Dust (Silo #3) Book Review

I’m sure we’ve all watched or at least heard of the “Silo” TV show by now. But did you know there’s a book series that inspired the Apple TV hit? That’s right — the Silo series by Hugh Howey. The final installment in this trilogy is the book “Dust,” and I have some thoughts. This is the third book in the series, so it’ll be hard to talk about without giving away spoilers. You’ve been warned. I’ll give my overall spoiler-free thoughts first and then dig deeper into the (many) questions I had.

Overall Spoiler-Free Thoughts on Dust

On the whole, I do think “Dust” wraps up the trilogy… ok? We have a clear conclusion, and some things are resolved. The story itself feels like it’s over, and on the surface, things are settled.

But the problem lies in what ISN’T resolved or explained. If you’ve read the first two books, you know there’s a lot of lore and mystery surrounding the silos and their origins. Their true purpose. I thought we’d finally get some resolution, but alas, I’m still left scratching my head a bit.

I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the original “Wool” book started as a short story. The author didn’t have a plan — he was just writing a little story that wasn’t meant to be anything more. But people loved it, and I can see why. Their feedback pushed him to keep writing, and I’m glad he expanded the story into a real world.

The problem with starting a franchise in that way is that you don’t have a plan, and that’s very evident here. It seems like the plot and reasoning behind things were just cobbled together as he went. It felt very “pantser,” which in the writing world, is someone who flies by the seat of their pants and doesn’t outline beforehand. Sometimes, it can work, but sometimes, it shows.

I think that’s all I can really say without spoiling, so from here on out in this “Dust” book review, it’ll be spoiler territory.

Silo 1 and Unresolved Questions in Dust

Here’s the thing. If someone is going to destroy the world, there better be a good reason for it. And in my opinion, we never really got that. Last book, we finally learned what happened — big baddie Thurman blew up the world because he was afraid of the bad nanobots coming for him. Ok? Seems a little selfish, but sure. I thought that in this book, we’d get a little more look into his motivation — why he REALLY did this — and why he set up the silos in such a strange, rule-heavy way where only one could survive.

Nah.

If you remember, Donny Don did kill Thurman in “Shift.” I felt like this was a stupid decision, as Thurman was the only one left who really knew what was going on. I’d at least keep him captive to wring out some more information from him.

But not so fast. A bullet in the brain can’t hurt a guy like Thurman who’s packed with good nanos. He miraculously survives the wound and comes back to capture Donasaurus. Cool, so we can finally get more info from him, right? Nope. He literally comes back from the dead for no reason.

This was the chance for him to further explain his evil plans, maybe wax poetic about how he wanted to use this as an opportunity to wipe out humanity to start fresh with only certain races, genetic traits, etc. I really thought he was motivated by white power eugenics, but I guess not? He really just thought plopping a bunch of random people in a silo for 500 years would create a superpeople immune to violence and conflict? That’s just… not how that works.

Sure, I’m assuming there are genetic links to traits like non-aggression, passivity, etc. But you live in a world where people can create microscopic robots that can attack people based on their genetic code. You’re telling me there was no way to whip up a race of superbabies with these genetic traits in a lab? Exploding humanity and letting them breed in confined silos for 500 years was the best option?

For a character that’s supposedly so smart, that’s just… really dumb.

I was really hoping to get more clarity here on WHY Thurman chose this path, HOW he came to this conclusion, and WHAT his overall goals really were… but these questions were simply not answered. I couldn’t even figure out why he felt the need to bomb Atlanta when he was going to kill everyone on the planet with nanobots anyway. Originally, I thought he nuked the whole world, which would have been devastating. Killing all the people with nanobots is a little better for the environment, at least.

I’ve been ranting about this for too long, and there are other things to get to, but here are a few other unresolved questions I had regarding the whole Silo 1 plot:

• What was the purpose of keeping all the women and children frozen, especially when they were just going to be killed anyway? “Motivation,” yeah — but the men are drugged up so much that they barely remember who they are.
• Why was there a need for a “battle royale” type showdown where only one silo could win? If you have two silos with docile populations, couldn’t they both survive?
• What were the silo percentages measuring? If they knew the end genetic “result” they wanted the population to achieve, I’m still not sure why they couldn’t just whip up a genetic superrace via cloning/IVF to speed up the process instead of waiting 10+ generations.

Silo 17/18 and Unresolved Questions in Dust

Moving on, the meat of the story does take place in Silo 17/18. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly boring, and much of this could have been cut down with a red pen. The first half of the book just sees Juliette tinkering with the digger, suits, and air samples, which isn’t really fascinating. I kept waiting for a big reveal from her tinkering, but it never really came. I guess she did figure out that the air in the airlock was the most contaminated, but that seemed kind of apparent given what we know about Silo 1’s interference already.

And what does she do with this information? Absolutely nothing. Granted, she didn’t have much time to act — pretty much as soon as she found out the “argon” was bad, her silo got gassed. Bad timing.

The thing that got me with this whole gassing thing was how everyone in Silo 18 suddenly became a deranged lunatic. It’s like as soon as they go over to 17, they lose their minds. We suddenly have an evil church cult that wants to marry children. People are fighting over plots of land. A cult leader sets all the books on fire? Just… why? Where did all of this come from?

There’s also the plot about Juliette’s scars starting to heal and the bodies not decomposing. Juliette’s dad starts to theorize that something is off in Silo 17… but then that is immediately dropped. I was hoping they’d finally uncover something interesting, and we could learn more about the good nanos, their purpose, etc. Nah. Instead, it’s time to leave the silo!

Look, I’m glad they were able to find clean land, but the whole thing is just silly. There’s just a big cloud of death hanging over the silos? What about on the silos on the edge of the cloud —you’re telling me no one could see any green w

• What actually are the servers, and why are they so important?
• Why are certain ones running hot?
• Are they going to get eaten by wolves? Because what was all that howling in the distance?
• How are they actually going to survive? These people have never even seen rain — I imagine they’ll perish immediately from wildlife attacks or the elements. Or sunburn! Especially that albino guy.
• Will they ever contact Silo 18 or any of the other silos to let them know that there’s a green world out there? Kind of rude.

Is Dust Still Worth the Read? Yes

All that ranting, and I do have to conclude that despite its faults, “Dust” does act as a good conclusion to the story. Juliette and her crew make it out and are primed to explore the untamed world. Silo 1 and all its evils are eliminated. Like I said, on the surface, it works. It’s just all the underlying unanswered questions that felt sloppy to me. I don’t need everything spoonfed to me, but when I don’t understand the primary motivations that set this whole thing in motion, it makes everything feel flimsy.