Customer Reviews

Snow

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Amongst legions of vampires, werewolves, zombies, vengeful spirits of evil entombed ancestors and Lovecraftian water monsters with lashing tentacles, it's gratifying to encounter a creature that's fresh and original, and - though detailed - not over explained to the point of:

"Oh, I see. It's a brand-new twist on an ancient Native American Algonquin Elder Myth of Very Old Beings From Before Time! How silly of me!"

In other words, it's nice to be surprised by something new and still be left hanging at the end, wondering what that thing was, and where and when it'll strike next. Ronald Malfi accomplishes this in "Snow": He uses the always effective horror environment of a small town cut off by a blizzard; then he gives ample reason to fear the snow itself...down to even the tiniest flake.

Todd Curry is a newly divorced dad trying to make up for lost time and wasted opportunities, but torrential snowstorms have canceled all flights from Chicago, ruining his chances of seeing his only son for Christmas. Determined, Todd joins a woman named Kate and an elderly couple as they try driving to their varied destinations. It's risky, but he's desperate enough and Kate seems crazy enough for it to work.

A car accident becomes the least of their worries after they pick up a confused man wandering in the snow, claiming that his daughter is lost in the woods. By proxy, he leads them to a snowed-in town, dark and empty, save for a few barrel fires...and something that darts in and out of the shadows. Something awful and ethereal waits for these four travelers; something that wants more from them than just food...

Malfi's handle of the craft is rock-solid; he crafts a wire-taut, suspenseful atmosphere. Also, potential sparks between Kate (engaged to someone else) and Todd are handled respectfully, and Malfi clearly understands the concept of providing resolution without explaining everything away. Readers who can love the journey without a detailed map drawn for them at the end will love this.

Malfi's Snow is the best horror I've read in quite a while. I picked it up off the shelf to kill a few minutes while I was waiting for someone and ended up reading the whole thing that day.

Several of the previous reviewers praise this book's originality. The funny thing is that it does feel shocking and new, despite the fact that it wears its influences on its sleeve, so to speak (a heady mixture of John Carpenter's remake of The Thing, Romero's zombie movies, and Lovecraftian cosmic horror.)

The best thing about it is the characters -- all the important characters feel well rounded and interesting, and with the leads especially you get that essential sense of what their lives are like outside of the events of the book, so you know what's at stake. Too many characters in horror books and movies seem to only exist within the confines of their stories, giving you no reason to root for them or care whether they live or die. Malfi reminded of me of Stephen King in that sense (characters always being King's biggest strength), with none of the latter's self-indulgent tendencies.

Living in the midwest, not that far from where this book is set, I'm sure to think of this one again with a shiver at the next major snowfall.

Highly recommended.

Snow by Ronald Malfi

Due to atrocious weather Todd Curry is stranded at Chicago's O'Hare airport along with countless others. After his patience expires Todd decides to rent a car and try to make it to his destination on his own. Acknowledging that it would be safer with more people, he acquires a new friend he met named Kate, and an older couple. After gathering bottled water, candy bars, map, batteries, and aspirin from Hudson News, they begin their journey. Due to the snow, the four travelers begin to get lost and end up on a back road in the middle of nowhere. They soon literally run into a man in the middle of the road, who acts very strange and has odd markings on his back. The stranger eventually lures them to a desolate town that has been devastated by an alien horror that they will never forget. The small group soon realizes that the weather is the last thing they have to worry about. Survival becomes the priority as the towns secrets are reveiled to the stranded party.
Readers may feel like parts of this novel seem familiar. The setting is vaguely reminiscent of John Carpenter's The Thing, and Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. Of course with references like those you can't go wrong. Ronald Malfi succeeds at laying down a creepy foundation, and building eerie suspense layer by layer, which in turn will guarantee the reader many goosebump moments. If stranded people trying to survive against unspeakable terror is your thing, this is a home run.

Ronald Malfi, Snow (Leisure, 2010)

I had Snow, Malfi's most recent novel, on my list of stuff to read in 2011. Then I found a copy at a library book sale, in good enough shape for me, but not for the library. (It had suffered some water damage.) Considering this providence, I bought it for a quarter, took it home, and then tried to resist reading it until 2011. As I'm writing this on October 1, 2010, you can see how well that worked out. I've been hearing Malfi's name around and about for a few years now, but had never checked out any of his fiction before; while it does suffer from a few of the shortcomings common to the genre, that won't stop me from checking out his stuff again in the future.

