Wool

Wool is a science fiction novel by the American writer Hugh Howey, first published in 2011 and a New York Times bestseller.

The book is set in a silo, a sealed structure sunk into the ground, where a community lives on the assumption that the air outside is fatal. The view from the silo is a single screen showing the world the members' forebears left behind, and that view dulls over time as the outside air corrodes the camera and the glass. The job of cleaning the view is given to people convicted of breaking the rules, who are sent out in suits and do not come back, and the question of why they choose to clean rather than walk away is one the silo's sheriff has never been able to answer.

The silo has its own laws and its own machinery, and its population has been shaped by generations of living in a closed world where the outside is both punishment and the only thing anyone can see from behind the glass.