Silo

     Silo (Frozen World #1) by Jay.J.Falconer is a post-apocalyptic action story with light thriller elements set in a frozen wasteland with competing warlords, scarce resources, and cannibals.

     Silo offers a relatively compelling setting; the ice, the resources, the warlords, the cannibals, it all combines well into an engaging narrative. The ice and scarcity of resources are more backdrop elements, with the resources existing mostly as comments from characters rather than something to be actively overcome, and the ice/cold offering mostly passive discomfort and cool aesthetics rather than an imminent danger. The warlords and cannibals are significantly more present in the narrative, with the warlords and their tense relationship defining much of the plot, and the cannibals offering both a constant danger and a bit of body horror/thriller elements whenever the characters emerge.

     The characters are solid, decently well conceived with a good spread of personalities and faults, but I didn’t find them particularly engaging. Some of this can be attributed to our MC, who has character flaws revolving around mild selfishness, lying, and spoiling, not really affecting or driving the plot except as a trouble maker. It is not that she is bereft of agency, but that she has no real objective, and as a result no forward momentum in of herself. This lack touches on the plotting of the narrative as well, with the plot progressing slowly in the main characters absence while she survives off by herself achieving nothing of particular value. The various action and escape scenes she engages in are compelling enough, but occupy a significant portion of the narrative resulting in the first fifty to sixty percent of the book serving almost exclusively as preamble.

     The supporting characters are more or less archetypical, with a more benign leader versus a tyrant, a more militant and antagonistic security chief to offer conflict against our MC and a few others. The characters are fine, and offer clear conflicts and motivations in the plot, but there is a specific portion of the narrative where several characters are shoehorned into inanity. The security chief wants to punish our MC for staying out past curfew, endangering other by requiring rescue teams, and always delivering the bare minimum of resources from her runs; since this is a recurring issue, her grievance has grounds: her desired punishment? Exile our MC from the sanctuary and functionally kill her. It is an inanely excessive punishment. The benign leader of their sanctuary, the titular Silo, resists ( of course) but refuses to supply alternative, lesser punishments, resulting in an extensive hearing and debate that just takes up time in the book. A significant portion of the narrative is given meaningful conflict, and then summarily sabotaged by the characters refusing to react in a remotely nuanced fashion. Even now, several weeks after reading, this irritates me.

     The prose is solid, and the general plotting after the start is good, with all the set up paying off into various conflicts and comeuppance for our MC. Our MC does remain without a clear objective across the full story, meaning that much of the story does end up lacking clear direction.

    All in all, Silo is a fine post-apocalyptic action story, but one the deeply flawed protagonist (without a solid counterbalance) some weak plotting decisions, and the lack of direction made difficult for me to enjoy.