Snow starts in one of the places in the world that, when you consider horror novels, is the least scary, but when you consider real life, is terrifying--O'Hare Airport. It is Christmas Eve, and a number of passengers headed for Des Moines (actually, all points) are stuck in a snowstorm. Todd Curry, the book's protagonist, attempts to rent a car capable of making it to Iowa in a snowstorm, but finds out the last four-wheel-drive was just rented by Kate, a perky redhead he'd just met in the airport bar. She offers to give him a ride, along with Fred and Nan Wilkinson, an elderly couple similarly stranded, and the four of them head off into the night. Things don't get odd until they get into Iowa, but then they come upon a guy stumbling around in the snow. He says he's looking for his daughter, and our intrepid crew decide to help. But there are things about both his story and his demeanor that don't add up...

I didn't really grasp it until I started writing this review, but there's one monster plot hole in this book that drove me up the wall; after I'd finished the book, I knew there was something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it till just now. Since it involves both the very beginning and the very end of the book, it's impossible to talk about in a review without giving away a major spoiler, but if you do notice it, it'll probably drive you up the wall, too. Which is not at all what I was going to say in the third paragraph. Consider this a diversion.

I've noticed over the years that genre fiction, especially genre horror, is far more plot- than character-based. Having read Snow, I think I'm going to add a third category to this, the pace-based book (think Douglas Winter's Run or the novels of Jack Priest, for example), because while Snow is a plot-driven book indeed, and some of the subplots suddenly disappearing will drive you to distraction, Malfi at least tries to give you three-dimensional characters here, far more so than a Winter or a Priest (or for that matter, the modern master of the cardboard character, Brian Keene--though I rush to add his books are the best guilty pleasures you can get your hands on these days). He doesn't always succeed, and every once in a while you'll run across a character with "kill me" tattooed on his forehead (what Star Trek fans call redshirts), and those tend to be transparent. But put all that aside and what you've got is a fun little horror novel with a pretty durned nifty monster; it's fun, if shallow, and worth a read for genre horror fans. ***

When a group of travelers have their flight canceled due to bad weather, they rent a car and begin a treacherous journey home. They find themselves stranded in a seemingly deserted town. However, there's something alive in the snow...and it's hungry!

Snow was a delight to read. LOL - I admit that I am sick of vampires, zombies, and werewolves (oh my!) and it was great to read something that was totally original. Now, I won't tell you what's alive in the snow - you need to read the book.

And if that wasn't enough, Malfi's grasp of setting and character were stellar. Sure there's gore, but there are also creepy chills and characters you care about - a rare thing these days.

I'm glad I read this and I'm looking forward to the author's next book!

I want to first thank Leisure Books for bringing Ronald Malfi to their company. Guys like Malfi, Gord Rollo, Wrath James White, and Jeff Strand are the new generation of horror writers that deserve to be read by the masses. Next, I want to thank author Ronald Malfi for crafting a near perfect tale of horror. He has infused this original novel with every element I look for in a great horror story; a realistic setup dripping with thick, creepy atmosphere, an extremely dangerous antagonist, interesting yet flawed characters thrown into extreme situations, and characters that actually make smart decisions that help themselves instead of just being a tool to blindly help the author's story. And finally, of course - maybe the most important - the book has to scare me. And this did.

This is the first horror novel I've given a full 5 stars to in over a year. Granted, I do have a propensity for stories taking place in snow storms. But still, with Snow, Malfi's done everything right. Beginning, middle, and end. I loved it. A real talent for vivid descriptions, Malfi also has great instincts for using smooth prose and an ear for natural dialogue. I simply cannot recommend this book enough. Snow is an easy candidate for the 2010 Bram Stoker Award.

This seemed like a throwback to old-school horror of the 80's and early 90's, but with a modern day touch. Really enjoyed this one. Mr. Malfi can truly write. Truly unique monsters/creatures, enjoyable scenery, and a survival plot that made you feel like you were with the people. I know a lot of people use Stephen King as a model, but this really reminded me of his earlier work. I look forward to this authors next novel.

