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Wool Omnibus Edition [Kindle in Motion] (Silo series Book 1) Kindle Edition
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*** What the press is saying: ***
Boing Boing's Official Review: "This story is terrific. I was completely immersed, watching Howey slowly paint a picture of a society gone wrong through the eyes and discovery of some truly compelling characters."
Wired.com's Official GeekDad Review: "Howey is among a growing list of authors who are making successful careers of publishing without the assistance of agents and traditional publishing houses. The traditional argument has been that if a book couldn’t find a publisher it probably wasn’t worth reading. However, just as iTunes changed how consumers found music and the way in which bands made their bread, ebook readers, and in particular the Kindle, are changing the ways in which authors find their readers and make a living. All of this means the old assumptions about indie books no longer hold true, and readers need to be prepared to adjust their expectations accordingly. The Wool Omnibus is a great book and deserves recognition as a full fledged contribution to the science fiction genre."
WOOL went from a self-published short story to a blockbuster New York Times bestseller in 2012 (New York Times, October 2012). The work has been translated into over 40 languages, and was picked up by Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox for a feature film adaptation.
Note from the author: This Omnibus Edition collects the five Wool books into a single volume. It is for those who arrived late to the party and who wish to save a dollar or two while picking up the same stories in a single package.
The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months. My thanks go out to those reviewers who clamored for more. Without you, none of this would exist. Your demand created this as much as I did.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJanuary 25, 2012
- File size583715 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Ernie Cline, NYT bestselling author of READY PLAYER ONE -- "With WOOL Hugh Howey has created a new science fiction classic! The riveting storyline and detailed prose sucks you in immediately and makes you feel like you're right there in the silo with his characters. But unlike them, you'll be in no hurry to leave."
Justin Cronin, NYT bestselling author of THE PASSAGE -- "Howey's WOOL is an epic feat of imagination. You will live in this world."
S.J. Watson, bestselling author of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP -- "Exhilarating, intense, addictive."
Kathy Reichs NYT bestselling author of the Temperance Brennan and Tory Brennan series -- "WOOL is frightening, fascinating, and addictive. In one word, terrific."
Rick Riordan, NYT bestselling author of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series -- "Hugh Howey is a skilled storyteller. He knows the craft of writing. Secrets unfold with just the right pacing, and I had to set my e-reader down several times and say, "Wow," when a major twist was revealed. If you're looking for a good post-apocalyptic read, you can't do much better than WOOL."
BoingBoing's Official Review:
"This story is terrific. I was completely immersed, watching Howey slowly paint a picture of a society gone wrong through the eyes and discovery of some truly compelling characters."
Wired.com's Geek Dad Review:
"The old assumptions about indie books no longer hold true, and readers need to be prepared to adjust their expectations accordingly. The Wool Omnibus is a great book and deserves recognition as a full fledged contribution to sci-fi."
From the Author
Amazon.com Review
A Look Inside Wool: The Graphic Novel
Click here for a larger image Click here for a larger image Click here for a larger image --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.About the Author
From the Inside Flap
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The children were playing while Holston climbed to his death; he could hear them squealing as only happy children do. While they thundered about frantically above, Holston took his time, each step methodical and ponderous, as he wound his way around and around the spiral staircase, old boots ringing out on metal treads.
The treads, like his father’s boots, showed signs of wear. Paint clung to them in feeble chips, mostly in the corners and undersides, where they were safe. Traffic elsewhere on the staircase sent dust shivering off in small clouds. Holston could feel the vibrations in the railing, which was worn down to the gleaming metal. That always amazed him: how centuries of bare palms and shuffling feet could wear down solid steel. One molecule at a time, he supposed. Each life might wear away a single layer, even as the silo wore away that life.
Each step was slightly bowed from generations of traffic, the edge rounded down like a pouting lip. In the center, there was almost no trace of the small diamonds that once gave the treads their grip. Their absence could only be inferred from the pattern to either side, the small pyramidal bumps rising from the flat steel with their crisp edges and flecks of paint.
Holston lifted an old boot to an old step, pressed down, and did it again. He lost himself in what the untold years had done, the ablation of molecules and lives, layers and layers ground to fine dust. And he thought, not for the first time, that neither life nor staircase had been meant for such an existence. The tight confines of that long spiral, threading through the buried silo like a straw in a glass, had not been built for such abuse. Like much of their cylindrical home, it seemed to have been made for other purposes, for functions long since forgotten. What was now used as a thoroughfare for thousands of people, moving up and down in repetitious daily cycles, seemed more apt in Holston’s view to be used only in emergencies and perhaps by mere dozens.
