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Snowman
It is impossible to foresee that Bradford's search for the Snowman would terminate in a devastating spectacle. Based on all the sightings and reports Bradford reads about, he hopes to locate a mammal of some kind. From his early student days in anthropology, Bradford theorizes that such a creature could exist in these climatic conditions, even though his colleagues at Harvard scoff at the notion. Only fieldwork, he feels, outside the confines of a university hothouse, could prove his case. He is wrong on all counts.
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 8, 2025
What is to be done when the abominable snowman comes to the USA from his Himalayan home? In this perfect paperback from hell a team of ex-expedition leader and Vietnam veterans show a terrible man eating monster it isn't welcome in the ski ressort. Fluent prose, some gory moments, a sex scene and some unique late seventies feeling made me enjoy this Yeti classic. Classic pulp horror page turner ideal for cold winter evenings. Really recommended!
January 10, 2017
An angry abominable snowman that hates snow hitches a ride on a passing iceberg and winds up in California where it proceeds to decapitate pageant winners until Vietnam vets with crossbows and miniature nuclear warhead arrows hunt it down and kill it in an orgy of mayhem. Arm-mauling Kodiak bears make a guest appearance. Bound to become a Christmas classic.
You can read a longer review here.
You can read a longer review here.
January 30, 2022
Thriller author Norman Bogner never wrote another straight horror novel after penning this 1978 tale of an ancient monster terrorizing a northern California ski resort. But why did he do it in the first place? And considering it has long been out of print, is it worth the time and effort for horror fans to track down?
At the time this book was published, King Kong had seen a resurgence in popularity with the Dino DeLaurentis remake, and there were already multiple giant ape ripoffs in theaters. In addition, the summer blockbuster had been invented by a burgeoning filmmaker named Stephen Spielberg with "Jaws." The popularity of these films was reflected in literature, as the late 70s was the heyday of the "animals-amok" subgenre. Bogner clearly thought he had a unique spin on this type of scifi thriller, as there hadn't been a significant fictional story written about the yeti in two decades. The year prior saw the release of an Italian/Canadian Kong imitator called "Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century," but it really hadn't been since the 50s where the abominable snowman featured prominently in entertainment. So the yeti was fair game for writers eager to get some cash in the fledgling mass market pulp horror boom, especially since Bigfoot and his ilk were very much in the public consciousness at the time, ever since the Patterson-Gimlin footage. As a kid, I remember being dragged by my parents to see all the Boggy Creek movies, and staying up late at night for fear the Honey Island Swamp Monster would get me. Why, I even went to my local mall, the Lake Forest Plaza, to see the Minnesota Iceman, which was then believed to be a real frozen specimen of a missing link between man and neanderthal. Oh yes, one of the great scientific finds of the century was on display in front of the local Spencer's Gifts and Florsheim shoes!
So if you're old like me and have fond memories of a more naive and magical time full of hairy cryptids, you'll likely be the kind of audience for this book. Also, you younger readers who have recently rediscovered the pleasures of paperbacks from hell will likely also be interested, especially if you are at all a fan of Dan Simmons' "Abominable," or the cryptid creature features of Hunter Shea, or the countless Sasquatch books out there.
But is "Snowman" any good? For the audience I described above, yes.
The novel starts off with a bloody prelude that really sets the mood for gory action. It continues a fairly good pace, with a few exceptions, throughout it's modest length. Bogner is a better writer than some of his peers who dabbled in pulp, but this is not one of those surprises of haute literature disguised as disposable entertainment. What you can expect is service to a simple narrative brimming with excuses to bring a monster to the dinner table. And this monster has sloppy manners.
The book can be a fun ride, but I'd say it's major weakness is that this is really just "Jaws" with even more testosterone. A monster disrupts the economy of a tourist town by eating people--first a teenage girl and then a young boy. Sound familiar? But this is certainly no boating accident. At first, the local head honchos want to keep the story under wraps, and they refuse to close the resort. But as the body count rises, it's up to a hired hunter out for revenge to bring the big guy down. We get a somewhat eye-rolling stretch where Bradford, the "Quint" of this book, is building his team and his arsenal. It was nonstop cock-swinging from then on, and I found myself getting quite bored until the final showdown with the creature, which leads to some serious mayhem, "Predator" style. But somehow all of this just added to the 70s macho experience that is this book. You can practically smell the Canadian whiskey and Hai Karate aftershave oozing from each page--and you actually can on my copy, which came complete with advertisements for Newports as well as a brand called True. Only 5mg of tar! Wow, now that's a roll of carcinogens worth smoking!
