Review: Opposing Forces
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 2, 2013
Wool fanfiction always adds to the original. Hugh Howey's creation will always remain The Reference, but he was right when he allowed others to expand his universe. Story after story, author after author, viewpoint after viewpoint, the Silo world is taking shape in readers' minds the way Star Wars' worlds and planets and characters and beliefs and wars did.It's become real somehow. Palpable. A metaphor of the real world, only sharpened thanks to its unusual underground location.Speaking of films. If Wool becomes a film one day, and it is announced that it should, I think some fanfiction stories could become TV series.While reading Brigid D'Souza's Unhinged, I felt that the pace, the dialogue, the plot, everything was already there for it to become one of these excellent TV series we have now. Something like Homeland.You'll find similar elements of suspense, strategy, deceit, red herrings. The story's really gripping and you actually care about what happens to the characters.However, I'm not saying Unhinged reads like a script. Not at all. It is an excellent book in its own right, in the sense that there is more than a series of events.Without spoiling anything, let's just say that the Yin Yang concept really matters throughout the narrative. Look out for hidden meanings because it's not just white and black circles on a pretty necklace: it is relevant in the construction of the chapters, altering between two opposite viewpoints; it is relevant in the construction of the silo, separated in a caste system of haves and have-nots; it is relevant in what to expect from characters, moving from a good to a bad side and back again, it is relevant in the way one death can be counterbalanced with one birth, or how heat and cold, light and darkness coexist in the same paragraph...Hence the five stars. When it's written with class, keeps you flipping the pages to know what's next, AND there's a deeper meaning - what else can you do?Excellent book, Brigid D'Souza.