Snow
I'm not looking forward to winter. This book didn't help. I had never heard of Snow or Ronald Malfi before it was assigned for the Monsters class. This was a solid little book. I read it while I was traveling to Columbus for World Fantasy Con, and it was neat reading the opening in an airport while sitting in an airport.
The characters, for the most part, behaved the way I expected them to, with the possible exception of Molly, who just seemed like a bitch for the sake of having a bitch. I wasn’t entirely sold on her motivation for hating Kate and Todd so very much. I also thought Kate and Todd used each other’s names in dialog WAY too much. And that is the end of my complaining.
The monsters in Snow were pretty bitchin’. Extraterrestrial (or interdimensional-I don’t think it really matters which) in nature, these snow critters came from the sky and sealed off a Midwestern town, killing all electronic gadgets and blocking cell service. They were made of snow…or something that the humans in the book equated with snow…and could only take corporeal form long enough to slash into people’s backs and change them. It provided that element of horror that is so delicious of people who look like us and used to be us but are now very dangerous and very scary. Near the end the snow monsters came together and made mega-monsters, which I thought was much less scary and unsettling than the changed people. The best, creepiest part of the book was the kids: when the snow monsters tried to change children, it didn’t take, and the kids turned into creepy, listless little automatons, roaming around in the snowy woods. Demon kids are scary. The Brood and The Children are two excellent scary kid movies, both of which take place in winter. There’s something really creepy about bundled up kiddos who aren’t quite human.
I liked that the characters would never have known what the monster’s motives were, what they were, or really anything about them. I am glad Malfi didn’t go into great detail about where they came from and why they were there, their motives, etc. That can sometimes suck the fun out of a story, and for these characters, whose POVs we were in, I don’t think it would have made sense for them to know too much more about the monsters than we were given. I also liked the insidious ending that implies that what the monsters did in this particular town was just the beginning.
I think Malfi has a nice, readable style, and would certainly look up something else by him. This was a great addition to the class.
This is done by Jakaloftrades on Deviant Art.com. It gets the point across pretty well, though the snow monsters in Malfi's book sadly did not wear scarves or tophats.
The characters, for the most part, behaved the way I expected them to, with the possible exception of Molly, who just seemed like a bitch for the sake of having a bitch. I wasn’t entirely sold on her motivation for hating Kate and Todd so very much. I also thought Kate and Todd used each other’s names in dialog WAY too much. And that is the end of my complaining.
The monsters in Snow were pretty bitchin’. Extraterrestrial (or interdimensional-I don’t think it really matters which) in nature, these snow critters came from the sky and sealed off a Midwestern town, killing all electronic gadgets and blocking cell service. They were made of snow…or something that the humans in the book equated with snow…and could only take corporeal form long enough to slash into people’s backs and change them. It provided that element of horror that is so delicious of people who look like us and used to be us but are now very dangerous and very scary. Near the end the snow monsters came together and made mega-monsters, which I thought was much less scary and unsettling than the changed people. The best, creepiest part of the book was the kids: when the snow monsters tried to change children, it didn’t take, and the kids turned into creepy, listless little automatons, roaming around in the snowy woods. Demon kids are scary. The Brood and The Children are two excellent scary kid movies, both of which take place in winter. There’s something really creepy about bundled up kiddos who aren’t quite human.
I liked that the characters would never have known what the monster’s motives were, what they were, or really anything about them. I am glad Malfi didn’t go into great detail about where they came from and why they were there, their motives, etc. That can sometimes suck the fun out of a story, and for these characters, whose POVs we were in, I don’t think it would have made sense for them to know too much more about the monsters than we were given. I also liked the insidious ending that implies that what the monsters did in this particular town was just the beginning.
I think Malfi has a nice, readable style, and would certainly look up something else by him. This was a great addition to the class.
This is done by Jakaloftrades on Deviant Art.com. It gets the point across pretty well, though the snow monsters in Malfi's book sadly did not wear scarves or tophats.