The Sword and Laser discussion

Hey guys. i have been a part of this group for a long time but never posted.
but i feel i have to start a discussion or see if there has been any other discussions about the Sand books by Hugh Howey?
i have read through the first set of books set in the Silo universe by Hugh Howey and i absolutely loved it.
i have just started my way through the Sand Omnibus and am absolutely loving it.
i think it is just great to see the similarities in how he builds up these integral characters and develops their relationships, and despite this after reading the Silo series i am always worried he is going to drop a character just like that.
i am also loving the way he is presenting a whole new future and how he is fleshing out the communities and currencies involved in living there.
basically i am just loving the books and wanted to see what everyone else thought?

sounds great, I'll have to check that out

I haven't finished the Silo books quite yet (too much to read, too little time to do it).

I do expect I'll move to his Sand books at some point after finishing the Silo books...

I hadn't even heard of the Sand ones. I did love Silo so I'll have to go look it up!

Hi,
Name is Melinda. I've read most of the Hugh Howey books. I'm only at 86% of Sand, but so far it's not ending up like Wool did. I'm sure I'll finish by tomorrow and might be able to add more to the discussion. I don't want to throw in any spoiler alerts since there are so many that haven't read it. But at 86% I'm holding hopeful!

ah your doing better than me. i am reading each book in turn instead of getting the full omnibus. so im about halfway through book 4. i am really enjoying it so far. but i know what you mean, it doesnt have the same grandoise yet that wool seemed to establish. Despite this i love the way he is building the characters back story and giving even the ones you intially see as mere background fodder a rich story that in the same way he managed with the Silo series could interwine them into it easily enough. I will wait until i finish though and then maybe we should start a spoiler one that we can talk about it properly. i just wanted to put thgis up and see if anybody else had noticed the Sand series and how they were enjoying it so far.

I'm really loving it so far. Some parts make me feel suffocated, which is hard to do in text form... In a good way of course. I've also found myself having to get up and brush my teeth after reading. I just started reading it about a week ago. I can't say that I could really get into the poetic side of it (as this is really new to Hugh's writing) but so far there have only been a few chapters that really get poetic. However, it's really necessary to build the book and once you get further along it makes it brilliant. I'm at 86% and I really hope it doesn't end after this. It seems too soon.

Any info if or when there will be an audiobook release?

not too sure sorry. it could be a while as all 6 books for the e-reader havnt even been released yet.

all 6 books? the omnibus is the 5 books and I haven't heard anything about a 6th. I follow Hughs facebook and blog closely. I know they started recording the audio book for Peace in Amber (which his wife Amber actually speaks parts of it), but I haven't heard anything yet on Sand. I'm sure it'll be done though.

Reading Howey's attempt at a YA sci-fi right now, Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue. It's aiming for the tone of Heinlein's juveniles, but I feel like Howey's desire to throw philosophizin' into the mixture isn't working as well.
Adult psychodrama != teen angst.

oh good, i must have read that wrong when i was reading through the amazon blurb about them both. i saw that Hugh Howey said he advised reading them as their individual books so i decided to go down that route.
i havnt read that one, once Sand is done i may have to give that a go. but i have such a huge backlist of things to read.
But i enjoyed the Silo series so much when i saw Sand it jumped straight to the top of my list!

Is Sand only available on kindle? Didn't see a DRM free version on his website. Anyone know anything about that?

I'm so confused by this author

yes it's available on kindle. that's how I bought it. it's 5.99 on amazon.

chakara, why confused?

oh and about Molly fyde. I read the first one but its not a book I'll finish the series of. I dunno it just got a bit cheesy.

Nico wrote: "Any info if or when there will be an audiobook release?"

I just got the audiobook last night for $1.99 at Audible, though that price may be low because I bought the Kindle and print versions. The narrator is doing a decent job, not outstanding. Hearing it is adding to the poetic nature that I may have missed reading it.

As to the story and comparing it to Wool. I like that he is adding a new twist with more of a familial focus to his character interaction. The siblings really grew on me by the end, as did their relationship with their mother. It is a tough existance and I really look forward to seeing how they interact as the adventure expands on the new territory of this world. How's that for no spoilers?

Do I like it as much as Wool? Yes. Maybe more. There isn't the shocking emotion right away like we had with Wool 1, but there are strong emotions created in certain scenes. My favorite was the sunset scene. Well, there were more, but that one made me stop and tweet Hugh on the fantastic scene.

Wool had a bit of a lull in the middle. Sand did too, but it was smaller, so I think he's improved in that regard. There is a lot to explore. I hope he gets to the sequel right away.

I don't know if this is impolite to ask here, but I wrote a Sand fanfic short story if anyone would like to beta read it for me. I'd like to see if people who've read Sand like it. I don't want to divert the thread though, so just message me if you want to read it.