Another floor went by—-a pie-shaped division of dormitories. As Holston ascended the last few levels, this last climb he would ever take, the sounds of childlike delight rained down even louder from above. This was the laughter of youth, of souls who had not yet come to grips with where they lived, who did not yet feel the press of the earth on all sides, who in their minds were not buried at all, but alive. Alive and unworn, dripping happy sounds down the stairwell, trills that were incongruous with Holston’s actions, his decision and determination to go outside.
As he neared the upper level, one young voice rang out above the others, and Holston remembered being a child in the silo—-all the schooling and the games. Back then, the stuffy concrete cylinder had felt, with its floors and floors of apartments and workshops and hydroponic gardens and purification rooms with their tangles of pipes, like a vast universe, a wide expanse one could never fully explore, a labyrinth he and his friends could get lost in forever.
But those days were more than thirty years distant. Holston’s childhood now felt like something two or three lifetimes ago, something someone else had enjoyed. Not him. He had an entire lifetime as sheriff weighing heavy, blocking off that past. And more recently, there was this third stage of his life—-a secret life beyond childhood and being sheriff. It was the last layers of himself ground to dust; three years spent silently waiting for what would never come, each day longer than any month from his happier lifetimes.
At the top of the spiral stairway, Holston’s hand ran out of railing. The curvy bar of worn steel ended as the stairwell emptied into the widest rooms of the entire silo complex: the cafeteria and the adjoining lounge. The playful squeals were level with him now. Darting bright shapes zagged between scattered chairs, playing chase. A handful of adults tried to contain the chaos. Holston saw Emma picking up scattered chalk and crayon from the stained tiles. Her husband, Clarke, sat behind a table arranged with cups of juice and bowls of cornflour cookies. He waved at Holston from across the room.
Holston didn’t think to wave back, didn’t have the energy or the desire. He looked past the adults and playing children to the blurry view beyond, projected on the cafeteria wall. It was the largest uninterrupted vista of their inhospitable world. A morning scene. Dawn’s dim light coated lifeless hills that had hardly changed since Holston was a boy. They sat, just as they always had, while he had gone from playing chase among the cafeteria tables to whatever empty thing he was now. And beyond the stately rolling crests of these hills, the top of a familiar and rotting skyline caught the morning rays in feeble glints. Ancient glass and steel stood distantly where people, it was suspected, had once lived aboveground.
A child, ejected from the group like a comet, bumped into Holston’s knees. He looked down and moved to touch the kid—-Susan’s boy—-but just like a comet the child was gone again, pulled back into the orbit of the others.
Holston thought suddenly of the lottery he and Allison had won the year of her death. He still had the ticket; he carried it everywhere. One of these kids—-maybe he or she would be two by now and tottering after the older children—-could’ve been theirs. They had dreamed, like all parents do, of the double fortune of twins. They had tried, of course. After her implant was removed, they had spent night after glorious night trying to redeem that ticket, other parents wishing them luck, other lottery hopefuls silently praying for an empty year to pass.
Knowing they only had a year, he and Allison had invited superstition into their lives, looking to anything for help. Tricks, like hanging garlic over the bed, that supposedly increased fertility; two dimes under the mattress for twins; a pink ribbon in Allison’s hair; smudges of blue dye under Holston’s eyes—-all of it ridiculous and desperate and fun. The only thing crazier would have been to not try everything, to leave some silly séance or tale untested.
But it wasn’t to be. Before their year was even out, the lottery had passed to another couple. It hadn’t been for a lack of trying; it had been a lack of time. A sudden lack of wife.
Holston turned away from the games and the blurry view and walked toward his office, situated between the cafeteria and the silo’s airlock. As he covered that ground, his thoughts went to the struggle that once took place there, a struggle of ghosts he’d had to walk through every day for the last three years. And he knew, if he turned and hunted that expansive view on the wall, if he squinted past the ever-worsening blur of cloudy camera lenses and airborne grime, if he followed that dark crease up the hill, that wrinkle that worked its way over the muddy dune toward the city beyond, he could pick out her quiet form. There, on that hill, his wife could be seen. She lay like a sleeping boulder, the air and toxins wearing away at her, her arms curled under her head.
Maybe.
It was difficult to see, hard to make out clearly even back before the blurring had begun anew. And besides, there was little to trust in that sight. There was much, in fact, to doubt. So Holston simply chose not to look. He walked through that place of his wife’s ghostly struggle, where bad memories lay eternal, that scene of her sudden madness, and entered his office.
“Well, look who’s up early,” Marnes said, smiling.
Holston’s deputy closed a metal drawer on the filing cabinet, a lifeless cry singing from its ancient joints. He picked up a steaming mug, then noted Holston’s solemn demeanor. “You feeling okay, boss?”
Holston nodded. He pointed to the rack of keys behind the desk. “Holding cell,” he said.
