dodo. If you liked this post, feel free to comment below. If you didn't like it, feel free to comment below. I'll be your friend forever if you consider signing up for my weekly newsletter. You'll get a once-a-week update on my posts and NOTHING ELSE! No spam, no selling your email to third parties. Okay, if I ever get around to publishing one of these numerous books I've been working on, I might send out an email letting you know about that, but that's it! In the meantime thanks for reading.

Follow Me on Twitter!

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All writing is the original work of Brian Wright and may not be copied, distributed, re-printed or used any form without express written consent of the author. Find out here how to CONTACT me with publishing and/or use questions