So I literally just finished book 5 of the Wool series, a self published Omnibus by author Hugh Howey. This book was recommended to me by @mrjoshuawesome, who found it through Amazon and the high reviews it got there.
The omnibus is a collection of 5 novellas set in a post-apocalyptic world where people like in a giant silo. To ask questions or wonder about leaving is a crime with the punishment of getting what you ask for exile into the toxic “outside.”
Hugh Howey self published this book, which is amazing to me. If he submitted this to publishers I would love to see their justification for not buying it immediately. It really makes me question publishing when a book this good is not picked up when I have read so many iffy books that get published.
The five novellas that make up this omnibus are wonderfully written. Mr. Howey is economical with his wrong while not being sparse. The world he has created is mysterious and yet totally believable. The characters feel alive, I feel in the short 500 some-odd pages of the 5 book omnibus, that they have inhabited a major larger space in my imagination.
The best parts of this book are the subtle twists that occur in the plot. These twist really strike a perfect chord. They greatly alter the plot and the characters, yet they are natural and make sense never feeling forced.
The only issue I have is the length of the first few stories compared with the last two. I believe that book 1 started as a stand alone short story and that the author built the rest of the novellas to expand the world. The books get longer as the series progresses and I could have stood to have books 2 and 3 be a little longer, but this is a minor gripe as all the books really work independently as well as in the whole series.
I greatly look forward to reading more works by Hugh Howey and highly recommend this omnibus to everyone that enjoys Sci-fi or dystopian fiction.