The deputy’s smile drooped into a confused frown. He set down the mug and turned to retrieve the key. While his back was turned, Holston rubbed the sharp, cool steel in his palm one last time, then placed the star flat on the desk. Marnes turned and held out the key. Holston took it.
“You need me to grab the mop?” Deputy Marnes jabbed a thumb back toward the cafeteria. Unless someone was in cuffs, they only went into the cell to clean it.
“No,” Holston said. He jerked his head toward the holding cell, beckoning his deputy to follow.
He turned, the chair behind the desk squeaking as Marnes rose to join him, and Holston completed his march. The key slid in with ease. There was a sharp clack from the well-built and well-maintained inner organs of the door, the barest squeak from the hinges, a determined step, a shove and a clank, and the ordeal was over.
“Boss?”
Holston held the key between the bars. Marnes looked down at it, unsure, but his palm came up to accept.
“What’s going on, boss?”
“Get the mayor,” Holston said. He let out a sigh, that heavy breath he’d been holding for three years.
“Tell her I want to go outside.”
Two
The view from the holding cell wasn’t as blurry as it had been in the cafeteria, and Holston spent his final day in the silo puzzling over this. Could it be that the camera on that side was shielded against the toxic wind? Did each cleaner, condemned to death, put more care into preserving the view they’d enjoyed on their last day? Or was the extra effort a gift to the next cleaner, who would spend their final day in that same cell?
Holston preferred this last explanation. It made him think longingly of his wife. It reminded him why he was there, on the wrong side of those bars, and willingly.
As his thoughts drifted to Allison, he sat and stared out at the dead world some ancient peoples had left behind. It wasn’t the best view of the landscape around their buried bunker, but it wasn’t the worst, either. In the distance, low rolling hills stood, a pretty shade of brown, like coffee mash with just the right amount of pig’s milk in it. The sky above the hills was the same dull gray of his childhood and his father’s childhood and his grandfather’s childhood. The only moving feature on the landscape was the clouds. They hung full and dark over the hills. They roamed free like the herded beasts from the picture books.
The view of the dead world filled up the entire wall of his cell, just like all the walls on the silo’s upper level, each one full of a different slice of the blurry and ever-blurrier wasteland beyond. Holston’s little piece of that view reached from the corner by his cot, up to the ceiling, to the other wall, and down to the toilet. And despite the soft blur—-like oil rubbed on a lens—-it looked like a scene one could stroll out into, like a gaping and inviting hole oddly positioned across from forbidding prison bars.
The illusion, however, convinced only from a distance. Leaning closer, Holston could see a handful of dead pixels on the massive display. They stood stark white against all the brown and gray hues. Shining with ferocious intensity, each pixel (Allison had called them “stuck” pixels) was like a square window to some brighter place, a hole the width of a human hair that seemed to beckon toward some better reality. There were dozens of them, now that he looked closer. Holston wondered if anyone in the silo knew how to fix them, or if they had the tools required for such a delicate job. Were they dead forever, like Allison? Would all of the pixels be dead eventually? Holston imagined a day when half of the pixels would be stark white, and then generations later when only a few gray and brown ones remained, then a mere dozen, the world having flipped to a new state, the people of the silo thinking the outside world was on fire, the only true pixels now mistaken for malfunctioning ones.
Or was that what Holston and his people were doing even now?
Someone cleared their throat behind him. Holston turned and saw Mayor Jahns standing on the other side of the bars, her hands resting in the belly of her overalls. She nodded gravely toward the cot.
“When the cell’s empty, at night when you and Deputy Marnes are off duty, I sometimes sit right there and enjoy that very view.”
Holston turned back to survey the muddy, lifeless landscape. It only looked depressing compared to scenes from the children’s books—-the only books to survive the uprising. Most people doubted those colors in the books, just as they doubted purple elephants and pink birds ever existed, but Holston felt that they were truer than the scene before him. He, like some others, felt something primal and deep when he looked at those worn pages splashed green and blue. Even so, when compared to the stifling silo, that muddy gray view outside looked like some kind of salvation, just the sort of open air men were born to breathe.
“Always seems a little clearer in here,” Jahns said. “The view, I mean.”
Holston remained silent. He watched a curling piece of cloud break off and move in a new direction, blacks and grays swirling together.
“You get your pick for dinner,” the mayor said. “It’s tradition—-”
“You don’t need to tell me how this works,” Holston said, cutting Jahns off. “It’s only been three years since I served Allison her last meal right here.” He reached to spin the copper ring on his finger out of habit, forgetting he had left it on his dresser hours ago.
“Can’t believe it’s been that long,” Jahns murmured to herself. Holston turned to see her squinting at the clouds displayed on the wall.
