Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsNot a bad novella
April 6, 2017
This is a short novella that seems similar in some ways to Ronald Malfi's "Snow," and it shares general similarities with post-apocalyptic fiction, especially ones involving, well, snow, that also revolve around a strange catastrophe befalling the world and populating it with hostile creatures.
Essentially, an American college professor and the woman he's having an affair with are holed up inside, some time after a mysterious explosion blanketed their world with snow, and also brought along strange, snow-white-skinned creatures wandering around outside, humanoid in shape but scuttling around like crabs. Were they aliens? Mutants? Something else? Our protagonists have no idea, and they don't even know if this snow has covered the whole world or just their area, but they're running out of food and they know they have to leave soon. This story covers their journey, as well as the answers to these mysteries that they manage to find!
This wasn't terrible for the price. The characters were surprisingly compelling. However, the writing never rose above competent, IMO, and there are some awkward phrases here and there. Also, the revelations at the end seemed kind of ham-handed--no spoilers, but IMO the author did a bit more telling than showing, I think he might have been better served to have the story come out through slow discoveries rather than dialogue. Anything more than that would be a spoiler, though! But I liked this, so I'll give it 4 stars--you can give it three if you're not as generous. For some reason, though, I can't find this on Amazon any more...when I left this review and clicked on the book's title, it gave me an error! Weird...