SNOW

This past week I got to read a book called Snow by Ronald Malfi. I really enjoyed this book since I am very creeped out by stories that involve being trapped anywhere in a setting that is snowbound. I enjoyed the early part of the story with some simple character building and setting the stage of who the actors were going to be in the story.

As the story unfolded, the characters became trapped in the town; the author did a pretty good job of building tension and suspense along with a bit of dread. I found myself involved with the characters on an emotional level feeling as if I was side-by-side with them experiencing the horror in real-time.

The story opened up many questions for me that remained unresolved by the end. For example, who the heck were these snow monsters, and where they come from. Did they come from the spiritual realm? Did they come from outer space? Did they come from another dimension? I felt myself wondering this throughout the story expecting a payoff at the end with some sort of resolution that never came.

I felt the author handled some of our suspension of belief in a way that allowed me to buy into the premise of the story. For example, in the early part of the story, I wondered how these crazy, possessed people could be not be freezing to death or their bodies freezing solid as they run around in the snow. Later it was revealed that they spent much of their time indoors waiting for either instruction from the snow or warm bodies to pray and feed on.

This story reminded me of a couple of other stories that I have recently enjoyed. First, it reminded me of the recent story we read for this class called Breeding Ground. For me, Snow had a similar feel to Breeding Ground. Although the settings were completely different and the monsters were not even close to being the same, I still felt many parallels in basic story structure and pace.

The parallels that I felt in the story once we got past the inciting event was that we had a small group of survivors that were thrust together and put into emergency mode. Then they found themselves seeking refuge in a makeshift battle fort, being the police station in Snow. Then the final standoff against the monster. I know this is a basic plot structure, but my eyes as a new author are just starting to identify repeated story patterns. I am seeing these basic story structures being used again and again like a formula. I feel like a kid discovering Legos for the first time.

There is also another story that I read recently that I enjoyed thoroughly which has many parallels to the story Snow. The story is actually a series of books by a fairly new writer named Flint Maxwell. His first book in that series is called The Snow. There are six stories in his series in total. The first book in his series starts off when it starts snowing on a hot Fourth of July weekend and never stops. And yes, there are monsters in that story too.

So, I enjoyed reading Snow by Ronald Malfi. For me, it pushed all the right buttons for the stories that I like to read. The story allowed me to suspend my disbelief just long enough to get hooked into the story and enjoy it through to the outcome. I did not mind so much that there were questions that remain unanswered at the end. Overall, I was satisfied.