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They Came With The Snow - Part One : A Short Science Fiction Horror...
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Customer reviews
- They Came With The Snow - Part One : A Short Science Fiction Horror...
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- Customer reviews
Top positive review
Not 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...
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...
13 people found this helpful
Top critical review
A disappointing heap of wasted potential
November 12, 2018
Humor me: take a second and imagine a sudden unseasonal snowstorm that turns out to be infested with hostile, crab-like creatures who blend into the snow so well that often your first sign of them is a sudden loss of everything below the kneecaps. Also, they attack in groups and there are buttloads of them. The stars of this story are a ragtag band of college students and teachers that were tough/smart/lucky enough to survive the first encounter with these crab-thingies, and now they need to get to safety. Sounds interesting, right? You'd want to read that, right? Well, too bad! The 'crabs' in the actual novella are basically fast zombies with snow camo, claws, and no bite-contagion. They're called crabs because they reminded one character of a crab one time...somehow. So much wasted potential I literally can't even. On top of that, the plot is unoriginal, the characters are forgettable, and the climax has technical failures that could have been avoided with five minutes of Googling about tanks (technically, a tank doesn't even BELONG in that situation, but knowing that requires having military nerds for friends, so we'll let that one slide)
10 people found this helpful
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November 26, 2017
I do not understand the upheaval this book caused. It is shallow, terrible character development. It glosses over the horror. It is not even a horror. You never understand the nature of the creatures, except that they are bad and something biological happened.
No meat around the bones on this one
No meat around the bones on this one
November 16, 2018
If you like characters who have a semblance of morality so we can pin our hopes on the best outcome for them, then this isn't the tale for you. The main character is a cheating slimeball whose fbuddy is a younger college student who knows about his wife and cares not at all. After reading this on the first few pages, I could only hope their end comes soon. I will never know, though, because I threw this Coral into my digital trash.
January 2, 2019
I usually read novels but don’t mind short stories at all. I admit I didn’t look at the page count before clicking but after I was done reading I was grateful it was a short story. The main character is completely unsympathetic and uninteresting. This might have been offset if any of the secondary characters had been developed but they weren’t. None of the characters held my attention at all. The action and progression of the story just becomes more and more ridiculous and then ends abruptly. From what I understand this short story was originally meant to be a stand alone. I do give the author credit that for his fans of this short story he did write a follow up.
October 3, 2018
Good story, but realistically not a book by a long shot. A quickie almost there short story… I wish people would quit writing these. Total rip off!
August 18, 2018
In all my years buying from Amazon I have never, NEVER left a review for anything. However, after wiping the bile from my lips and washing my eyes with bleach I feel like I need to warn people to stay away from this abortion of a story. Save your dollar don't buy this trainwreck..
August 23, 2018
Was looking forward to this book but was sorely disappointed that it’s less than 40 pages.☹️ I didn’t see when looking to order this book the amount of pages it had. It’s a lesson learned.
September 11, 2018
38 pages long. You've been warned. 38 pages
January 28, 2018
Short story! Starts out ok, but then the plot goes to Hell! Not a book I would recommend! Totally stupid
September 7, 2018
Another story with no ending.I will never learn. I think this is a plan to buy books and not for the readers enjoyment
September 5, 2018
My fault for not looking more closely at the description; 38 pages is not a novella or a novelette, it is a short story. This particular story is average at best, not interesting enough to buy any follow-up publication.