“Do you miss her?” Holston asked venomously. “Or do you just hate that the blur has had so much time to build?”
Jahns’s eyes flashed his way a moment, then dropped to the floor. “You know I don’t want this, not for any view. But rules are the rules—-”
“It’s not to be blamed,” Holston said, trying to let the anger go. “I know the rules better than most.” His hand moved, just a little, toward the missing badge, left behind like his ring. “Hell, I enforced those rules for most of my life, even after I realized they were bullshit.”
Jahns cleared her throat. “Well, I won’t ask why you chose this. I’ll just assume it’s because you’d be unhappier here.”
Holston met her gaze, saw the film on her eyes before she was able to blink it away. Jahns looked thinner than usual, comical in her gaping overalls. The lines in her neck and radiating from her eyes were deeper than he remembered. Darker. And he thought the crack in her voice was genuine regret, not just age or her ration of tobacco.
Suddenly, Holston saw himself through Jahns’s eyes, a broken man sitting on a worn bench, his skin gray from the pale glow of the dead world beyond, and the sight made him dizzy. His head spun as it groped for something reasonable to latch onto, something that made sense. It seemed a dream, the predicament his life had become. None of the last three years seemed true. Nothing seemed true anymore.
He turned back to the tan hills. In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw another pixel die, turning stark white. Another tiny window had opened, another clear view through an illusion he had grown to doubt.
Tomorrow will be my salvation, Holston thought savagely, even if I die out there.
“I’ve been mayor too long,” Jahns said.
Holston glanced back and saw that her wrinkled hands were wrapped around the cold steel bars.
“Our records don’t go back to the beginning, you know. They don’t go back before the uprising a century and a half ago, but since then no mayor has sent more people to cleaning than I have.”
“I’m sorry to burden you,” Holston said dryly.
“I take no pleasure in it. That’s all I’m saying. No pleasure at all.”
Holston swept his hand at the massive screen. “But you’ll be the first to watch a clear sunset tomorrow night, won’t you?” He hated the way he sounded. Holston wasn’t angry about his death, or life, or whatever came after tomorrow, but resentment over Allison’s fate still lingered. He continued to see inevitable events from the past as avoidable, long after they’d taken their course. “You’ll all love the view tomorrow,” he said, more to himself than the mayor.
“That’s not fair at all,” Jahns said. “The law is the law. You broke it. You knew you were breaking it.”
Holston looked at his feet. The two of them allowed a silence to form. Mayor Jahns was the one who eventually spoke.
“You haven’t threatened yet to not go through with it. Some of the others are nervous that you might not do the cleaning because you aren’t saying you won’t.”
Holston laughed. “They’d feel better if I said I wouldn’t clean the sensors?” He shook his head at the mad logic.
“Everyone who sits there says they aren’t gonna do it,” Jahns told him, “but then they do. It’s what we’ve all come to expect—-”
“Allison never threatened that she wouldn’t do it,” Holston reminded her, but he knew what Jahns meant. He himself had been sure Allison wouldn’t wipe the lenses. And now he thought he understood what she’d been going through as she sat on that very bench. There were larger things to consider than the act of cleaning. Most who were sent outside were caught at something, were surprised to find themselves in that cell, their fate mere hours away. Revenge was on their mind when they said they wouldn’t do it. But Allison and now Holston had bigger worries. Whether or not they’d clean was inconsequential; they had arrived here because they wanted, on some insane level, to be here. All that remained was the curiosity of it all. The wonder of the outside world beyond the projected veil of the wallscreens.
“So, are you planning on going through with it or not?” Jahns asked directly, her desperation evident.
“You said it yourself.” Holston shrugged. “Everyone does it. There must be some reason, right?”
He pretended not to care, to be disinterested in the why of the cleaning, but he had spent most of his life, the past three years especially, agonizing over the why. The question drove him nuts. And if his refusing to answer Jahns caused pain to those who had murdered his wife, he wouldn’t be upset.
Jahns rubbed her hands up and down the bars, anxious. “Can I tell them you’ll do it?” she asked.
“Or tell them I won’t. I don’t care. It sounds like either answer will mean the same to them.”
Jahns didn’t reply. Holston looked up at her, and the mayor nodded.
“If you change your mind about the meal, let Deputy Marnes know. He’ll be at the desk all night, as is tradition . . .”
She didn’t need to say. Tears came to Holston’s eyes as he remembered that part of his former duties. He had manned that desk twelve years ago when Donna Parkins was put to cleaning, eight years ago when it was Jack Brent’s time. And he had spent a night clinging to the bars, lying on the floor, a complete wreck, three years ago when it was his wife’s turn.
Mayor Jahns turned to go.
