Soldiers are familiar with the term “fog of war,” where chaos and uncertainty on the battlefield can cause even more casualties. But there’s another meaning in this short story, deftly written by author Max Brooks (who also penned World War Z). The fog of war here also represents the narrator’s cloud of doubt about the necessity of fighting and if we can really understand the true cost of armed conflict to society.

Soldiers who have seen firsthand the destruction of human life, freedom, and dignity because of war are closest to understanding matters of sacrifice and duty. It’s appropriate then that Tiger Chair’s narrator is a soldier, and what he has experienced in war–the cost on both sides–makes him not only question its necessity, but its limitation in achieving any real stability and control. 

By the end of these 50 pages, there is much to dissect about Tiger Chair, which seems just this side of plausible. The themes are universal and Brooks taps into a scenario that would shake any generation. 

Tiger Chair is a short story, but it packs the weight of a novel. I personally go into a story “cold” and ignore the description, but that payoff is huge when the story genuinely surprises.

Tiger Chair is surprising in a number of ways. Without spoiling details, the story is able to connect at the personal level first, then expand outward, showing from the narrator’s point of view a major armed conflict. This war is fought–like any war–with people, information, and technology. It shows the unpredictability of occupying captured territory, the wider information campaigns to win public sentiment, and how technology is not always the deciding factor. The latter, which examines some plausible computing technology used in modern warfare, was actually some of the most eye-opening parts of the story, I thought.

I also enjoyed where the story touched on how the occupying government tried to apply pressure on celebrities to align their social media with official government messages and squash dissent. That was a pretty chilling part.

Writing about war should, by necessity, focus on its destruction. Ignoring that reality is ignoring basic human decency. Brooks writes battle scenes that work as standalone records of death, but also are important to understanding the lessons war should teach those on and off the front lines. 

What does it mean to be a patriot? How long do you commit to carrying on killing to achieve an end goal? These are tough topics, and Brooks does not shy away from dealing with them. He actually provides an answer through the narrator’s decision about his own role. It’s a powerful endnote to a story that examines very real, and very hard realities that any country and generation at war must face.

5/5 stars

-Josh

No one can hear you scream in space, unless you type in all CAPS, then they probably get the point. 

This short read is riveting in its portrayal of a war vet on the edge of space, happy to be far from humanity and human contact. He’s a beacon operator, an outerspace lighthouse keeper of sorts, helping interstellar traffic avoid cosmic collisions and stay on course. 

He’s wrestling with a lot of demons (of the internal variety), bumps in the night, and questions about the meaning of his life. 

I will admit that listening to the audiobook, read by Peter Ganim, added to the immersion and my curiosity about this man’s life. It was an absolutely hilarious, moving, and heartfelt audio reading. It gave the unnamed narrator power and life, and added a necessary weight to a man contemplating his life’s choices. 

Which leads to Beacon 23 itself. Without spoiling the plot, there’s a lot here in this trim, fully realized vision of coming to terms with your life choices. I’d recommend reading this book for what it is, and take in the exploits imagined in this future. The atmospheric details give the reader just enough to understand the world and make the reader fill in the gaps. You’re almost like the narrator in a sense, not dwelling too much beyond what’s in front of you.

The book has a helluva climax. Beacon 23 is partly a meditative examination of roads taken and not taken, with a seemingly impossible final choice to make. All roads have led the beacon operator to this single moment. As a story of one person on the edge of the universe and what that would look like, Beacon 23 works well. But as a story about facing consequences, examining your life head-on, and finding courage in impossible circumstances, it’s simply brilliant.

4 of 5 stars

-Josh

SPOILERS:

The narrator is plagued by the death he saw in war and there was no way he could imagine it would follow him to the furthest reaches of known space. But isn’t that always the case? Nothing is untouched by war.

The third act brings the entire story together, and what a finale. One man must decide the fate of humankind’s largest war machine, and it’s a decision of whether to commit a small genocide or a larger genocide, a choice that impacts humans and aliens alike.

I hand it to Howey–he had me guessing right up to the end. Factoring in the girl and the question of whether or not everything going on was real or imagined, it seemed almost too much to bear such a decision. But the narrator pieced enough of his reality together to realize this was not some psychological break, but a horrific truth–that an interstellar resistance had come to his doorstep and was relying on him to decide the fate of worlds. It was gutwrenching to read about the decision laid at his feet.

It’s the kind of ending that makes for the best argument about the power of storytelling and the written word.

The second book of the Silo series, Shift, is aptly named, and it subverts expectations with a, uuuumm, shift in the story–one that deftly expands on the world.

In broad, non-spoiler terms, it explores big questions such as: how does a closed-loop society operate? What could go wrong? How did we get there? Who’s really in charge? Howey decides to tackle these and other sticky issues in book 2. It’s a bold move that works incredibly well, creating a memorable allegory of how ultimate power does indeed corrupt. 

The story gets major bonus points in how it handles “survivor’s guilt,” not shying away from the messy trauma. It examines the moral fiber of a society that attempts to outrun ethics and replace the human soul with technology (figuratively speaking).

Focusing on some established characters and introducing major new ones, the narrative centers on the unfolding end of the world and those who inherit the new one.

