I loved Hugh Howey’s Wool series, and while I had heard that he had opened it up to the Kindle Worlds program, I had not checked out any of the new additions—until now. I heard about this via a blog I follow, and I love the concept. [easyazon-link asin=”B00IZRAUD2″ locale=”us”]WOOL Gathering[/easyazon-link] is a sort of sampler anthology which presets stories from some of the ‘top’ authors in the Wool Kindle Worlds community. The proceeds go to support National Novel Writing Month , a cause I appreciate. It’s a win-win situation—I get to test out some new authors, and support the Nano people too!
The stories in Wool Gathering were, for the most part, very good. A few ended a little too soon for me (this is why I seldom read short stories; they are not as immersive for me) and a few grabbed me more than others did, which again, is typical for a collection of this sort. I did appreciate that each story stood alone as a complete work, even if the author did have fuller books available.
I had not realized that so many authors had actually taken Howey up on his offer to share the Wool world, and it was nice to get a birds-eye view of some of the prominent contributors. One author, Ann Christy, even offers the first book, [easyazon-link asin=”B00DYV8NKQ” locale=”us”]Silo 49: Going Dark[/easyazon-link] in her full-fledged series for free. It was here that the whole Kindle Worlds thing fell apart for me a little. Outside of the more limited scope of the anthology’s short story format, it became clearer to me that this was not Hugh Howey. Christy does a serviceable job and tells a good story, but it just wasn’t quite the same for me. I enjoyed this little anthology and don’t begrudge the time, or small sum of money I spent on it. But I likely will not buy further non-Howey Wool stories.
I read all three books of Ann Christy’s series, and I loved them! The other spin off I read was a series by WJ Davies. That one was also very good! All of them can be read free via Prime lending.