LL: I’ll have a guess at that before Hugh answers. Significance of the title, “Wool”? I remember the references to I’ve always meant to ask, and have never read anywhere–what is the HH: I believe you’re the first to find and share the quote. The Roman numeral for fifty is “L”, so the acronym would be In book five, when Lukas is talking to Sil0 1 he’s welcomed to “Operation Fifty of the World This supposition was confirmed by the author in an online post: If you then replace the number fifty with the Roman numeral L you get the acronym W.O.O.L. They learn that the silo is merely one of a variety of silos and are inducted into ' Operation Fifty of the World Order' or, to put it another way, World Order Operation Fifty. In each of the books, certain characters are introduced to a secret. Holston pulled one off with a ripping sound, studied the whorls and curls of the rough material, then stuck it back on. “You got your scrubbers here.” He patted the wool pads stuck to the front of the suit. These were the men and women who maintained the view to that wider world beyond the silo’s stifling confines. The banned might do the physical cleaning, but these were the people who made it possible.

Holston nodded, but he knew there wasn’t any “book.” Of all the mystic oral traditions passed through silo generations, none matched the cult-like intensity of the suit makers and the cleaning techs. Time and doing it well, and then she had stepped back, looked in theĬamera one last time, waved at him, then turned to walk away He had watched her finish the job, taking her Suit as she scrubbed and scrubbed with her wool pads, but he knew her Silver-masked helmet, couldn’t see her thin arms through the bulky He couldn’t see Allison’s face through her But Holston had watched there was never any doubt They wanted to come up and enjoy a nice view without seeing what it The people inside couldn’t bear to watch what they’d done-or maybe It's worth noting that wool (sheep's hair) does make an appearance in the early pages of the first book, used to clean the cameras. Interview with successful self-published author, Hugh Howey *HH: It comes from the saying “to have the wool pulled over your eyes.” It’s all about deceit. Q: We understand the importance of wool in the story but how did you go about choosing that as the title? Is the wool pulled down over what we see? Orĭo we see through it? I really hope the answer to this questionīounces back and forth for the reader as they progress through the Readers discover these things on their own), but if you look at theĬenter of the cover, the two ‘O’s look like eyes staring out at theīeautiful world beyond. I’ve only pointed this out to a few people (I prefer to let

The cover of the first WOOL is meant to highlight these multiple Hidden clue here and there among the page numbers. Readers with the print editions might notice a “fleeced.” All of these readings have contemporary parallels, and allĪre fully intended. Humans being compared to sheep when we are taken advantage of or Metaphorical blind followers who just do what they’re told, go where What is really out there? Who isīeing deceived? Or are they? There’s also the allusion to sheep, those There’s the old phrase “Pull the wool over my eyes,” which is the Howey: There are quite a few meanings behind the title of the series. Per these interviews with series author Hugh Howey, there were a variety of out-of-universe connotations for the word ' Wool'.

Silo series book names