About a month ago...maybe two, I attended a seminar held at my university (Metropolitan State College of Denver) about literary agents, what they can do for authors, what they can't do, how their work has changed over the years, and how their work is going to change in all the years to come. I decided to attend not only because becoming a literary agent has been one of my dreams since I learned what one was, but because one of the agents that kind of inspired me to become one was going to be there, Kristen Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency. I'd heard of a few books that she represented, as well as a new one for her (well, then it was new- not so much anymore though) which was LEGEND by Marie Lu. As she was explaining to us how much more power the author has in the publishing world today, she kind of stopped herself and asked everyone in the very full room, "Have you guys heard of Hugh Howey?" She nearly fell off her chair when not a soul raised their hands. Forgetting what she was going to say, she switched topics immediately and the one thing I remember her saying that stood out for me was: "Give it about a week or two, you will definitely hear about him then. He wrote an anthology of books called WOOL..." and she proceeded to tell us how Hugh single handedly changed the way people will look at the world of Self Publishing forever. ( Here is a link to read more about Hugh, he's truly fascinating.) So that night after the seminar, I grabbed my kindle and bought it. So onto the real reason I am posting this, I finished WOOL last night at about 1:00am because I literally could not force the book out of my hand. Here's my take on it:
Hugh has built a universe so complex I often had to put my kindle down and wonder how the hell someone could be such a GENIUS. I don't want to give much away because you really should buy it and read it for yourself, but basically the human population has been living in these Silos for hundreds of years and it's the only life everybody ever knew. If anybody asked about what lies beyond the Silo or even thought about it, they were sent to "cleaning". Cleaning in a nutshell is the highest punishment of the law and is eerily similar to the electric chair where one is sent to death while a small audience watches behind the glass. One person is sent to clean the sensors outside of the Silo wearing a special suit, but usually the suit can only withstand the toxins from the outside air for so long, leaving the cleaner to die on the wasteland. Then life returns to normal for most of everybody, except Juliette, Marnes, and the Mayor who suspect something is suspicious within the Silo. I don't know.... it's so hard to explain- but this book was beyond words for me. I found myself reading to and from school on the light-rail, running on the treadmill, in bed, at work, anytime I had any free time that book was in my hands. I'm absolutely sure if you are a lover of Science Fiction novels, then this one will quickly climb to the top of your list too.
Since Hugh is so persuasive on his Facebook page about his novels, I ended up downloading a few more of his novels to keep me occupied. Turns out that: "Hey my book is only 1.99 today so make sure to get it before the end of the day!" works REALLY well for me to buy books. I'm looking forward to the sequel "SHIFT" which I will be reading shortly.
Hugh, if you ever read this: Thank you so much for this book and everything you've done for the publishing world. Kristen was absolutely right and I'm so excited to share this book with everyone I know.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Suggest? 100% Guarantee it will be the best read of the year.
Thanks for reading!
Matthew
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