Ridley Scott Loves Hugh Howey's Wool 98
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."
One reel at a time? (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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Not to start a flame war... (Score:1)
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Why? Alien was good, Prometheus is excellent (I've seen a preview screening) - why do you not want Scott?
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Maybe he's a big Top Gun [youtube.com] fan?
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Didn't know Iceman was gay? Sorry dude.
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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 movie
Re:Not to start a flame war... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not to start a flame war... (Score:4, 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.
Re:Not to start a flame war... (Score:5, Funny)
Why would you want to erase it?
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I smell a sequel to "Total Recall" coming on. Hopefully they'll get Verhoeven for it.
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And when you're married long enough, as I am, another threshold is reached, where those few moments of solitude on the dumper becomes sacred and inviolable. "No,
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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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Maybe but Tony's "Hovis" ad was better :P
*Runs* & *ducks* from resulting flames...
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I hope Tony gets to direct it instead of Ridley
I would prefer neither. They're both WAY past their primes. With a few rare exceptions, most directors get about 10 years of their best work. After that, it's mediocrity. I would much prefer a newer director still doing his best work.
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I would prefer neither. They're both WAY past their primes. With a few rare exceptions, most directors get about 10 years of their best work. After that, it's mediocrity. I would much prefer a newer director still doing his best work.
On second thought, you're absolutely right.
First announced on Kindleboards (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 [kindleboards.com] ). 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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Douchebag reply of the week
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Douchebag AC of the moment.
Re:First announced on Kindleboards (Score:4, Funny)
Well, at least this thread has gotten rid of that "not so fresh feeling."
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LOL. What purpose do you think a USER-DRIVEN site like Slashdot serves, if not to editorialize current events?
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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, a
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Who did editing and printing? (Score:1)
As an writer interested in Self-publishing, who did he use for design/ print?
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As an writer interested in Self-publishing, who did he use for design/ print?
PDF? I guess that makes the "who" Adobe.
Re:Who did editing and printing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and the publisher of "War and Peace" was a pine forest.
Re:Who did editing and printing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who did editing and printing? (Score:5, Funny)
"Explosive bestseller" or "bombed at the editorial offices"?
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Come on, guys! I was sitting on the loo typing on my Google Nexus S. Cut me some slack!
Don't know about you, but I miss my old Nokia N95.. I could type correct and nicely formatted English in a coma.. which about sums up my authorship too thus far..
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Even before that, he was a steroidal writer.
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"As AN writer"...
Don't give up the day job.
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Except they actually published their post. A good writer would proofread their own single sentence before publishing it. Especially where we're talking about self-publishing, where an editor or proofreader are optional, they'd better get their act together before putting it on the road.
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No, a legitimately tautological definition of "good" FTW.
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And yet the author left me wanting more. These are all things that can be learned ... and you're helping!
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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?"
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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.
if interested in actual printing, there's many on-demand printing choices.
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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.
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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
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As a writer who is doing self-publishing, my answer is to do it myself. I have significant experience with both editing and design, so I felt completely comfortable doing the work myself. If you don't think you're up to the task, you can always pay someone else. I've published through lulu.com and createspace.com, and both offer editing and design services. It's not cheap, but not terribly expensive either, and if you're not confident in editing your own work or coming up with your own design, it can defini
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Maybe consider upgrading your browser from Lynx 1.0
Excellent Choice (Score:5, 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)
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This is one of the best Sci Fi books I have read. Get the whole series not the single stories in the WOOL OMNIBUS [amazon.com] I'm looking forward to reading the new prequel [amazon.com]
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This is one of the best Sci Fi books I have read. Get the whole series not the single stories in the WOOL OMNIBUS [amazon.com] I'm looking forward to reading the new prequel [amazon.com]
Wikipedia lists the series [wikipedia.org] as "ongoing". Is the story arc in the omnibus finished? It seems interesting, and the price ($9.19 for me) is nice, but I'd rather hold out for the conclusion of any cliffhangers before even starting to read. Furthermore, where does Wool 6 - First shift fit in? :)
The fact that a director deemed it ready for a movie adaptation seems to imply that it's concluded, but I'd rather hear the opinion of someone with first-hand experience.