So really, there are only three main reasons to get this book.
First, you'll want to check out this book for the nostalgia, for the years when a Holiday Inn offered "no surprises" on every highway, when newspapers were the only way to get your local news, when AAA was a store you could visit to map out your travel route, when women all looked like Farah Fawcett, and men looked like the guy on Brawny paper towel packages.
Second, you have three remarkable covers to collect. Mine is the Dell 1978 edition with an embossed footprint in the snow overlaid with the title spray painted in blood. There's also two New English Library editions that actually show you the monster, one of just the bust of the beast staring off to the horizon and another with the full body profile lumbering through the snow. None of these covers are completely accurate representations of how the snowman is described in the book, but the artwork is still great.
Speaking of the monster, that is the main reason you'll want to check out "Snowman," a mini-kaiju millions of years old who is depicted less like a hairy yeti and more like a twenty-foot tall bipedal rhino crossed with Marshmallow from the "Frozen" cartoon, who leaves footprints of rainbows, has eyes that shoot heat beams, and actually hates the snow. How awesome is that!
So happy hunting, all ye cryptid explorers, and enjoy!
At the time this book was published, King Kong had seen a resurgence in popularity with the Dino DeLaurentis remake, and there were already multiple giant ape ripoffs in theaters. In addition, the summer blockbuster had been invented by a burgeoning filmmaker named Stephen Spielberg with "Jaws." The popularity of these films was reflected in literature, as the late 70s was the heyday of the "animals-amok" subgenre. Bogner clearly thought he had a unique spin on this type of scifi thriller, as there hadn't been a significant fictional story written about the yeti in two decades. The year prior saw the release of an Italian/Canadian Kong imitator called "Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century," but it really hadn't been since the 50s where the abominable snowman featured prominently in entertainment. So the yeti was fair game for writers eager to get some cash in the fledgling mass market pulp horror boom, especially since Bigfoot and his ilk were very much in the public consciousness at the time, ever since the Patterson-Gimlin footage. As a kid, I remember being dragged by my parents to see all the Boggy Creek movies, and staying up late at night for fear the Honey Island Swamp Monster would get me. Why, I even went to my local mall, the Lake Forest Plaza, to see the Minnesota Iceman, which was then believed to be a real frozen specimen of a missing link between man and neanderthal. Oh yes, one of the great scientific finds of the century was on display in front of the local Spencer's Gifts and Florsheim shoes!
So if you're old like me and have fond memories of a more naive and magical time full of hairy cryptids, you'll likely be the kind of audience for this book. Also, you younger readers who have recently rediscovered the pleasures of paperbacks from hell will likely also be interested, especially if you are at all a fan of Dan Simmons' "Abominable," or the cryptid creature features of Hunter Shea, or the countless Sasquatch books out there.
But is "Snowman" any good? For the audience I described above, yes.
The novel starts off with a bloody prelude that really sets the mood for gory action. It continues a fairly good pace, with a few exceptions, throughout it's modest length. Bogner is a better writer than some of his peers who dabbled in pulp, but this is not one of those surprises of haute literature disguised as disposable entertainment. What you can expect is service to a simple narrative brimming with excuses to bring a monster to the dinner table. And this monster has sloppy manners.
The book can be a fun ride, but I'd say it's major weakness is that this is really just "Jaws" with even more testosterone. A monster disrupts the economy of a tourist town by eating people--first a teenage girl and then a young boy. Sound familiar? But this is certainly no boating accident. At first, the local head honchos want to keep the story under wraps, and they refuse to close the resort. But as the body count rises, it's up to a hired hunter out for revenge to bring the big guy down. We get a somewhat eye-rolling stretch where Bradford, the "Quint" of this book, is building his team and his arsenal. It was nonstop cock-swinging from then on, and I found myself getting quite bored until the final showdown with the creature, which leads to some serious mayhem, "Predator" style. But somehow all of this just added to the 70s macho experience that is this book. You can practically smell the Canadian whiskey and Hai Karate aftershave oozing from each page--and you actually can on my copy, which came complete with advertisements for Newports as well as a brand called True. Only 5mg of tar! Wow, now that's a roll of carcinogens worth smoking!
