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Ridley Scott Loves Hugh Howey's Wool

Sasayaki writes "Hugh Howey's Wool, the self-published sci-fi story that's made him the best selling Indie sci-fi author of 2012 and currently the best selling sci-fi author on Amazon.com, has found its way into the hands of Ridley Scott (director of Alien, Prometheus and others)... who loved it. Rumor is the Hollywood movie will be coming to cinemas in 2013 or 2014. With Fifty Shades of Grey and now Wool getting the attention of Hollywood, it's clear the self-publishing revolution is here to stay."

29 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. One reel at a time? by gmhowell · · Score: 3, Funny

    Will I be able to watch and pay for the movie one reel at a time, or will traditional models of viewing/payment be used?

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    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  2. Re:Not to start a flame war... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

    Why? Alien was good, Prometheus is excellent (I've seen a preview screening) - why do you not want Scott?

  3. Re:Not to start a flame war... by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    Maybe he's a big Top Gun fan?

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    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  4. First announced on Kindleboards by Sasayaki · · Score: 5, Informative

    OP here. Although the scoop goes to Deadline, Hugh himself made the formal announcement on the Kindleboards (in this thread http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,113999.0.html ). Note that Hugh is a really awesome guy and was taking the time to respond to each and every comment, but the forums have a "no bumping" rule which meant he's now only posting occasionally to avoid keeping the thread at the top of the Writer's Cafe section which it's dominated since the announcement.

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    1. Re:First announced on Kindleboards by bughunter · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, at least this thread has gotten rid of that "not so fresh feeling."

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      I can see the fnords!
    2. Re:First announced on Kindleboards by StikyPad · · Score: 2

      I'm about 3/4ths through the Omnibus Edition right now, and while it's not bad, it hasn't been particularly gripping IMO. It could just be the monotony of the environment of, or maybe, finally, just the hint of character development now, but I've found most of it rather plodding. And without giving any spoilers, I was sorely disappointed by the first plot line, and then the second, which made it hard to get emotionally invested in any of the subsequent ones. It looks a bit more promising at this point, and I've read this much so I'll finish, but my expectations are tempered, to say the least.

      While his writing style is more spartan, I enjoyed Jeff Carlson's Plague Year a bit more as an indie post-apocalyptic thriller. I think some of it could be expectations, however. I approached Wool expecting the second coming of Christ given what I'd heard, while I was expecting Plague Year to be a rehash of Michael Chrichton's Prey.

  5. Excellent Choice by ShooterNeo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wool IS an excellent story. It should be thought of as a series of books : honestly, the first 5 wool books would fit into one movie. (normally it's the other way around)

  6. Re:Not to start a flame war... by arth1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Alien was good, Prometheus is excellent (I've seen a preview screening) - why do you not want Scott?

    Because a good director does not necessarily a good movie make.

    Stanley Kubrick: Eyes Wide Shut
    George Lucas: Phantom Menace
    Steven Spielberg: 1941
    Ridley Scott: G.I. Jane

    As for Prometheus being excellent, forgive me for not taking your word for it.
    Personally, I find 3D effects designed to wow the audience by attacking the fourth wall to be tacky and tasteless to the point of ruining a movie even if watched in 2D. Until the directors and movie studios can forget the wow factor, it's just going to make movies worse. And unless the preview footage is all wrong, fourth wall effects is exactly what they've done with the Alien prequel.

  7. Re:Who did editing and printing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "As AN writer"...

    Don't give up the day job.

  8. Re:Who did editing and printing? by arth1 · · Score: 2

    most published scifi books have really, really bad design. check the first edition covers of neuromancer for example.. wool's covers seem pretty basic cgi too. point being it doesn't really matter that much when the actual piece is text.

    Except when the cover acts as a spoiler, which unfortunately sometimes happens, especially for re-issues where the author presumably has no input on the cover design.

    Or when it disagrees with the book and is based on only a hastily glance at a single scene, with the glaring mistakes becoming obvious when you read the whole thing. Like getting the gender, race or age of a character wrong. You maintain misconceptions for parts of the book because of the cover artist.

  9. Re:Who did editing and printing? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, and the publisher of "War and Peace" was a pine forest.

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    make install -not war

  10. Re:Who did editing and printing? by azalin · · Score: 4, Funny

    So that's what happened in Tunguska

  11. Re:Who did editing and printing? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Explosive bestseller" or "bombed at the editorial offices"?

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    make install -not war

  12. Re:Not to start a flame war... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stanley Kubrick: Eyes Wide Shut

    Eyes Wide Shut is brilliant.

    I'm trying to think of movies since then that's had the kind of intellectual heft and technical brilliance of Eyes Wide Shut and there really isn't much.

    The other movies you mention blow of course, but the worst movie Stanley Kubrick every made is better than the best movie of any of the other directors.

    Some things are a matter of opinion. The greatness of every moment that Stanley Kubrick brought to the screen is not one of them. If there's a Stanley Kubrick film that you did not like, it can only be because you have not yet attained the requisite level of intellectual and spiritual insight.

    OK, I think that about covers it.

