Something worthy of your attention, and five reasons I love it
- Wool takes place in a post apocalyptic future, but it subverts the conventions of the post-apocalyptic genre. You won’t find zombies or marauding bandits. Instead there is political intrigue, government employees uncovering secrets far above their pay grade, and – most frightening of all – the IT department.
- Wool was originally self-published as a series of novellas. Eventually, Howey collected the stories into an Omnibus edition. He started out selling it dirt cheap, and he kept it cheap even after it had become the darling of independent publishing. Seriously, it’s super cheap. Part one is free for Kindle. Check it out your favorite e-book seller.
- I think it secretly wants to be a Western.
- Wool is the story of a group of people who live in a ‘silo’ deep beneath the surface of the earth. Going outside means swift death; the air is poison. Their only view of the surface world comes from exterior cameras, the lenses of which must be periodically cleaned with a cloth of the titular wool. This function is performed by condemned criminals and those driven crazy enough by their subterranean existence to volunteer. Howey takes us deep inside the Silo, into the lives of a few of its fascinating inhabitants, and deep into its darkest secrets.
- Great science fiction performs the neat trick of using an unfamiliar setting to say something about the human condition that is both timeless and absolutely current. Wool is great science fiction.
Check out Wool and Hugh Howey’s other works here.