Review: Very enjoyable follow-up to Hugh Howey's SILO SAGA
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2014
I'm a great fan of Hugh Howey's SILO world and was excited to read a Jason Gurley's idea for another silo that Howey hadn't written about in his saga. GREATFALL kept me reading as often as possible so I could find out what might happen next. Sometimes that meant I missed my bedtime entirely, but I just had to keep reading!The idea of a "world" run by a single religion was daunting to me. I couldn't believe that everyone would buy into the concept of having their young children's chances for life being driven by the judgment given to them based on a single journey up the entire silo, "The Path." Of course someone who has always lived in this kind of a world would have no reason not to believe what they have always been taught to believe ... , or would they?I was especially amazed that the decisions were normally limited to 3 simple choices: "worthy" (assigned to apprentice in one of the silo jobs), "unworthy" (assigned to a year in the mines where survival was questionable, only to have to complete "The Path" to judgment again), or "Greatfall" (forced to leap from the top of the silo down to the bottom with certain death awaiting them).Life seems to progress normally for the residents of this particular silo until one day when a child named Isaac is given the 4th decision: "Ascension." He is to become the new "Wise Father." At the same time an "Outsider" arrives and threatens to disrupt life in the peaceful silo. The events that follow have a great deal to do with the future of the silo and its people.While I didn't think that Gurley's writing quite matched up to Howey's original novels, Gurley did an admirable job of continuing the stories now being written by others with Howey's blessings. I highly recommend that you first read all of Hugh Howey's SILO novels and then take a look at Jason Gurley's addition to the Silo World.