Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.
Publication Order of Wool / Silo Books
Chronological Order of Wool / Silo Books
Publication Order of Bern Saga Books
Publication Order of Dear Apocalypse Books
with Elinor TaylorPublication Order of Sand Books
Publication Order of The Sand Chronicles Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Publication Order of Children's Books
Publication Order of Graphic Novels
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Publication Order of Apocalypse Triptych Anthology Books
Publication Order of Wayfinding Non-Fiction Books
Publication Order of The Dystopia Triptych Books
with John Joseph Adams, Christie YantPublication Order of World Of Kurt Vonnegut Books
Publication Order of Nidhi Chanani Children's Books
with Nidhi ChananiPublication Order of Anthologies
Hugh Howey was born 1975 and raised in Monroe, North Carolina. He’d always had a love for ships, and for reading. Naturally, as Howey grew up, he had dreams of being a writer, and of course, a dream to sail across the whole world. Each summer, he would spend a week at the family beach house in North Carolina, and that’s where his passion for the sea emerged, with the wind in his hair, the sound of the waves crashing, and the salty sea air. Many of his influences include that of Robin Knox Johnston, and Bernard Moitessier, as well as a book called Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi, which is one of his greatest influences, because it essentially emulates his own dream to become a permanent resident on the big, wide seas.
Here’s just a bit about how Hugh Howey’s career kicked off. As a self-proclaimed ‘bum’, he flittered from job to job, writing a couple of things in between them, like short stories, and novellas. He used to be a yacht captain, which was kind of part of his dream to be on the sea, but, he decided, not really for him. He was also a computer repair person, which didn’t quite fit the criteria for his happiness, and then, a bookstore clerk. That was getting there, certainly, but still not quite what he’d been hoping for. In this, Howey is like Frank L. Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz books, in his long history of jobs before writing brought any success.
Hugh Howey often read many books about sailing, and being free on the ocean, and when he moved to Charleston, he made a lot of friends who lived on small sailboats, and that’s what he ended up doing. He lived on his boat for five years, but as he started to run a bit low on money, he realised that he had to find a job, and find one quickly, so he became a yacht captain, the first in a long string of jobs to maintain his life on the sea.
It wasn’t until a few years later that he moved to be with his significant other back onto the steadiness that land brought. It was a type of stability for Hugh Howey, and he became engrossed in things such as boat shows to get ideas for his dream home, ultimately on the sea.
Although his life on the sea was fantastic, his love for his other half prevailed, but that didn’t mean his love for the sea was abandoned in any way. His dreams were there, to still sail all around the world, to feel that kind of freedom he loved so dearly.
At this point, he’d decided to focus on his other dream; to be a successful writer, and that certainly was a fruitful endeavor. After writing many, many stories between the jobs he had, he began a very successful career in literature.
Hugh Howey’s career in literature, it could be said, has its beginnings when he began Wool as a standalone short fiction piece. It was when he decided to expand it into a novel, and publish it with a small publishing house. Now, here’s where it all changed for Hugh Howey. His book, Wool, gained him instant success with Amazon’s self-publishing system. With his book on Amazon earning $100,000 a month, it eventually a deal with Simon and Schuester, a publishing giant, and then, it was the start of a long, and arduous career in literature, just like he had always dreamed of. After he grew impatient with the long process that publishing entailed, Howey decided Amazon’s self-publishing system was more for him. Wool became the first of the Silo series, with nine books in them in total, and there have been multiple companies interested in creating adaptations of Wool, such as Lionsgate,the company in charge of adapting the prolific box office giant, the Hunger Games trilogy, in a similar genre to the Silo series, and 20th Century Fox, and the latter was the successful pursuer, and got the movie rights to the wonderful series.
It is Hugh Howey’s philosophy that the beauty of being a writer is that you can be a writer from anywhere you choose, and that’s what you can draw inspiration from. This is the philosophy that he, himself, has adopted, and sticks to when writing his books.
Writings
Hugh Howey’s Wool was released as a short fiction piece in July 2011, but it wasn’t until later that year, due to an excessive demand for more, that he started releasing more, and more parts to create the world of Wool. It was then when he published it on Amazon, and it blew up the best-seller charts, and so began the ascension of Hugh Howey into the literary world. The Wool novellas are part of the Silo series, and they are comprised of nine books, and it is a post-apocalyptic universe that has captured the imaginations of readers everywhere. Wool follows the tale of how the human race is on the verge of extinction.
Silo is an underground city, and Wool follows the story of a character named Holston. In Wool, Holston is fixated on the death of his wife, and his whole world is turned upside down. The rest of the stories in the volume Wool centre around Holston.
Shift, the second book in the series tends to expand on this idea, and it involves robotics, and cell synthesising. It is the second book in the series that has given Hugh Howey the name that he has; to be one of science fiction’s newest authors.
Shift focuses more on the city of Silo, and its origins, and societal conventions, an integral part of how the series progresses.
Of his novels and novellas, Wool is first book by Hugh Howey to be turned into a movie adaptation by 20th Century Fox.
In addition to his Silo series, Hugh Howey has written the Molly Fyde series, a number of anthologies, short stories, standalones, and most notably, the Wayfinding series, a series very close to his heart.
Book Series In Order » Authors » Hugh Howey
Leave a Reply