Hugh Howey's Blog, page 96
April 26, 2012
Podcast #1 with AudioTim!
Tim Ward and I spent three hours on Skype the other day. Here’s the first of our two podcasts together. Tim’s an amazing guy who puts together a brilliant product. It’s almost impervious to my attempts to ruin it all.
April 25, 2012
Up next…
Due to unpopular demand, I, ZOMBIE will be next. The progress bar over there to the left just took a jump, both in percentage completion and up to the top of the queue. Starting tomorrow, I’m back in writing mode. Which means heavy sessions of detailing the contents of human abdomens until roughly 10:00 in the morning every morning.
Target release: late June. We close on our new house May 11 and will be moving the first week of June, so if I manage to meet this deadline, it’ll be a miracle.
April 24, 2012
The Perfect Sci-Fi Home
Truth is stranger than fiction. My next home will be Jupiter, FL.
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Glad it’s not Uranus.
April 23, 2012
Crazy Monday Wild with Potential
My wife and I are in Florida looking for a home near her new job. It’s been a crazy few days, with a talk at Hanahan High on Friday followed by my reading at The Tin Roof later that night. We got up at 3:30 Saturday morning, drove to Ft. Pierce, FL, dropped off our dog, then drove another hour south to look at five houses. On Sunday, we looked at four more. We made an offer, it was accepted, so now I’m running around doing boring business-type stuff (setting up inspections, wiring money to escrow accounts, etc.)
But the writing duties and news never end. I mailed out 40+ signed books this morning. Talk about dedication! I brought envelopes and printed pre-order mailing labels with me, had my wife bring the first shipment of FIRST SHIFT books down from Boone, and spent last night signing books and stuffing envelopes. If you ordered a copy, it’s on its way.
There may be some exciting news today from the UK or possibly from Hollywood, so stay tuned for that. And keep your ears pinned for anyone who wants a mountain retreat in Boone, NC. We’ve got a tiny house that we’re practically giving away, and the price is about to go down even further. Can’t wait to get moved and get settled in so the writing routine can resume. Don’t worry, though, I’m still getting some words logged. It might even be a zombie book that comes out next. 
April 21, 2012
An Un-Dead Night at the Roof!
We had a blast last night at The Tin Roof. Great crowd. Nobody got visibly sick.
For those who missed it, I hope to have video up in the next hour or so. Stay tuned!
Edit: Vimeo is taking forever. I should have this up in the morning. 
WARNING!!! Lots of foul and fetid language!!
April 19, 2012
Molly Fyde Fan Art!
What a great week for Molly! I got an email today from a fan who praised the series, saying they liked it even better than Wool (for the characters, he said). This made me ultra-happy. And earlier this week, a review of the series went up along with this awesome piece of crochet:
The same artist made a square for Wool. This time, I suggested a trade: signed books in exchange for the art. This mock-up of Drenard is gonna be framed and hung beside my Publishers Weekly article.
April 18, 2012
Everyone Wants a Skein of WOOL
Everyone wants in on WOOL, and that includes me. It’s not that I’m a greedy bottom-feeder, but I have moments in which I imagine myself a potential remora to Hugh the shark. Granted, symbiosis can be more beneficial to one member of the “partnership,” and I’d say that if one of us were going to benefit from this partnership, it would be me. To state this more clearly: I’m an editor. I’ve edited some of Hugh’s works, and that process has led to the humbling realization that I am…an editor. Editor, plain ‘n’ simple. In other words: I’m not a writer.
Even so–knowing that I’m editor-not-writer–my most successful EVER attempt at writing a story from beginning to end is a fanfic set in the WOOL universe (no known characters; it takes place in some as-yet-remarked-upon silo). I have a good chunk written and the entire story from beginning to end mentally mapped out. I might even finish it someday.
And should it be finished, the glory should go to Hugh Howey.
All this useless blather about me is just a lead up to what I want to share with you, my fellow HH fans.
I spend some time on the Kindle Boards, where Hugh is a known and respected figure. I try to lay very low when it comes to threads and posts related to him, but a recent thread elicited such an unexpected bark of absolute delight that I asked the creator of said thread for permission to share it with you, and he consented.
The creator of the thread is David Adams, author of Lacuna: Demons of the Void. The thread’s title? New Fleece on Life–a WOOL/Lacuna Crossover. An “excerpt” follows:
Collapsing to the ground, curling up in pain from the slow death overtaking him, he held what remained of his wife and thought, with his last thought, what this death of his must look like to those who could see, this curling and dying in the black crack of a lifeless brown hill, a rotting city standing silent and forlorn over him.
“Give him the shot,” came a voice, soft and feminine but edged with authority.
The pain was overwhelming now; Holston felt his skin flake and melt away, eaten by the inhospitable world, digested by the unbreathable air, his lungs scalded as the acidic air dissolved their delicate tissues. Hands, bare, human hands, gripped him and rolled his body — a whisper away from death — onto his back and he sensed, rather than felt, a syringe press into his neck.
