Silo Author Hugh Howey Has A Sci-fi Book Recommendation Perfect For Alternate History Fans

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Graham Yost's TV series "Silo" takes place in a distant future after some sort of mysterious global cataclysm has rendered Earth's surface uninhabitable. The show centers on a community of 10,000 people who live in an enormous underground silo that is separated into 144 floors. These levels are organized according to class, with the "elites" living near the top and the working classes residing deeper below. Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette Nichols, one of the engineers who oversees the lower-floor generators, and the series' main characters are all devoted to the silo's functionality. Tim Robbins plays the head of IT, Common plays the head of security, Harriet Walter plays an electrical engineer, and so on.

"Silo" is essentially a complex "mystery box" series à la "Lost," where many questions linger in the air. It's based on a trilogy of novels by author Hugh Howey, whose first "Silo" book, "Wool," was published in 2011. In 2013, he rounded things out with the novels "Shift" and "Dust," and he's been something of a literary darling ever since. He's written zombie books, YA mystery stories, and his short story series "Beacon 23" was even adapted into an MGM+ TV show in 2023.

Naturally, with such a literary imprimatur, Howey is eager to share his favorite books he's read of late. On his personal website, for example, he recommended author Ted Kosmatka's "Prophet of Bones," a 2013 alternate history sci-fi novel that he's fond of.

Henry Holt and Co.

Hugh Howey actually wrote his recommendation for "Prophet of Bones" before its publication, so he was coy about its content, explaining:

"I just finished 'Prophet of Bones' by Ted Kosmatka. Oh, my. This guy can write. Just about every paragraph has one of those sentences you want to read over and over to squeeze all the goodness out. The science in the story is amazing. There's an 'alternate Earth' setup that I won't ruin, because it's revealed in such a sublime manner. Just read the damn thing."

The book has since been released, of course, so some more details can now be revealed. Kosmatka's novel revolves around Paul Carlson, a modern-day scientist who is called to an archeological site in Indonesia to analyze the DNA of a newly unearthed tool-using primate in order to determine its age. What he finds might shake all of modern science to its core, if not change the very way humanity thinks about the Earth.

In a nutshell, "Prophet of Bones" takes place in a universe where humanity reached the present day without making any of the scientific discoveries that proved the actual age of our planet, and most of us have still been going by the Biblical measure of things. That's to say, Kosmatka invented a thriller about what might happen if the true age of the Earth wasn't discovered until the 21st Century. It's an intriguing concept.

Valve

Ted Kosmatka may be a name familiar to gamers since he co-wrote "Portal 2," the second entry in the popular Valve video game franchise that "Backrooms" director Kane Parsons hopes to adapt into a film one day. He also co-penned Valve's "Dota 2" and began publishing short speculative fiction in the 2000s prior to the release of his first novel, "The Games," in 2012. After "Prophet of Bones," he published 2015's "The Flicker Men," itself another novel about an unexpected scientific breakthrough challenging the world's spiritual beliefs. He clearly has a motif. And while Hugh Howey's prediction that "Prophet of Bones" would be adapted into a movie hasn't come true yet, there's certainly still plenty of time.

Howey, meanwhile, is enjoying the success of the "Silo" TV series, and he still regularly contributes to his website, on which he pontificates at length about the state of modern writing, the horrors of A.I., and even his favorite movies. Indeed, he's admitted to deeply admiring Jean-Paul Rappeneau's 1990 film "Cyrano de Bergerac," an adaptation of the famous play by Edmond Rostand. Gerard Depardieu stars as the movie's namesake, a brilliant poet with an elongated nose who aids a young, untalented lover in seducing a paramour. Howey has gone on at length about the tale, writing that it's not just a love story but a love poem to the written word itself.

"Silo" is currently into its third season on Apple TV. It will wrap up with its fourth and final season at some point in the future.