As luck would have it, author Hugh Howey came through town to do a book signing four days after my own Silo Saga novella was released. I showed him the listing for my book as he signed my copy of his new book, MACHINE LEARNING. He was a good sport and complimented the photo I chose for the cover, which was above and beyond as far as I was concerned. I was able to tell him that WOOL inspired me to take the leap from writing screenplays to writing novels. Then the guy behind me in line dumped out a huge stack of Howey’s books from what appeared to be an ancient gunny sack (my imagination may have done some work on this detail) and Hugh moved on to what I imagine was the kind of autograph assembly line that would inspire haggard authors to strike for better conditions and shorter workdays in the book mines.
My novella in the Silo Saga, SHADOW KILLER, has been up for a week in the Kindle Worlds shop on Amazon, but the page count only just appeared on the listing this morning. 89 pages, it says. Not too shabby for 23k words. I was expecting it to be closer to 70 pages. You can find it here:
But let’s say you don’t know any of what I’m talking about. Maybe you’ve never heard of Hugh Howey and don’t know what WOOL is, much less the Silo Saga or Kindle Worlds. What is all this?
Here’s a quick overview:
An author named Hugh Howey wrote a 12k word novella called WOOL and self-published it in 2011. It took off, because it’s fantastic, and people demanded more. Hugh went on to write much more, delivering 4 more chapters to the WOOL story, 3 chapters that comprise the next book, SHIFT, and a final book in the trilogy called DUST. The original novella is available free for Kindle on Amazon. You should check it out. Or just trust me and buy the WOOL Omnibus, SHIFT Omnibus, and DUST straightaway. If you think you would like this kind of story, odds are you will love this specific story.
Silo Saga is the name given to this overall story setting. Early on, Howey granted permission for other writers to craft stories in his world, and before long Amazon had the Silo Saga licensed for their Kindle Worlds program which allows authors to write and publish in various properties like Pretty Little Liars, Southern Shifters, and G.I. Joe, among many others.
And that’s essentially it. If you’ve never read any of Hugh Howey’s books, you could probably still read SHADOW KILLER and understand most of it. Maybe all of it. I would like to hear from someone who didn’t know the original story about how my story comes across as a standalone. If you’re one of those people, hit me up via one of the places on my contact page. I’d love to hear your opinion.
rock & roll it, dave
your story is good, the pantheon is good—i see only good things for this
Thank you Boris!