“Sheriff,” Holston muttered before she got out of earshot.
“I’m sorry?” Jahns lingered on the other side of the bars, her gray, bushy brows hanging over her eyes.
“It’s Sheriff Marnes now,” Holston reminded her. “Not Deputy.”
Jahns rapped a steel bar with her knuckles. “Eat something,” she said. “And I won’t insult you by suggesting you get some sleep.”
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B0071XO8RA
- Publisher : Broad Reach Publishing (January 25, 2012)
- Publication date : January 25, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 583715 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 530 pages
- Lending : Not Enabled
- Customer Reviews:
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WOOL by Hugh Howey
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About the author

Hugh Howey is the author of the award-winning Molly Fyde saga and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling WOOL series. The WOOL OMNIBUS won Kindle Book Review's 2012 Indie Book of the Year Award — it has been as high as #1 on Amazon — and 40 countries have picked up the work for translation. Ridley Scott and Steve Zaillian are adapting the work for 20th Century Fox.
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So, since book reviews are meant to guide the next possible reader, let me cut to the chase first, and then I will go to work on the review of the books:
******* BUY THIS SERIES NOW! *******
Do not waste your time trying the sample, just go ahead and buy all of the works in the WOOL collection (six, as of this writing) right now.
If you do not buy them all, and you find yourself without an internet connection and you just finished reading one of the books and you know there are others available you will be extremely annoyed, distracted, pi$$ed off, etc till you get the next one & start reading it.
Having read hundreds of books, many in the SciFi genre, but also many biographies, and historical works (european & british history especially) I was absolutely blown away by the Wool books. To be completely honest, I almost put the book down maybe 30 pages into it. I was on vacation on an amazing little island off the coast of North Carolina, no cars, no distractions except miles of beaches & ocean waves when I searched on my Kindle for some Science Fiction to read over the 15 days I was away. Since I often read SciFi books that are based well in the future, take place off-earth, etc, I was not really prepared for the way Wool opened. It was dark, depressing, and not what I thought I wanted on my vacation with the sun shining and the seagulls singing and the waves crashing on the sand. But I stuck with it, and that is why I am here today, writing this.
First of all lets backup for a second and talk about the name of the book. WOOL. You wear it (sometimes). But it has numerous other uses, including, apparently, as the name of a book. I didn't know what to even make of it. I mean look at most of the titles under SciFi, & you get the space war sagas, the alien invasions, the boy-meets-space travel stories, etc.... But WOOL?? I couldnt fathom it would be a book that would interest me for very long, and so I again reveal how mistaken I can be. Important Lesson learned? : Dont judge a book by it's cover, nor by it's NAME.
One of the many great yet very subtle parts of this work is when you actually connect the name WOOL with the line in the story that reveals the connection. It's not too far into book 1 and you know what, you might not even catch it, and it might not mean much to you- but it did, for some reason, to me.
It brought home to me that Hugh Howey had put me in a place that seemed at first to be so incomprehensible, but later came to be seen as a very possible, plausible place not so far removed as to be unimaginable, yet still so staggering in it's implications.
If WOOL had only been the short, single work of book 1, I would have been upset that it wasnt taken further, or approached it's potential. In fact, I didn't know there were more books at first and I really was upset. I thought "WOW- SO MUCH POTENTIAL, this was an amazing story, but look where it ended!?" And then I checked back on Amazon and saw the remaining books and grabbed them all (hence my earlier suggestion to do the same).
Without spoiling the story for those of you who have not yet started, I do want to say that this is one of the most fascinating, smart, stop-for-a-second-and-say- `Oh my god!' reads I have ever picked up.
I absolutely loved the way I first tried to figure out where this was taking place. Was it on earth? Somewhere else? When? How did it come to be...? Did any of that matter...? As I read on, and parts of those questions were answered I was very very pleased with the depth of the story, and so glad that there wasn't a flaky, thin, all-is-revealed at once to put it all together for me. It came together carefully, methodically, and at just the right pace.
The fact that the characters in WOOL are just people, with no super abilities, paranormal talents, etc, makes them all the more important to the way you see them move through the story.
While all of the books were gripping to me, I particularly enjoyed the flashbacks to see how it all came about. Without spoiling this particular part, I will just say that it was extremely well done and has some fantastic but subtle connections between the characters and story that could easily be missed. A great example of this: A sister of a congressman only gets mentioned briefly and almost as an aside in passing during a brief conversation, yet later you realize the implications of the circumstances and again have another "WOW" moment.
Yes, I realize that was pretty vague, but trust me on it. If you miss it, my apologies, if you get it, no other comment is required..;)
Well, this is by far the longest review I have ever written and I still feel like it is not even close to being as compelling and passionate as I had envisioned it when I decided it had to be done. But in closing just a couple of things to say: No doubt, this is a book I will read many times over, and as another reviewer summed it up so well, I only wish I could read it again for the first time.