I belong to the Leisure horror book club so this was sent to me automatically, but even if it wasn't I would still snatch this if I saw it in a book store. I love these kinds of tales; woods, snow, strange things happening, possible ghosts/monsters/something wicked roaming around, people acting strange, yum! Malfi created a fun and entertaining story that is realistic enough to make the reader worry about the characters that are believable even if most of them don't get to witness any happy endings and a nemesis who is unlike anything else I have read about. This tale reminded me of a few books and movies while I was reading it, mostly The Mist, Dreamcatcher, The Thing, Tremors and few others that escape me at the moment, saturated with those unnerving elements of scare and uncertainty and some ugly death scenes that seems to reduce any changes of survival, not to mention some creepy crawlers that are beyond any human DNA mutation. Plus the hint of supernatural really added a zing to the whole tale, the fact that snow was somehow unsafe added more urgency to all actions, after all everyone was surrounded by it in the middle of nowhere.

Todd Curry is a divorced father, desperately trying to get to his son during the holiday season, unfortunately the weather is not agreeable and when his flight out from Chicago gets canceled he decides against better judgment to rent a car and try to make the drive himself. Along for the ride come three more people, young woman named Kate whom he met at the airport bar, and an elderly couple that simply sees this as their lucky opportunity to get home. Their trip seems fine once they are on their way but when they stop in the middle of the road, trying not to hit a deluded wandering man, their kindness turns out to be quite dangerous. The man starts talking about his lost daughter, that they need to help him find her, as time goes by Todd has an eerie feeling that they guy is lying or perhaps not telling the full truth, little does he know what the real story is, even if he knew back then he would never have believed it. So the terrors start, slowly, but pretty soon the passengers are trapped in a remote little town that has no intentions of letting them go, I don't want to say what happens because the less one knows the better this book is. But the story was fun and very quick, only getting slower towards the middle, but picking up steam that leads to a very interesting ending.

Malfi did a really good job when he created the characters, they had enough heft to stand out in the story and take the lead. When I was reading it I felt like they took the story into their hands and made it real, also their security wasn't set in stone, the author really took some of them and dragged them through the meat grinder, not sparing anyone's feelings. The setting and scenery were also wonderfully dark and creepy, who knew that glittering sweet snow can be so deadly, in talented hands it's something you want to stay far away from, and this book certainly made me shiver but not because it was cold.

- Kasia S.

Snow deserves some praise. Ronald Malfi deserves some praise. He can write. Which is more than can be said w/some book writers out there.

Todd Curry just wants to get to Des Moines to see his son for Christmas. Too bad an epic snowstorm has just shut down all flights from Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where he's stranded while on layover from New York. He, along with a few other travelers headed the same way, decide to rent a Jeep and brave the snow. While driving through a forested area seemingly in the middle of nowhere, they stop to help a lone, disoriented man who's wandering around in the freezing cold, apparently looking for his daughter. They soon follow him, on foot, through the woods to an isolated, snowed-in town that appears to be totally abandoned, save for some barrel fires in the town square. But they feel like they're being watched. And there's something about the snow that seems...off.

To say any more of the plot would ruin it, but I will say that this is an original, very scary take on the whole "trapped in an isolated town while being hunted" theme that we know from movies like(as other reviewers have mentioned) '30 Days of Night,' 'The Thing,' and 'Night of the Living Dead.' Malfi certainly can write, as the characterization was top-notch, especially for a 300-page novel. The characters felt real, and I cared about them, and feared for their safety, a rarity in pulp-type horror. The suspense never really lets up, and it's hard to stop once you've started.

The reason for four instead of five stars is that, while it's obvious that Malfi is a skilled writer, with a mastery of language and characterization, parts of the book just felt rushed, with a lot of repetitive information being thrown at the reader, sometimes within only a few pages of each other. Also, some of his metaphors were clunky and didn't make much sense to me, which became somewhat distracting and took me out of the story at times.

Still, 'Snow' was one of the more absorbing and intense horror novels of the past few years for me, and I've already purchased Malfi's previous horror novels, published under his full name, Ronald Damien Malfi. From what I've read so far of 'The Fall of Never,' he's certainly one of the best newer names in horror, and is at the forefront of new authors writing "literary horror."