Abruptly the pain ceased. Holding up his half-melted hands, Holston watched in half-wonder, half-horror as the dissolved skin slowly dripped its way up, reattaching itself to his hands. The suit faded away, although it liquefied harmlessly and passed around his skin like water by a riverstone.
It was so surreal for a moment he was certain he was dead… but his vision remained crisp and clear and he was completely without pain. As pre-death hallucinations went this was fairly pleasant, overall.
Climbing naked to his feet he saw a half dozen people. People, living in this blasted barren wasteland as though there were absolutely nothing wrong with it at all.
“Who the hell are you…?”
“I’ll explain in a moment. Summer, give him some of the nanoweave clothes,” instructed a Chinese woman whom Holston presumed to be their leader, her hair done up in a bun and hidden underneath her military issue hat, “and make sure the suit is completely dissolved. We don’t want the next escapee to trip over it.”
“Aww… I was admiring the view,” complained a lanky redhead, whom Holston could see was eyeing his naked form with an entirely unhealthy amount of interest. She absently tossed a wrapped bundle in his face.
Dazed, Holston pulled on the string and the wrapping fell apart. Inside was a simple shirt and long pants, woven of some texture he did not recognise. Holston pulled them on as though a man sleepwalking.
When he was dressed again the Chinese woman stepped forward and extended her hand good-naturedly. “I’m Captain Melissa Liao. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Holston took the hand, finding her grip to be surprisingly firm. “Waiting for me…?”
She smiled a strange half-knowing, half-curious smile and released Holston’s arm. “Yes. You wanted to see the world outside the Silo,” she remarked, “and you will. But that can wait.”
He struggled to process this. “How… how did you know I was coming?”
Liao’s smile became coy. “Allison told us you’d be dropping by… sooner or later.” She gave a playful laugh. “… although you’re even more handsome than she lead us to believe.”
—–
Read what the critics are saying!
* – “I hope Hugh sues David into the ground and then sues his corpse. Reading this was actually, physically painful … I felt real pain.”
* – “I’ve read some terrible fan-fiction in my time but daaaaaaaaaaamn.”
* – “Timecube guy? Is that you?”
* – “I’d say it’s so bad it’s good, but it’s actually just so much worse than that so the needle swings all the way back to horrible again.”
Book cover? You betcha. Alas, I’ve spent over an hour trying to upload David Adams’s awesome cover but have hit roadblock after roadblock. (Blame my new laptop.) If you have to see it RIGHT NOW, head on over to the Kindle Boards. In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out WTF the problem is.
Attention Clever Woolites!
Timothy Ward, who had me on for two podcasts worth of material this week, is doing some Wool giveaways. The first one is a free Wool t-shirt. This can be one of your own design. We’ll get it made, have it up on the cafepress store, and you’ll get a free one. There are details on his website, and I’ll be sure to post links once the podcasts are up.
Strange daze.
A FB friend recently messaged me and asked that I go back to updating people with the “normal” things I do during the day. I used to post philosophical rants, pictures of home improvement jobs, biographical stories, and the like. Now it’s all Wool, Wool, Wool.
This is what yesterday was like for me:
I got up at 6:00 and started writing. I worked on SECOND SHIFT: ORDER and I, ZOMBIE. I had an apple for breakfast.
Printed labels for 13 copies of the Omnibus. Signed these and put them in padded mailers. Drove to the post office with my dog, Bella Luna (not a Twilight fan, btw).
We took a spin around the Greenway, a park that meanders clear across Watauga County. While on our walk, I found out that the couple interested in our house had found a house in which they were doubly interested. I kicked a few rocks along the path. I felt fractionally better.
Back home, I tended to emails, approved website comments and marked others as spam (annoying). Wrote some more. Checked for reviews/sales on the Omnibus and the new book.
At 4:30, I got on a podcast with Timothy Ward. I told him I didn’t have anything planned until 7:00. He laughed at the idea that we might go on that long.
At 6:50, I told him I really needed to go.
Ate a bowl of pineapple chunks while the phone rang. Spent the next hour or so on the phone with Hollywood types. I’m now very familiar with the 310 area code.
Worked on book layout stuff, responded to emails and Tweets, put up some links and what-not on FB. Debriefed my wife. Started packing for my drive to Charleston.
At 9:30, I got back on with Timothy to record details about two different giveaways to go with the two different podcasts.
Finished packing for the drive to Charleston. Boxes of books, clothes, camera, laptop. The trip is going to include a drive to Florida to find a new house. Still no offers on our current one.
In bed after 10:00 with an alarm set for 5:00.
As I type this the next day, I’m waiting on another 310 phone call. Emails are popping up in my inbox. I suppose I should go handle those real quick. In two days, I speak to a high school classroom and then to a bar full of friends and fans. Still not sure what I’m going to say or talk about. Oh, and audiobook samples need my review.
Strange daze, indeed.