Will it become a movie? I don't know, but I hope so, but ONLY if it can be done well (an example of what it should NOT be like: Steven King 'The Stand' book vs. movie. The movie was an insult to the book in my opinion). The Scott brothers certainly have the ability to do it right. I actually care less about the movie possibilities than the fact that the deal may help Mr. Howey devote more time to writing! We will see.... Regardless of the outcome of the motion picture issue, I hope that Mr. Howey keeps this series going for a long time. I do understand that talented authors, artists, actors, musicians, etc need to move on and create new works and new characters and new stories, but the selfish part of me hopes this story will keep intriguing us and challenging us for years to come in new installments and characters and situations. The foundation exists in as solid a form as possible.
In my opinion this is already a classic work of fiction, here to stay, and Mr. Howey should feel extremely pleased to be in this stratosphere of talent that comes along so rarely. These books will be talked about in classrooms, in living rooms, family rooms, bookstores, etc for a long time to come and I really hope you will enjoy them as much as I have.
Don't be duped.
If you're going by all the 5-stars reviews, don't be duped as I was. Take a gander at the negative reviews and you'll see a pattern. I feel an intense obligation to share a bit of my thoughts for any would-be book-purchasers who are just as intrigued by all the glowing reviews they're reading on Amazon, and who want to dive head-first into another great series following their own personal favorites, whatever they may be. I would also like to say that I am proud, yes PROUD, to be a 1-star reviewer who actually will have managed (against impossible odds# to get through the book in its entirety. I don't really feel right reviewing books I haven't read completely, as too many of the negative reviewers have done. I am cut from a different cloth I guess. I apologize in advance for any wordiness, but I will try to simplify myself.
******Mild Spoilers Ahead********
"Wool," which seems to be a hot-button issue on this corner of Amazon, is in my very honest opinion, a horrible execution of what I still believe is a very interesting idea. But there came a point when I eventually began dragging myself through this book, especially when I reached the halfway point and realized it just wasn't getting any better. I have never felt this feeling before. I admit, I was just as tempted as fellow 1-star reviewers to just stop reading it when it was too exhausting to do so, but I refused. That's why my goal of reading it just to get to the "good stuff" was replaced by a goal of literally pointing out the examples of my BIGGEST problem with this book, for me of course. So what was wrong with it?
--Problem #1--WRITING STYLE
This style is summed up rather nicely by my sister, who used the style itself to complain about it after I shared some excerpts with her:
"Ugh! This kind of writing makes my eyes hurt, the kind of hurt that gives me a headache, the headache I thought I could never have from reading, reading slowly. Awful! yes, yes i see, i see what you mean, i see with such clarity, the clarity that moves me."
If you haven't picked up the pattern by her quote alone, take into account the following examples #Names eliminated#:
"Once she had enough space between the bent steel and the wall, she wrapped her fingers in this gap and tugged, bending the protective cage on its welds, tilting the cage away from the wall, revealing the entire radio unit beneath."
"Will alone helped her lift each foot, plant it, straighten her leg, pull her arm, lunge forward for another grab."
"The tools were heavy, but they felt good in her hands, one tool in each, pulling down on her arms, stretching her muscles and grounding her, keeping her stable."
"....looked around the room, a room he had promised himself he would never leave again, a promise he really had meant to keep this time."
See the pattern? If so, bravo. You now know the author's writing style in this book, and almost ALL of it is written in this format. If you happen to like it, more power to you. Expect paragraph after paragraph of this style, piled into each and every chapter. Have fun. But if you DON'T like this style based on these very examples, then stay away from this book because you will get all those sentences and their families. In excruciating detail. It is very amateurish writing, and it shows. It's like I'm reading someone's story from a school project. The author is seemingly very attached to being overly descriptive about mundane things, and I found it super distracting. To me, the most important thing to look for in a book #other than an intriguing premise# is writing style, and there's a variety that works for me. Hunger Games, Jurassic Park, Black Beauty, etc etc. If the style works, then the story works, and I'm hooked. But the writing style of "Wool" did the opposite for me. It was too jarring for me to really appreciate what was going on. As another friend of mine says, "That's not good writing. That author is not allowing his characters to just...BE. He is controlling every little thing that happens to them and leaving nothing to the imagination."
Maybe the writing style works for apparently LOTS of people, as is evidenced by all the 5 star reviews #which is so baffling#, but for me, NOPE.
