Hugh Howey must have got the memo that Shift was long and marking time, because Dust crams everything together into a claustrophobic ride that has no time to dwell on anything. Juliette has dug too deep and too greedily, and she literally awakens something. The fate of Silo 18 hangs in the balance - but it doesn't take too long for anything to tip.

In Dust, Howey gives us a new view of Silo 18, revealing that it is full of hitherto fore undocumented idiots. And they do something very stupid for which they receive no repercussions and which is never commented on again. Both sides of this story collide in the middle to create a propulsively unsatisfying solution to everything.

It's never easy to conclude a trilogy, and even though the outcome of Dust is fine, the journey to get there is decidedly not. If you want to feel like you've squandered an investment, read the entirety of the Wool series. It's not as if it's alone in the graveyard of poorly finished dystopias of the early 2010s.