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GeekNights Book Club - Wool
Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we review (spoilers) Hugh Howey's Wool. It was a solid book (or set of five short books, which are really just two short books and one longer book). Mixes of Paranoia (the RPG), Logan's Run, Fallout, and other similar stories, it had a lot more nuance than we expected. Definitely worth reading.
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The main point I want to bring up is the author's note near the end of the final story in the Silo Saga... but not at the very end, as there is an epilogue. Howie says something like:
"This is the the end of the story, but not really the end of the story! It continues in your imagination!"
One bad part of this is that it feels like there's a lot more to tell, but he just can't be bothered.
The second bad part of this is that he doesn't even need to tell. Using Kindle Worlds, the fan fiction selling service, he can just let other people write the stories for him, and he takes his cut.
Want to know what happened in Silo 40, Scott? Check out:
How about Silo's 49? 42? 32? 7?
And so they continue. It's like Howie designed the most perfect world for fan fiction EVER!
I've no problem with Kindle Worlds, nor with fan fiction, nor with Hugh Howie taking a cut. My only problem is that due to so many other writers all now sharing the same world, it felt like Howie was constraining his own creativity and storytelling not to upset the others. It makes for a VERY unsatisfying last book. I mean last book by Howie.
I do, however, want to see more stories in all mediums based on the idea of a society that is confined to a finite space while a mysterious outside space looms. Like I said in the episode, this is a device that seems to always work on me. It is very commonly used in nerd universes, but not in anything widely popular.
I know I mentioned Logan's Run, Fallout, Paranoia (tabletop RPG), and Phoenix Future (volume 2), but I thought of some more. Attack on Titan, Ergo Proxy, RahXephon, No 6 are some more anime that come to mind. Even Star Control 2 has this kind of story. I think I might try to put together a complete list.
One thing I think separates Wool from the rest is that it really doesn't leave the silo very much at all. All these other stories almost immediately break through the wall and tell their tale of the outside. In Fallout the first thing you do is leave the vault! I like it much more when the mystery of the outside, the terrible secret of space, remains a mystery for a longer time. Wanting to know what is out there is what keeps me turning pages. If you reveal it right away, then I stop caring.
I don't think the Woolie fan fictions constrain the author or the world in any way. The canon is very loose. In fact, Howey just released a new Wool story in the Apocalypse Triptych anthology. I think he continues to revisit that world and wants others to be able to as well in whatever ways they choose, even though he's finished with the main books... for now.
Scott, have you checked out El Eternauta? That one sort-of fits in the same slowly-revealing-the-secret-of-space framework. And it's great!
Luke, I'm curious, have you read Howey's SAND?
SNOWPIERCER VOL. 1: THE ESCAPE
If Howie is considering the wellbeing of the Kindle Worlds authors at the expense of his own storytelling, then I don't like it. At the end of Dust he pretty much states clearly that he isn't going to finish the story off in a satisfying way, and instead will leave it up to others. Fuck that.
Just like in tie-in fiction for popular TV or movies franchises, rules are put in place so all authors must pull their punches in terms of what can happen in the world and to individual characters. Why would Hugh Howie put those restrictions in place for himself?
There is a graphic novel for the first book that I was wondering whether it was any good.