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The story was NOT finished, and does end on a cliffhanger. Don't listen to the AC.
It's okay guys (Score:1)
Disappointed by RS (Score:2)
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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.
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
Silos?! (Score:1)
"Wool is about a dystopian future where the last inhabitants on earth band together in safe bunkers called silos."
Vaults. THEY'RE CALLED VAULTS!
Self Published Movies (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, or overall for a year. Internet publishing to TV should run circles around traditional movie distribution the way small presses are starting to do so around traditional books. The way websites have killed magazines and newspapers for years. Then if we can get self-published TV to dominate that industry we might have a chance at the free press that's necessary to a free society.
The power of the pre
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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 [klatsch-tratsch.de] (German page).
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And I'll be sure to pilot my flying car to the theatre to see one of these movies.
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What's a theatre? Why would you fly a car to your home theater, just to see a movie you got over the Net? Are you old?
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What's a theatre? Why would you fly a car to your home theater, just to see a movie you got over the Net? Are you old?
My house doesn't have a 50+ ft. screen, thousands of watts of power behind the sound system, 3D, etc, etc, etc.
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My house doesn't have a wooden stage and a cast of actors and their supporting crew and lighting equipment.
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And? Probably best not to try to watch a play there. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch it in the appropriate venue.
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That's why I don't watch theatrical movie projections in my home theater. But that doesn't stop me from watching movies on my TV that are published over the Internet. Because that's the appropriate venue for them. Even though it's not a theater.
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Ok, fair enough. Now, to preface the remainder of my comment, I have not read Wool. I have no idea if it is appropriate to the big screen or the small screen. I interpreted your top level post as being an endorsement of self (or small group) produced movies as being a replacement for studio produced big screen films. In a closer re-reading, it looks like you advocate (anticipate?) the replacement of short features, episodic TV, and made for TV movies by those made via small groups rather than larger media c
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I advocate replacing, or at least strongly augmenting, the traditional model of studios publishing movies with one where independent producers publish them (or rather distribute them, as it's known in movies). Increased independent production too, the equivalent to the manufacturing of books that's part of self-publishing books. While self-published books like 50 Shades of Grey use the same retail venues, chain bookstores, that big publishers use, movie theaters are not as accessible to self-published movie
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sucks monkey balls as of late
I believe that was the title of a proposed sequel to Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.
Boring (Score:1)
could not finish. I read Sci Fi by the bucketload. Did not like this series. no interest. I must be the only one.
me too (Score:1)
http://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Hunter-The-Underground-ebook/dp/B007YM2K5K [amazon.com] /ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1336998483&sr=1-2
teddy Hunter: the underground; 99 cent kindle in lending library (the above link)
runaway teddy-bear robots get hunted down and returned to families.
HA! mine went out a couple weeks ago. not much traffic on it yet
I think there's a rough, last chapter here in my journal.
DRM free version available? (Score:2)
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He tried (Score:3)
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.
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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.
We really seem to be stumbling aimlessly toward a terrifying variation on Fahrenheit 451, where all books are sold by a single vendor or a small
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I too refuse to pay for a DRMed product. Why not download a "free" DRM-free version then and if you like it just buy a paper copy. Then you will be rewarding the author for a good story as well as casting your vote against DRMed ebooks. It is nice to see that at least the ebook is less than half the cost of the paperback edition and quite reasonable at $5.99. If only all ebook versions were sold that way I might start actually buying some. Paying the same price for the ebook and the paper copy is not someth
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One of my favorite authors [scottsigler.com] 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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No kidding. There should be no monopoly on distributing published works. Any other book seller should be able to sell wool at whatever royalty rate Amazon is paying.
Re:He tried (Score:4, 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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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 som
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It's not Amazon-exclusive. iBooks and B&N Nook also have it available.
Of course (Score:3)
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.
meh (Score:2)
Looking at the reviews to get an idea of what it's about.... The impression I get from even the five-star reviews is of a story about a relentlessly grim-dark dystopian horror, life sucks, then you die in horrible agony, and things only get worse for the survivors. Sounds like it's very well written, but not something I'm interested in reading. Or watching.
(Cue absolutely predictable and completely off-base "You're a moron who only wants Disney endings" diatribes, to which I say "PHBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTTT