Sand is one of the few Hugh Howey books I have not read yet, and the Mad Max theme of post-apocalyptic survival may have felt too harsh during the past couple of years. But a new release ACROSS THE SAND is second in the Sand series, and I gladly took it up to see how bad the future could get.

Howey is best known for his iconic story of survival in a Silo underground, so the Sand books upend that vision and throw the characters on top of the world, literally. Colorado is buried under a wasteland of sand and Denver, or its skyscraper tips, is known but seemingly unreachable. With dwindling resources of food and water, with clothing and equipment only replenished by scrap-diving into buried ruins, animosity builds between gangs and on tribal lines.

Rob, Conner, Palmer and Violet start off in one family unit, with Violet somewhat of an outsider as she is a young half-sister. The lads repair dive suits and use them to scavenge, which keeps them in money. Rob is more inventive and starts trying to build a better sonar, though he doesn’t have that name for it, and to see what he can learn about the world. Violet has hidden talents, in the expectation that people will evolve whatever characteristics will help them survive in new circumstances.

Anya and her father live in a mining town. Whatever they are mining, ore leaves on regular rail cars, while the dust from quarrying explosions adds to the sand blowing in the ceaseless wind. Enslaved desert nomads are used for the hardest work, but Anya tries to befriend a girl her own age. Anya keeps wondering what might be across the horizon, at the end of the rail lines, and why her heavy-drinking father regularly disappears for months. After a devastating incident, she teams up with a skinny kid named Jonah to find out more.

Hugh Howey lives on a modern yacht, and his experiences are carried through to a vision of sand-sailing yachts and sand-diving experts, replacing water. I found, however, that sand falls flat in not having the variety of life in the ocean, and at times it was hard to keep the characters straight. I like many of the concepts and find the exciting read suitable for older teens or adults. If you previously read the first book, you’ll no doubt be delighted to continue with ACROSS THE SAND, but I found it quite readable as a standalone.