Across the Sand

Great, dystopian book that can stand on it's own or be read as part of the series. 

Great story with a lot of inter twining lives worked toward a greater end. 

Across the Sand – 3.5 Stars

This book is an improvement over https://hardcover.app/books/sand, with tighter world-building and more developed story arcs. The setting feels richer, and the narrative has a solid direction.

That said, the plot felt a bit small in scope, which kept it from reaching a higher score. Still, it’s a solid continuation, and I’m interested to see what happens next.

Not disappointed. Great story.

Good story, but does not stand up to [a:Hugh Howey 3064305 Hugh Howey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1327581631p2/3064305.jpg]'s previous work.

Loved it! I actually won this advance copy in a Goodreads giveaway! So exciting for it to just show up in my mailbox one day, what a surprise!

4 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Two sets of young people try to make their way in a post-apocalyptic, desert landscape while their home communities are at odds.

Review
Hugh Howey's one word titles (Wool, Silo, Shift,Dust, Sand) were originally eye-catching. Now, however, I seem to have trouble telling them apart, though I've only read two. Also, perhaps because the stories were originally released in installments, I have difficulty remembering how they fit together. Wool, for example, is the first installment in the Silo series, but later packaged with further installments into a single volume, also titled Wool, and followed by the book Shift, which also comprised several installments, and Dust, which was a more monolithic volume in the series.

Because of all this, I (mis-)understood that Across the Sand, was the start of a follow-on series to Sand, which I have not read. Now that I've finished Across the Sand, though, and done some more checking, it looks like Sand was a compendium of installments, to which Across the Sand is a monolothic sequel. Rather than picking up the start of a second series, then, I picked up a current series right in the middle, which I'm loth to do.

The sequencing showed. While Howey takes some steps to let this book work as a standalone, he doesn't really succeed. It's always clear that there's substantial backstory, and that the book would work better for readers who knew it. Even – and perhaps especially – at the end, I was substantially confused by two or more sets of inter-related children, all of whom seemed to have partially absent fathers with secrets. I had only the faintest grasp of who was whom and how they all fit together. To make matters worse, the book starts and ends with references to a specific result of the prior book (or installments).

Despite all that, the book is well written, with Howey's usual firm hand and interesting, engaging characters facing difficult decisions. I wavered between 3.5 and 4 stars, but settled on the high side because the book generally moves well. It's got interesting concepts in it as well, but they're never really explained; presumably the first book does so in detail.

All in all, a good read, but only recommended for those who have read the first book.