--PROBLEM #2--CHARACTERS AND/OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
I don't really get why lots of reviewers out there are praising the characters of this book, but I'm certainly not. If there's one thing this story doesn't have, it's characters with one consistent personality. Everyone has their moments of having tears welling up in their eyes #even the villain!#, or random spasmodic "tantrum" moments like children. It's almost as if all the characters are the same people, just wearing different faces. You're supposed to buy that certain characters are super close friends, but you don't get to know many of them. You don't see them interact much. Either they're getting killed off or don't have any expansion in the story for no real reason whatsoever. So how is it believable? It isn't. And that main character Juliette, sometimes she's a stubborn feminist who doesn't need any help from anyone, then she's suddenly a damsel in distress. Make up your mind. And you're also supposed to buy the budding love story, which...WOW. It's poorly done. Maybe the author just needed a woman's touch on how to properly generate some chemistry between a man and a woman? I mean, ESPECIALLY if your main character is a woman. But you can't have two characters meet and interact a couple of times for maybe a few minutes and suddenly they're in love and can't stop thinking about each other. Now their hearts are all aflutter? Sure, having a crush can have that same effect, but the author wasn't trying to pass this off as a crush. So hence, fail. And the "villain," if that's what you want to call him, isn't really fleshed out either and as a result comes off as just a random jerk who's done some bad things. He's, at best, an extremely diluted version of Big Jim from Stephen King's "Under the Dome." No depth and nothing special. Just a cookie-cutter type villain.
--PROBLEM #3--PLOT DEVELOPMENT
It's really hard to review what I think about the plot because it would involve too many spoilers. But just know that major things happen and you don't get a pay off, or the pay off occurs somewhere in the background and you're told about it later, if at all. That pretty much sums it up. And there are several "big" scenes that are focused on but just...fizzle away like they didn't really matter like you thought they would. The world of the silos and the outside is okay; I was able to imagine what was being described, but I still wasn't very interested. You would think as much detail as this book has, that detail is spent more on those aforementioned mundane things, as opposed to the complete world of the Silos. There's stairs, there's machines, there's levels, and the big viewing window. Oh and stairs. Lots of stairs and attention to those stairs. Stairs taking days to climb. Stairs that are exhausting to climb. Stairs with heavy traffic. Stairs that look like DNA. Stairs underwater. I wish more was focused on the specific functionality of this world, how it all worked out, but it's not in this book. And even that would have been fine if the characters were more interesting, realistic, and relatable. But as I mentioned earlier, they're not. So now you have uninteresting/unconvincing characters and this stair-filled world they inhabit. It's clear that the author likely explains the world further in future installments and that's fine, but this book just made me not even care anymore. I won't be reading beyond this one to find out.
--PROBLEM #4--DIALOGUE
...Or lack thereof. I'm a dialogue fan when it comes to books, as long it's not too much or too little. This book had too little. Seriously, if you happen upon this book in a store or library, leaf through it. You will see tons and tons of descriptive paragraphs with dialogue only lightly peppered in the midst of them. Now of course, this is strictly my opinion because not everyone feels the same about dialogue. Still, I felt it was problem enough to be stated. What little dialogue there was didn't even flow in a natural way, not to me. The characters speak in the style that the author writes, so they didn't quite "stand out" as characters to me. They aren't unique, don't pop from the page, and don't carry their own load. They're just...people who quote the writing you already see in the book. I don't even know if that makes much sense, but I don't know how else to say it. And the odd usages of the foul language was equally bad. Honestly, you'd be reading a scene/dialogue and then suddenly you've got someone yelling "Ratsh--!" or "Fu--!" And it's totally jarring. It all feels very forced and awkward. What's worse is that everyone talks with the same foul language. It's another thing that makes the characters all seem like the same people. Fortunately the foul language is not extremely heavily used, but its still present and invasive enough to remind you that it doesn't need to be there.
All in all, this was not an enjoyable book to me at all. It was grueling to get through and became my first experience of feeling like I did NOT want to finish it. Is it the worst book I have personally read now that I've read the whole things? Yes, yes it is. I will not be continuing this series, even if it ends up being amazing. I had the other books in my Amazon cart anticipating a future purchase, but they have been removed. Nope. No more being duped.
Top reviews from other countries
I struggled to finish it, and am not bothering to read the sequels. Cannot understand why it is so highly rated here in Amazon.
The world has gone to crap. The air is toxic. Wool opens in an underground silo, all 140 odd floors, self-sufficient, with the sheriff, asking the mayor to let him clean. Cleaning isn’t such a good thing for a man to ask to do. It involves going outside the silo in a crap suit to clean the many lens that offer the occupants of the silo a clear view of the crap going on in the outside world. The suit is fitted with woolen pads for the cleaning, but is deliberately faulty, like something you’d buy at Target or Primark, so it falls apart and the cleaner dies.