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    You are welcome on my lawn.
  13. Re:Not to start a flame war... by arth1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    If there's a Stanley Kubrick film that you did not like, it can only be because you have not yet attained the requisite level of intellectual and spiritual insight.

    I freely admit that I don't have the requisite level of intellectual and spiritual insight required to erase the image of Nicole Kidman urinating and wiping.

  14. Re:Not to start a flame war... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I freely admit that I don't have the requisite level of intellectual and spiritual insight required to erase the image of Nicole Kidman urinating and wiping.

    Why would you want to erase it?

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    You are welcome on my lawn.
  15. Re:Disappointed by RS by crazyjj · · Score: 2

    Keep in mind that you're looking at an interview with a 70-something Ridley Scott, who's very different from the young man who directed Alien and Blade Runner.

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    What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
  16. Re:Who did editing and printing? by BluBrick · · Score: 2

    I think you're being overly generous. Anyone can make a simple error, but it takes a special kind of person to screw up in such spectacular fashion as in that post. This writer wrote but fourteen words, and in so doing, made one blindingly obvious grammatical error (the aforementioned "an writer"), one capitalisation error (self-publishing is NOT a proper noun), one style error (one may place a space on both sides or on neither side of the "/"), and one logical construction error (the statement and question were linked by punctuation, but bore no contextual relationship to each other).

    Protip: when claiming - in writing - to be a writer, it's usually a good idea to proofread one's own work prior to publication.


    Disclaimer: Sigg3.net may not be a native speaker of English. If that be the case, it's not such a spectacular screw up, as I am quite certain that his command of English is far better than my command of his native language.

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  17. Re:Hollywood sci-fi by Grayhand · · Score: 2

    sucks monkey balls as of late

    I believe that was the title of a proposed sequel to Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.

  18. Re:Who did editing and printing? by V+for+Vendetta · · Score: 2

    Except that he's not a native English speaker (nor am I), as you could have easily find out yourself by clicking on that nifty "Homepage" button. Which begs the question "Is your Norwegian as good as his English?"

  19. Of course by gelfling · · Score: 2

    They don't have to pay as much for it. Then they ship it to some schlock screenwriter who changes it 99%. Anyway everything is comic book heroes, 3D and chick movies.

  20. Re:Self Published Movies by V+for+Vendetta · · Score: 2

    What would be a real change would be if a self-published movie of a book hit gained a top 10 audience one week [...]

    Not exactly self-published, but the partially crowd-funded movie Iron Sky made it into Germany's top 10 (position 9 actually) on its starting week (German page).

  21. Re:Who did editing and printing? by actiondan · · Score: 2

    My favourite cover artist misconception is in Josh Kirby's original cover for Terry Pratchetts The Colour of Magic. The initial description of the Discworld's first tourist, Twoflower, mentions four eyes (meaning he wears glasses) but Kirby took the description literally and depicted him with four actual eyes.

    I believe the extra eyes remained for the cover of The Light Fantastic, so clearly the author wasn't too upset about the inaccuracy (Kirby's covers were never all that true to the book descriptions in any case...)

  22. He tried by sirwired · · Score: 2

    He tried selling the book elsewhere, but due to Amazon only offering certain marketing supports to Amazon-exclusives ("lending", "free Prime Days", etc.) he had to go back to Amazon-exclusive after his sales dropped like a rock.

    1. Re:He tried by chispito · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bummer. I was ready to give him some money based on positive reviews and reading the first page. But I refuse to buy DRM'd books. Oh, well.

      His book has no DRM. Amazon leaves it up to the publisher to decide on DRM. Look under the "Product Details" where you'll find

      Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

      http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Omnibus-Edition-ebook/dp/B0071XO8RA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337017156&sr=8-1

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      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    2. Re:He tried by bcrowell · · Score: 2

      Interesting post, thanks. I don't want to be needlessly argumentative, but it's not really clear from the Amazon page whether or not it has DRM. It has a list of things you're allowed to do (lend, use on unlimited simultaneous devices, text-to-speech). but this doesn't tell me stuff like: (1) does the file nevertheless have a DRM layer, which I could only circumvent by breaking US law?; (2) can I sell my copy to someone else when I'm done reading it or if I don't like it?; (3) can I give my copy away to someone else?; (4) can I print it out?; (5) can I convert it to a format that isn't just supported on amazon's devices, and if so, can I do this using tools such as calibre that are written so as not to be usable for DRM circumvention?

    3. Re:He tried by jheath314 · · Score: 2

      One of my favorite authors uses a very clever form of the "try-before-you-buy" approach to drive interest and sales: he puts the audio versions of his books out on the internet for free, and then sells the hardcover and ebook versions to make money. It got him on to the New York TImes bestsellers list, and I myself bought quite a few books after getting hooked.

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  23. Re:Not to start a flame war... by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    Didn't know Iceman was gay? Sorry dude.

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    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  24. Re:Not to start a flame war... by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    Lucas was a good director? THX-1138 was probably a fluke, American Graffiti is arguably the result of brilliant editing, and Star Wars the result of limited resources forcing ingenuity.

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    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon