Shift and Dust by Hugh Howey
These are my thoughts:
I am not going to be getting rid of the books anytime soon.
For me personally, this series was the kind of writing that made me say, “well if he could do it and get published then I could.”
I read that it started off as a short story. That the first novel (or maybe the whole series?) was requested from readers to elaborate on that idea and that the author worked on it while you know working a real job that is demanding and paying the bills. This makes sense if true.
I want to start by saying, I will probably read more from this author in the future. There are just some elements of this series that I would not have made or attempted to write. It is amazing that he has a community interested in his idea and his work. It is amazing that he kept at it and finished three books. These are all goals that any writer would wish to achieve.
These are the reasons why it was not for me:
Around chapter 80 in Shift I was very much “why would you do that?” about the whole thing. This happened in each book. There are certain actions the characters take to drive the plot that seems narrowing, frustrating, and hard for me to understand the motivation or logic behind it and the world.
In Dust it was pretty much immediately, but chapter 32 really stands out as to me as being eye rolling.
The story was very heterosexual in that there is no gayness and the romance or love between characters was lacking in chemistry. Not to spoil the set up of the novels but Shifts really ignores a concept of sexuality and society that is everywhere. Basically there is a lot of men and not a single comment, story, or motivational plot point around the possibility that any of them are gay - be it open or closeted.
To go in more on the lacking of chemistry: all the characters are flat. Regardless of sex, villain or hero status, how interesting or invested I should be in them they all seemed to be part of the same hive mind in this universe and I was not in tune with it as others might be. Nobody had main character energy, it was the literary equivalent of NPC.
Also it was too much math to be that illogical. I am horrendous with math, and time progressing is not something I like to think about, but if my understanding of the timeline is anywhere near close to accurate that was a lot.
Should you read it? I guess if you are into the story idea or show.
Should you watch the show? Totally up to you! I am going to. Already there have been changes. (Do I think it is going to drive the plot forward in a way that will make me say they did it better? Hell no!) This is one of those situations where the book is better, but who knows maybe I could be wrong.