So really, there are only three main reasons to get this book.
First, you'll want to check out this book for the nostalgia, for the years when a Holiday Inn offered "no surprises" on every highway, when newspapers were the only way to get your local news, when AAA was a store you could visit to map out your travel route, when women all looked like Farah Fawcett, and men looked like the guy on Brawny paper towel packages.
Second, you have three remarkable covers to collect. Mine is the Dell 1978 edition with an embossed footprint in the snow overlaid with the title spray painted in blood. There's also two New English Library editions that actually show you the monster, one of just the bust of the beast staring off to the horizon and another with the full body profile lumbering through the snow. None of these covers are completely accurate representations of how the snowman is described in the book, but the artwork is still great.
Speaking of the monster, that is the main reason you'll want to check out "Snowman," a mini-kaiju millions of years old who is depicted less like a hairy yeti and more like a twenty-foot tall bipedal rhino crossed with Marshmallow from the "Frozen" cartoon, who leaves footprints of rainbows, has eyes that shoot heat beams, and actually hates the snow. How awesome is that!
So happy hunting, all ye cryptid explorers, and enjoy!
March 8, 2024
A pretty lame creature feature by Bogner, who primarily wrote thrillers. Bogner gives us, as the title suggests, a Yeti story here, but at least his Yeti is innovative, standing 25 feet tall, radiating heat so that his footsteps melt the snow, and having laser like light shine from his eyes. What? Why you say would a creature who makes his home on icy mountainsides radiate heat? You will have to ask Bogner as I am stumped.
The story centers on a new ski resort in California, Sierra, but it seems our unfriendly Yeti has made his way from Nepal to California and likes the resort too, or at least the tasty morsels skiing around. Our main protagonist Bradford was once an Olympian skier and mountain climber and back in 1966 encountered the 'Snowman' in Nepal, which killed most of his team. No one would believe him, however, accusing him of negligence or worst, cowardice in losing his team. When the killings start at the ski lodge, however, one intrepid newsman recalled Bradford's story and suspects the Yeti has a new home. Eventually, Bradford and some of his pals are recruited to kill the beast and devise some bizarre nuclear-tipped crossbow bolts for the job...
Snowman is just impossible to take seriously, so do not expect to be scared. As a cheese fest, it just does not have enough action, élan or what have you. Some books are so bad they are good, this one is just pretty bad. 2 melting snowballs.
The story centers on a new ski resort in California, Sierra, but it seems our unfriendly Yeti has made his way from Nepal to California and likes the resort too, or at least the tasty morsels skiing around. Our main protagonist Bradford was once an Olympian skier and mountain climber and back in 1966 encountered the 'Snowman' in Nepal, which killed most of his team. No one would believe him, however, accusing him of negligence or worst, cowardice in losing his team. When the killings start at the ski lodge, however, one intrepid newsman recalled Bradford's story and suspects the Yeti has a new home. Eventually, Bradford and some of his pals are recruited to kill the beast and devise some bizarre nuclear-tipped crossbow bolts for the job...
Snowman is just impossible to take seriously, so do not expect to be scared. As a cheese fest, it just does not have enough action, élan or what have you. Some books are so bad they are good, this one is just pretty bad. 2 melting snowballs.
December 14, 2024
3.5 stars. Decent 70s pulp horror novel. Loved the initial opening at a ski resort, and it turned silly when a bunch of Vietnam vets go up the mountain to kill the snowman. Decent gore for a book from the 70s as well. Recommended if you can find it.
January 17, 2016
Norman Bogner's 1978 novel Snowman is essentially an adventure story with some elements of horror. The Himalayan Yeti has made its way to the Sierra mountains in California, where he has transformed a brand new ski resort into a self-service snack bar. The snacks decide to rebel, but afraid of turning away potential visitors (i.e. re-stocking the snack bar), the head cheese decides to hire some mercenaries, led by Daniel Bradford and his Sherpa guide, leftovers of the legendary snowman dinner of 1966.