Now I found the beginning confusing, not quite understanding what Holsten’s - the sheriff looking to clean - problem was. It had been three years since he’s lost his wife to this cleaning bug, her dead decomposing body, visible in the screen on the wall by the cafeteria. And when he went out into the toxic world outside the silo, I expected the story to continue outside the silo. And when it didn’t I had to mourn Holsten, and learn to like another character, the mayor, but she also died. Murdered she was.
Can you see my confusion? Don’t worry, as I’m sort of thick, and slow at picking up on stuff like plot. This story sorts itself out and the pace and the intrigue kick on.
Because in Juliet, the author offers a grand character we can cheer for. She is a mechanical genius living in the bowels of the silo, but due to her assistance with an earlier murder her talents are recognized and rewarded. Juliet is offered the Sheriff’s position, and unearths’ the clues Holsten’s wife had discovered, and slowly we all begin to learn through Juliet, the secret behind the silo and the world outside.
Through the eyes of several characters, we learn about life in the Silo, an underground bunker where people have lived for generations because the outside world is too toxic. In this closed system, there are rules that must be followed, the most important being to not question the way of things or wonder about the outside world. Order must be maintained for everything to function optimally. If you break this rule, you’re sentenced to Clean, meaning being suited up and sent outside to clean the cameras being used to monitor what’s happening up top. No one survives a Cleaning.
From the get-go, I was questioning the way things were. I have a tendency to question rules and authority, and I want to know the whys and hows behind everything; I would not have done well in the Silo, that’s for sure. What I loved was that I kept assuming what would happen next…only for Howey to subvert my expectations. There were a lot of “wait, what?” moments, particularly in the first half of the book.
Once I hit the midway point, the surprises stopped in some ways. By that point, I’d figured out the world, and the biggest surprise (for me) had been revealed. This was when the plot and tension really ramped up, and when I started to feel resentful towards anything that kept me from listening on. There were moments when I definitely thought all hope was lost, and I was amazed at how characters managed to find a way forward.
In some ways, this book made me think of The Martian. The suspense combined with technical and operational details kept me intellectually engaged, while the more human details had me emotionally invested in these characters. I love reading about human ingenuity and how people find a way to survive in the worst situations, and Juliet especially was a great character, both within her head and through the eyes of others.
Like any good dystopian story, Wool exposed social structures and political power dynamics that may have started with the best of intentions but then became warped over time. It showed how ideas and discontent can spread, and even explicitly called this a disease.
The ending was very satisfying, but it was definitely not the end of the road. A lot of questions were answered, so many more were introduced, and I’m looking forward to first going back in time with Shift before continuing where things left off with Dust.
Howey has created a very believable post-apocalyptic society, confined in the underground and (apparently) self-sufficient Silo. It's a world designed to continue preserving life in perpetuity, and to that end Howey has considered every aspect - the farms, the factories, the political and social structure - and the power supply. But that's the thing that bothers me.
The silo has one generator. Just one. Oh, there's a backup to provide emergency power only, but the power needed for all normal functions comes from just one generator. Which means that any down time on that generator causes most of the silo to shut down. No power to the factories, no lights for the farms, everybody living in semi-darkness. Which means that the generator can't be stopped for regular, routine maintenance - and consequently the mechanics who look after it are faced with the possibility of a disastrous breakdown.
Howey uses this scenario to good effect in his plot, but it was ruined for me by the fact that it's such a ridiculous system. Nobody with a modicum of mechanical knowledge, or basic common sense for that matter, would design something without provision for proper maintenance. Any similar environment in the real world - such as an ocean going ship - has power requirements met by multiple generators, and it is therefore possible to take at least one of them out without interrupting regular power supplies.
Did Howey not think of this? Or did he deliberately design the silo to serve his plot? Either way, it spoilt the whole novel for me.
You might well think I'm making too much of a small point - after all, a lot of people have enjoyed the book in spite of this flaw, and many probably wouldn't even notice it. And, to give credit where it's due, the rest of the book hits all the right notes. Characters are well developed, the plot is complex but believable, word-flow is smooth and nicely paced throughout. I did think that the end felt a bit rushed - I think more could have been done with Bernard's fall from grace - but I could have overlooked that. Yet despite all the good points, I found it hard going. The story never really engaged me, and the only reason I could see was this issue of the generator.
Once the realism of a scenario has been undermined, it's hard to regain it. As I said, sometimes it's the little things.
What a rush, I couldn’t put it down. Brilliant storyline, many unexpected twists and well filled out characters. And I’m feeling exhausted from all the stair climbing. So, stand away from the twisting spiral staircase, cos I’m off to get the other two books in the series.
Well done Mr Howey, and thank you.











