Snow - Ronald Malfi

            Snow is the story of Ted and Kate’s struggle to survive against horrible spider monsters that get inside people.

           

            Erm, sorry. That’s Todd and Kate’s struggle to survive against horrible snow monsters that get inside people.

                                                                  

From the very beginning, I felt like I’d read this story before. I have, a few times now. For me, there was nothing particularly remarkable about Snow as a whole. It was a pretty standard group of survivors vs. monster apocalypse type story with a small town setting. The cop sacrificed himself, the kids got axed, and the pregnant lady was a psycho. Nothing new here.

They also killed off my favorite character, Shawna. Also nothing new here. I did find her refreshingly tough while she was alive. I really admired her will to survive, and felt a little betrayed when she was killed during a scene in her POV. For some reason I never expect a character to be killed in a scene when it is their POV, especially if they are the only character in that scene. Major expectation adjustment.

The only thing I found nonstandard about the book were the characteristics of the monster. Snow is, no surprise, largely about monsters that live in, or are part of the snow from a particularly large storm that covers the Midwestern United States. I’ve never seen a monster that takes the form of glittering, gravity defying snow in any sort of medium, other than a few select monsters in Dungeons and Dragons. When paired with the setting, which is a remote town in the center of a blizzard, the snow beast is well suited to its environment. In much the same way the alien from Alien uses its environment to its advantage, the snow beasts blend with their surroundings, amplifying the paranoia and fear that they could be anywhere and anytime.

As if incorporeal snow monsters with enormous hook arms that turn solid just long enough to hack and slash you and your shelter to smithereens wasn’t terrifying enough, the snow beasts are also capable of possessing their victims. Some of the human skin suites are used as disposable corporeal toys, and behave much like zombies. The interesting ones are the humans taken for more permanent residence. These retain some semblance of humanity, and are capable of blending in with the human population long enough to move about undetected (as seen in the epilogue), though they inevitably have a strange and alien demeanor that puts normal people on edge. This made me wonder how much, if any of the original personality remained in the possessed being. With Eddy Clement, I had the distinct impression there were still some remnants of his former self, but twisted and strange. This was the element of the story that held the most potential for me, and I was disappointed it wasn’t taken further.

An interesting thing also happens to children in this novel when they are possessed. They lose their faces. Something about the snow beasts doesn’t quite mix with prepubescent humans and the result is corrupted. The children appear to be outcasts from both the surviving humans, and the society of snow beasts. They take to roaming the woods in silent packs, and though disturbing, they never harm any of the human characters in the story, which was fascinating to me. I really want to know more about the feral, faceless children, their motives, and the state of their consciousness.

And lastly, there was totally a penis monster. And it was gross. I think there is something telling about ending the semester with a mention of a penis monster. Somehow, it says more than all my blogs ever could.