The sci-fi TV series Stephen King is obsessed with: “Mysterious and terrifically suspenseful”
Despite being one of the biggest-selling writers in history – and a man whose fame eclipses just about every other scribe from the last four decades – Stephen King has always stayed remarkably relatable. This is because, despite all the success he has had and all the classic stories he has given the world, he has never lost touch with his roots.
At his core, King is still the same fan of genre fiction that he has always been, whether that fiction is in the form of novels, comic books, movies, or television shows. In recent years, he has even used his social media accounts to signal boost his current obsessions – such as a sci-fi mystery box show that he can’t get enough of.
The show that captured the imagination of the King of Horror began life in 2011 as a self-published novel on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. This was the year audio technician and former yacht captain Hugh Howey published Wool, a collection of four novellas and one short story set in a dystopian future in which a community of 10,000 people live in an enormous underground silo comprised of 144 levels. In 2013, he released two more volumes entitled Shift and Dust, with the three books now comprising an overall story known as the Silo series.
Over the next decade, Howey was able to grow Silo beyond its e-Book self-publishing roots by signing deals with major publishers, although he still publishes new instalments in e-Book format first. The screen rights to the series were sold in 2012, but it would take until 2021 for the series to enter development with AppleTV. It eventually debuted in May 2023 with a cast including Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Robbins, David Oyelowo, and Rashida Jones, and a second season followed in November 2024.
With King, the series hooked a prominent fan right from the start. In June 2023, he tweeted that the show was “mysterious and terrifically suspenseful,” before adding, “This is excellent science fiction with three-dimensional characters.” A few days later – presumably after watching a particularly compelling episode with a hell of a cliffhanger – he again took to social media to gush, “I have to wait a week for the next episode of Silo? That is the pinnacle of unfair.”
King’s love for Silo didn’t burn bright and then quickly disappear, either. He returned to social media to sing its praises again in January 2025, when the show was deep in the weeds of its second season. This time, he noted, “There are really only two ‘mystery box’ shows that I felt were worth my time last year and this coming year (for ‘mystery box shows,’ think Lost): From and Silo. As always, your mileage may differ.”
Comparing Silo to a show like Lost was high praise from King, and singling out Silo and From – another spooky mystery show that airs on MGM+ and Sky – as high-quality examples of the ‘mystery box’ show was also fascinating.
This brand of genre show, which usually has a high-concept premise, a large cast of diverse characters, and a mythology that gets more labyrinthine with every passing episode, is hard to pull off, and many fail. But when a good one comes along – like Lost, Silo, or Hulu’s Paradise – it can inspire a devoted fan following that will stand the test of time, if not the test of every viewer’s patience.
