I Always Knew Snow Is Evil

My initial reaction going into a book about monsters in the snow, which was kind of an ehh feeling, quickly turned around once I became enchanted with Ronald Malfi's strong writing style. Malfi's novel Snow offers all kinds of goodies - alien snow monsters, isolated small town, an interesting array of characters, and gorgeous imagery. I ended up enjoying this novel a lot. There were some small things that bothered me a bit, but looking at the book as a whole I definitely recommend it.

The monsters themselves, which I'm not even sure what to call them since they came in different forms (snow tornadoes, snow legions that form giant snake monsters, skin-suits...), were pretty creepy. They're almost zombie-like in their need to feed off humans, but they don't lumber slowly. At one point we get a comparison to the things loping around like gazelles and smashing themselves into the sheriff building to attack the survivors. They aren't genius monsters, but they are smart enough to scrabble the power and electricity around so cars, phones, and internet connections are cut off. The isolation in this story is handled great. Even though the monsters seemed all over the place at times in regards to figuring out what the hell they actually were, I enjoyed reading about their stages and evolutions. Monsters that adapt and evolve are damn intimidating.

Along with snow monsters that explode into fire and dark blood, Malfi gives us some great characters for the most part. Sometimes it seemed like characters were just introduced so they could be killed later, but that happens a lot in horror. At first I was irritated Kate had to stay behind with the crazy pregnant lady, Molly, and the two kids, while the men went into the square and into battle, but Malfi pleasantly surprised me by all Kate ended up doing at the station. She blasted the monsters away with shotgun, told Molly to shut the fuck up, and took charge, which really went with her personality. It was great to see Kate and Shawna be fearless badasses throughout the novel. Shawna's death really struck me too. This poor young girl watched her mother die, had to kill her boyfriend and her neighbors, watched the town she'd grown up in go up in blood and smoke, and still fought to survive. Her final moment, falling down those basement stairs after agonizingly making her way toward them due to her severe injuries, was painful to read through because I was rooting for so much. This book could have easily been told through her point of view (minus her death). I would have loved to have read her story throughout this.

Todd's not a bad character, but there are just SO many horror stories where a parent is fighting for their child or trying to get back to their child that I think I've become desensitized to it. I want gritty survival stories because the character just doesn't want to die, selfishly and wonderfully.

So overall, this story packs a punch. The action and pacing are written damn well, and I don't remember being bored during any parts of the descriptions. Malfi has some great imagery sprinkled throughout this novel, like when he describes the trees standing like silent soldiers in winter at one point, and another time during Todd's memories with his son he think of wildflowers bursting in the ground like supernovas. Great images!

I could have done without the epilogue, though. Just the overall events in this story, and especially the newscast at the end, imply these things are still out there somewhere evolving, so the epilogue felt superfluous to me. Even so, it's written well and I definitely want to read more from this author!