Yes, it’s a survival story about individuals. But equally necessary is the expansive society-building in book 2. The revelations sink in over the course of the tale, and at some points I wanted to curl up on the floor of the silo and cry, just like Donald. My favorite parts ultimately are about the characters who are complicit in undoing the world. Understanding how “it” happened in the first place becomes a very compelling part of the story. 

I left like a resident of the silo when reading Shift. There’s so much that we don’t know, aren’t allowed to ask, and is ultimately out of reach. But what we do learn about our friends closes an emotional loop from book 1 that’s incredibly satisfying. I didn’t know I needed that closure, and when it came, there was this flood of emotion that just hit me.

Thanks to Howey for tackling the big questions, providing an impressive world expansion, and setting up the tale for what I hope is a firecracker of an ending in book 3.

4 of 5

-Josh

SPOILERS:

Family Legacy

There’s sacrifice and bravery in these stories. There are the obvious heroes, but there’s also an equal number of those with quiet courage and fortitude. One of the most emotional moments early on from book 1 is when Allie goes out to “clean”. Once the reader understands the magnitude of this decision, the weight of it is almost too much to bear. It’s disorienting to find out that this society subdues unrest by exiling, and thereby executing, citizens who simply say they want to leave the silo.  

Howey writes a beautiful story of a couple in book 2 whose courage shows through during an uprising that almost forces Silo 1 to shut down Silo 18 (aka kill everyone). We find out this is an earlier generation of Silo 18, the forebearers to Juliette’s generation that averted a total loss of life. And when we last see them, the wife is pregnant. The husband, Mission, a former porter, and his wife Allie, decide to give their baby girl the name of Allison, which has been in her family for generations. This unborn Allie is the very same woman who we meet years later right before her death in an act of defiance like her parents. I think I shed a tear.

Time

There’s lots of time-jumping in this book. It’s an effective technique to show the plausibility of the Silo 1 generation, who lived before the fall, managing all the other silos. There is a slow erasure of all their collective pasts, either done chemically or by law, and it’s really interesting to see what effect that has on the human psyche. 

I believed the struggle Donald was doing through and I felt for his plight. He lost his wife, who lived out her natural life only one silo over. He lost his humanity as time went on. He was as much in the dark as everyone else, but now, at the end, he has a decision to make. Does he become the monster Thurman was, or find a different way forward for humanity’s future? It might not be up to him if Juliette has any say!

Everything is not as it seems. That’s a central thread that carries the novel Wool by Hugh Howey from the opening scene through to the very end. This is a highly polished and self-contained dystopian tale, where the characters’ peril is omnipresent because of the confines of the space and the powerful forces that are stacked against them.

What I didn’t expect was the emotional rollercoaster ride the story took me on. No one is safe in the Silo, and that point is driven home by the constant surprises the story delivers. The story had me rooting for the underdogs, only to have hope ripped away in bruising, and sometimes irrevocable, fashion. There are influences here that I would attribute to other popular stories with ensemble casts and big stakes. But this story feels wholly original in some key aspects of the dystopian genre. Find out in the spoiler section below.

It also taps into a central requirement for the best fiction – it makes you care, and care deeply. I was rooting for the main characters every chapter and wondering what sacrifices would be enough, from any one person or the collective whole, to ensure the survival of their tiny town underground.

This story is set on keeping secrets in a place where one slip of the tongue could prove fatal, on a societal level. It’s high fun and has a thrilling pace. Not knowing who at any point will disrupt the delicate balance, you’re always guessing about the ultimate outcome. The protagonists make the world feel real and lived in. Nothing is taken for granted, from the materials manufactured to the energy it takes to climb the stairs. It’s great character drama and thought-provoking end-of-the-world fiction. I highly recommend.

5 of 5 stars

SPOILERS:

What makes Wool unique?

For one, the “cleaning” is simply an expelled tribe member wiping the camera lens to the outside world so those below can see if things have gotten any better, and presumably make it easier on the claustrophobic. The first person the reader sees break the cardinal rule of saying they want to go outside is the sheriff’s wife, Allison. It’s an absolutely heartbreaking moment in the cafeteria of level one, where the reader is still not quite sure what the big deal is, but, oh yes, it’s the biggest deal. Allison has just signed her own death warrant and not even the sheriff can stop it. It’s utterly gripping character drama. I will admit that watching the TV adaptation of the book brings all of this to life in brilliant and chilling fashion.

There’s a bait and switch that got me good: the characters I’m invested in and who have the most power are quickly dispatched in the beginning. Mayor Jahn’s is a figure I wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t corrupt, but her inner monologue made me realize she’s a fairly honest civil servant who sees the potential end of her whole society if she can’t install the right successors in the sheriff’s and mayor’s offices.

I love the conceit of a society living in a 148-story subterranean town with loosely implied (and explicit) social stratifications between the up top, mids, and down deep. And the only way to travel is by the central staircase. It’s so cool to see that society come to life, especially in the TV adaptation, which really nails a distinct look and feel, including the farms, and other wider open spaces.

Knox! They killed Knox, and Mark and many others in the deep down. Lucas has to come to grips with killing and deputy Peter Billings has to really recognize his place in the present (and history) at the end of the story in either letting the lie continue or becoming a man of conviction. I love this character in the show, where he has much more of a story.

Juliette is a bad ass. Pure and simple. She is stoic in the face of near certain death, unflinching in her will to survive, and brave beyond words in going back to where it all started, with slim odds that her life will continue past the events rising like a tide against her. I’m a big fan.