Critical Mick

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Chion
Darryl Sloan
Midnight Pictures, 2007

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

Rest assured: no flesh-munching zombentinos lurk the towns and countryside of Northern Ireland in Sloan's second novel, Chion. This one focuses on another armageddon: a cold doom where the world stands locked in an unnatural snow. He does this at just the right scale. As decent a flick The Day After Tomorrow is, I believe that these smaller, more local stories often trump Hollywood's CGI blockbusters.

Chion begins in ordinary surroundings: the small town institution of Clonaugh Junior High School packed with 650 unruly kids, a January day thick with the white stuff. But just as they prepare to rush out for a recess snowball fight, the students hear screaming. It's soon clear: this is no ordinary snow.

In a welcome relief from the vast majority of sci-fi, Darryl Sloan has built his novel on a truly original notion. The word Chion (as explained in the epigraph) is a Greek term that means "like snow." What's falling is white and cold, but it does not melt and is more adhesive than superglue. Anyone or anything that touches it is instantly fixed to the spot. What the hell-? Is this a terrorist weapon? A freak phenomenon? Who knows, but within the space of one storm, the entire country is completely immobilized. How would ordinary 21st-century people, in homes, cars, office- or Junior High Schools- survive if all access to food and fuel was unexpectedly cut off?

Chion's main character is a fourteen year old boy named Jamie Metcalfe. Jamie has no cheesy supernatural powers or corny B-movie spy abilities. One special insight alone sets him apart, but that's enough to enable him to take action when all around either descend into panic or blindly trust that the adult world will save them. I won't give away the reason why, but Jamie does not fear death. He just sees a way that he can save one other person.

Is it acceptable to leave hundreds to their doom? Is it right to save that one person in circumstances where everyone else is already as good as dead? Can a boy barely in his teens find answers to questions which challenge even adult readers?

Chion follows Jamie's story and the choices that he makes in this unexplored territory. It's gripping stuff, never dipping into the typical end-of-the-world clichés. True, parts do feel like a bit of a kludge: the science teacher examining a snow specimen under a microscope and reaching a conclusion which proves to be key at the story's climax? Young Adult readers will probably not notice, but I kind of giggled.

Sloan does manage to pull off moments that are legitimately touching, moments that linger- or would haunt be a better word? Attempting escape with his friend Tara Morton, Jamie relies upon a method that enables them to travel afoot past the snow-covered bodies.

Maybe it's just that I have recently joined the ranks of the pram pushers, but this image stuck with me like Chion snow. That poor little fellow in there, safely shielded by the buggy's cover through the initial fall. I could imagine him waking, cold, bright little eyes wondering why Daddy was no longer gliding him along. Can't you almost hear the healthy lungs' cries, carrying for hundreds of yards? And stretching the evening, unanswered? Then cold and deepening murk. Long hours when all the baby (who could still make a full recovery, with proper care) wanted was to be picked up, cuddled warm. And the next morning, all across the landscape, weaker cries. Then later....

This is the whole world frozen, helpless, dying- bound up in the image of one silent, snow-dusted pram.

At one hundred and fifty pages, Chion is a quick, enjoyable read. It's original, accessible and well executed, ranking right up there with Lucifer's Hammer. This is the good shit.

In another case of "Life immitating fiction," snow began to fall on the day that I sat down to finish reading Chion. Though we are as far north as Alaska, winters here are mild. Snow does not fall very often in Ireland.

Freaky!

Author Darryl Sloan loves zombies. And of course other ways in which the world might end. I believe that his podcast was the one that turned me in the direction of Destructomundo. Check that show out for drunken discussions of all the different ways that The End may come.

Darryl, you rock!

Barring sudden worldwide destuction, Critical Mick's April 2007 interview with Darryl Sloan for The Writing Show lies awaiting your reading or .mp3 listening attention, just a click away.

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2006 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 9 May, 2007.