SNOWMAN by Norman Bogner

Something in the night

Something in the day

Nothing is wrong but darling

Something's in the way 

There's slaughter in the air 

Protest on the wind 

Someone else inside me 

Someone could get skinned, how

Hard boiled pulp action meets creature feature thrills in this oddity from literary and genre novelist Norman Bogner (1935-2022). The monks of Tibet call him Sogpa - Satan. The sheriff and the local editor are claiming it's a gigantic rogue grizzly. But disgraced climber Bradford knows ... it's the SNOWMAN!

He handed Bradford the photos of Janice's head with the black stars burned into her face. The other photographs were close-ups in color of the triangular footprints.

"Christ," Bradford said, "he's on your mountain."

This beast is no normal animal, no simple brown haired hominid, as Bogner makes clear right away. He's an atavistic, evolutionary freak, 25 feet tall, burning with elemental hatred and an insatiable hunger for flesh. Alone and perpetually pissed off, he burns the land with his footsteps leaving a bizarre rainbow effervescence. His hair is hard as stone, his skin sharp as daggers, and his teeth leave burning starpoints as he rends his prey, leaving mutilated bodies in his wake.

Now he's found a new feeding ground, at the summit of the Great Northern Ski Resort's peak. And now he's PR woman Cathy Parker's problem.

Cathy had messed around when she was younger in a series of painful affairs. Now she had little respect for men, since most of them were in search of an easy piece, mothering, or both simultaneously. Her job demanded the front of glibness, friendliness, and she fell into the role rather than expose her vulnerability. She had mastered the shades of public relations, which she understood as civilization's method of counterfeiting reality.

Bogner blends pulpy grit, mundane reality, and flashy fantasy into this unique concoction, as Bradford's old Vietnam buddies and his Sherpa pal Pemba are enlisted as yeti bait. The extreme realm of mountaineering demands special considerations as to tactics - would you believe nuclear cross bows? Bogner dots his eyes and crosses his tees without ever belaboring a scene, and before we know it we're at the end of this 221 page (gut) ripping yarn wishing there was a little more to come.

The striking hardcover!

Partially traced from a Frazetta piece!

No matter, but it would have been nice if maybe the Snowman got one more big scene devouring some skiers ... Bogner keeps things ratcheted down fairly tight throughout, despite his willingness to go out there with mini-nukes and mega-yetis, and part of what makes this such an enjoyable read is his precise control of the story, with not a word wasted. Bogner's working us like a fish on a line, but ain't it a wonderful way to die!

A little romance, a little action, a little bit of the ol' ultra violence - this one has it all. Bogner knows just when to dip out on a scene, and just how far to push things.

Across the pond, Snowman got a gruesome edition courtesy the New English Library:

My, my, someone fetch a priest! You can't say no to the beauty and the beast as Bogner's Snowman slaughters his way to a bloody 4/4 rating!

Man is still the prey ...

The Snowman is available to read and download at archive dot org. This title was also reviewed by one Tony Caro and the ever reliable PorPor Books Blog, check 'em out.

Dell Publishing, 1978