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    The Thing in the Snow: A Novel
    The Thing in the Snow: A Novel
    The Thing in the Snow: A Novel
    Ebook257 pages2 hours

    The Thing in the Snow: A Novel

    By Sean Adams

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the critically acclaimed author of The Heap, a thought-provoking and wryly funny novel—equal parts satire and psychological thriller—that holds a funhouse mirror to the isolated workplace and an age of endless distraction. 

    At the far reaches of the world, the Northern Institute sits in a vast expanse of ice and snow. Once a thriving research facility, its operations were abruptly shut down after an unspecified incident, and its research teams promptly evacuated. Now it’s home to a team of three caretakers—Gibbs, Cline, and their supervisor, Hart—and a single remaining researcher named Gilroy, who is feverishly studying the sensation of coldness.

    Their objective is simple: occupy the space, complete their weekly tasks, and keep the building in working order in case research ever resumes. (Also: never touch the thermostat. Also: never, ever go outside.) The work isn’t thrilling—test every door for excessive creaking, sit on every chair to ensure its structural integrity—but for Hart, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to hone his leadership skills and become the beacon of efficiency he always knew he could be.

    There’s just one obstacle standing in his way: a mysterious object that has appeared out in the snow. Gibbs and Cline are mesmerized. They can’t discern its exact shape and color, nor if it’s moving or fixed in place. But it is there. Isn’t it?

    Whatever it might be, Hart thinks the thing in the snow is an unwelcome distraction, and probably a huge waste of time. Though, come to think of it, time itself has been a bit wonky lately. Weekends pass in a blur, and he can hardly tell day from night. Gravity seems less-than-reliable. The lights have been flickering weirdly, and he feels an odd thrumming sensation in his beard. Gibbs might be plotting to unseat him as supervisor, and Gilroy—well, what is he really doing anyway?

    Perplexed and isolated—but most certainly not alone—Hart wrestles for control of his own psyche as the thing in the snow beguiles his team, upends their work, and challenges their every notion of what is normal.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 3, 2023
    ISBN9780063257771
    The Thing in the Snow: A Novel
    Author

    Sean Adams

    Sean Adams is the author of The Heap. He is a graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Normal School, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife, Emma, and their various pets.

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    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Sean Adam’s follow up to his debut The Heap expounds further on his satire of pointless bureaucracy and mindless obedience to authority. As in his first outing, Adams places the setting in an amorphous future wasteland containing remnants of a decimated civilization. Even the name of the abandoned research facility is meaningless. The Northern Institute is stripped bare of its own history and significance, now a shell surrounded by obliterating snow. The novel’s characters are roughly hewn with no backgrounds or depth, serving as drones for the repetitive plot about inane maintenance tasks. The narrator has willingly reduced his own identity to that of a robotic, prototypical middle-manager. There is a faceless authority that disinterestedly deposits provisions and assigns tasks for the Institute’s caretakers—as remote and inaccessible as any supreme power. Without the usual markers of time and physical borders, the free-floating existence of the inhabitants requires the creation of arbitrary measures to assuage existential anxiety. When an unknown object suddenly appears, it disrupts the entire system, leaving the unmoored characters to careen into obsession and paranoia. The Thing in the Snow is itself a maddening exercise—the reader is lulled into a stupor by the granular description of boring assignments and circular interactions. A commentary on the necessity of basic curiosity and adaptability, Adam’s second novel succeeds at being at once stultifying and captivating.Thanks to the author, Harper Collins and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

    Book preview

    The Thing in the Snow - Sean Adams

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