Snow (Gollancz Sf S.) [Hardcover]

Adam Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Series: Gollancz Sf S. | Publication Date: August 19, 2004

And this is how the world will end...'The snow started falling on the sixth of September, soft noiseless flakes filling the sky like a swarm of white moths, or like static interference on your TV screen - whichever metaphor, nature or technology, you find the more evocative. Snow everywhere, all through the air, with that distinctive sense of hurrying that a vigorous snowfall brings with it. Everything in a rush, busy-busy snowflakes. And, simultaneously, paradoxically, everything is hushed, calm, as quiet as cancer, as white as death. And at the beginning people were happy.' But the snow doesn't stop. It falls and falls and falls. Until it lies three miles thick across the whole of the earth. Six billion people have died. Perhaps 150,000 survive. But those 150,000 need help, they need support, they need organising, governing. And so the lies begin. Lies about how the snow started. Lies about who is to blame. Lies about who is left. Lies about what really lies beneath.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Snow strikes home as a cautionary tale. Engrossing, disturbing... a clever and thought-provoking post apocalyptic novel" -- DREAMWATCH "Adam Roberts is becoming increasingly masterful at stage-managing the props of science fiction, at revisiting the concerns of earlier writers with a modern eye" -- ALIEN ON LINE "Intruiging, convincing and well thought-out" -- Simon Withers SFX magazine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Adam Roberts is 38 and Reader in English at London University. His first novel, Salt, was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He has also published a number of academic works on both 19th century poetry and SF.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz; 1st ed/1st printing edition (August 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 057507180X
• ISBN-13: 978-0575071803
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,174,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two different novels - one is great., May 22, 2010

By 

J. Shurin "carnivore" (London) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snow (GollanczF.) (Paperback)

The Snow (2004) is an apocalyptic sci-fi novel by the ever-philosophical Adam Roberts.

Much to everyone's delight, snow starts falling all over the world. But as it piles up, the charm quickly wears off. And by the time the Earth is covered in three miles of packed snow, everyone is too dead to complain.

Roberts follows the snowfall from start to finish - the early days of panic, the boredom and the pain of captivity and then the fledgling society that emerges on the other side. With only 150,000 survivors around the world, the human race is a very different entity (and a very cold one). The attempts to rebuild society are awkward - people must choose between looking forwards or finding someone to blame.

The Snow is an awkward fusion of two very different books.

The first, which explores the snow's human impact, is terrific. I've always been a sucker for post-apocalyptic thrillers, and this is a good one: even the most mundane aspects of government become tricky when you're standing on top of a pile of powder. The power politics are well-developed, as are the various players - the close-minded general, the awkward revolutionary and the scheming wife.

The novel's style, a collection of government papers, interviews and testimonials, gives this more impact. The Snow is a gathering of unreliable narrators. The reader has to work at deciphering what to believe and how the stories click together. Hard work, but rewarding.

Roberts also makes the snow's impact felt on the personal level. We understand what it is like to scrounge for food or cross a hundred-foot drift... even the joy of smoking a carefully-husbanded cigarette.

The latter part of The Snow is another book entirely. For some perverse reason, the (slightly goofy) science-fiction origin of the snowfall is explained. Not only is this explanation unnecessary, but since it is bizarre, unanticipated, and completely out of left-field, it undermines the rest of the book. What was a Ballardian thriller about human beings in adverse circumstances suddenly transforms into ponderous retro pulp.

I highly recommend The Snow for its auspiciously apocalyptic beginning. It is beautifully written and presents a fascinating take on the downfall (and tenuous resurgence) of human civilization. I also recommend it as a case study on disappointing endings. It's a valuable lesson for all science fiction authors: sometimes humans are enough.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, April 24, 2007

By 

C. Bierdrager - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snow (Gollancz Sf S.) (Hardcover)

I actually really liked this book. I liked the twist on the apocalypse theme at the beginning of the book as well as the surprising last part. It had parts throughout that were slightly irritating (the "classified documents" with deleted text), but I think that was the point. The novel went back and forth between the first person experience and portraying the collective handling of people going through a rapid, dramatic culture and climate change. As a result, it was also partially a sociopolitical exposition, with a conspiracy theory bent. I also really liked the main character! It was really refreshing for me that the protagonist was a woman of color, with a decidedly pragmatic view of relationships in the "New World" (no wishy-washy romanticism!). I found Adam Roberts' depiction of her experience as quite shrewd, especially if Adam Roberts happens to be a (white?) (male?) author.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An icy road to nowhere, August 18, 2006

By 

Cartimand (Hampshire, UK.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snow (Gollancz Sf S.) (Hardcover)

I wanted to like The Snow. I really did.

The idea of this refreshingly different post-apocalyptic tale had great potential and the opening 50 pages were genuinely interesting, ringing faint echoes of Terry Nation's seminal "Survivors".

Then, however, following the central character Tira's rescue, the tale loses direction and gets hopelessly bogged down. I have to confess that I found neither Tira nor any of the other characters particularly likeable or engaging and, regarding the accounts of their endless politics, cumbersome characterisation and yawn-inducing relationships, I, quite frankly, couldn't give a damn.

Furthermore, Roberts' excessive use of [blank] and [expletive deleted] to express the regime of censorship under which Tira is obliged to write her journal, is immensely irritating to plough through. One chapter of this material would surely have sufficed? But no. Roberts gives us hundreds of pages of the stuff and by around page 200, I very nearly gave up.

Early on, Tira writes that "at the beginning people were happy..." then though things "became tiresome, and then oppressive, and then something worse, became calamitous". That kinda echoes how I felt waking up to realise I still had a gruelling 250 pages to read!

I persevered though and was partly rewarded by a moderately interesting twist as the closing revelations approached.

Then, though, the book merely peters out to nothing.

An opportunity lost.