I enjoyed the first six chapters, totalling seventy-four pages of blood and amoral behaviour. When the local ski queen is torn to pieces, her remains left as evidence that she is only the appetizer, small town newspaper mogul Jim Ashby manipulates resort managers and the town sheriff to buy some time and locate former great Daniel Bradford. Our '66 survivor is now an outcast, since popular belief is that the nineteen victims of his tragic expedition to the Lhotse mountain face were disposed of not by the legendary Yeti, but by Bradford's own cowardice. Now Bradford wants revenge, and as soon as Ashby locates him on an Indian reservation somewhere deep in a dusty desert, I quickly lose interest in the entire adventure, and can hope only that the snowman has a healthy appetite.
At first I thought this was because I found Bradford comical, with his pop mysticism complete with peyote-popping and a bearded Yaqui buddy. Yet why should I lose interest over this? Why not instead hope that our famished snow creature uses him as a toothpick? I realized only after finishing the novel that what bothered me more than the badly conceived character was the extreme switch in setting. Bogner managed to get me all cocooned up in the icy mountains of Sierra, boarded in with the colourful resort staff he described at length, only to remove me from that grip and toss me into its complete antithesis: an open, sweltering desert landscape. When I was plopped back into the snow, I just didn't care for it anymore. Gone was the coziness; gone the icy excitement of silliness to come; gone was my interest.
Yet like our wintry hikers I trudged on, only to groan at the ludicrous page-and-a-half love story between Bradford and resort Public Relations officer Cathy Parker. The entire scene was an afterthought, possibly forced onto Bogner by his publishers ("We need a love story here, Normy. What we need is SEX!"). All of a sudden the penetrating cold is again heated up by the penetratingly bad writing and awkward breast fondling. There really isn't any heat here: the sex is dull and brief, yet long enough (pun intended) to inform the curious reader that rugged and manly Bradford is a tender lover, leaving us to wonder what genre we have unknowingly been tricked into reading.
[Tiny spoiler.] Cathy disappears through much of the novel, as do the colourful characters we meet at the still-entertaining beginning. Why should we be made to read about Erich, the German instructor who was hired despite a bad record because the company believed he might give the resort a European flavour? This is a good detail, but we never see the guy again. Additional afterthoughts are the sudden re-introduction of Ashby in the final chapter; he disappears throughout much of the latter novel, only to re-appear briefly in the final pages wallowing in guilt. This is an inappropriate comeuppance for the character: he needs to have been eaten up. Indeed, he should have been a fitting dessert!
Aside from early-Ashby there are no interesting characters. The mercenaries are stock: the white Vietnam war veteran; the black dude; the tall long-haired American-Indian; the Sherpa guide; the white American loner dude. Cathy Parker, who I initially believed would be the novel's hero, keeps changing personality page-to-page. And the snowman, with his heat-ray vision and animal call mimicry, is not too threatening. There is an early Kodiak-killing scene that is quite good, but I think since some portions of the novel are told through the monster's point of view, it does not appear as threatening to the reader as it does to the characters, who knows less of the creature than we do. And it doesn't help when you're cheering for the beast.
[Some more spoilers.] I am baffled as to why Bradford selected these men in particular for the snowman hunt. They are not terribly resourceful. The Indian is afraid of heights, the black guy won't step inside the cave, while the traumatized war vet rants on and on about being a peon in the war, and they are all actively argumentative. Even their limited talents cannot be utilized on the mountain: the explosives expert, for instance, can't bring along any explosives since it would cause an avalanche. Then why recruit the guy! Each freaks out at some point, and they all get killed. In fact, Bradford doesn't even inform his gang that the snowman can expertly mimic any living animal, so that one guy gets called away because he thinks he can hear someone, only to become a late-night bite. Moreover, Bradford doesn't seem to care about these guys; rather than call in the government he wants to bring these men up against the twenty-five foot monster because he wants vengeance. Yet revenge for what we do not know: the death of nineteen members of his team or the fact that he has since had to live in exile on an Indian reservation, discredited and humiliated? It is unclear what is driving this man, and labelling his drive in terms of "revenge" is too simplistic a way out. Captain Ahab he is not. He isn't even Captain Crunch.
From Casual Debris
February 8, 2021
A nightmarish creature of monolithic proportions bides its time beneath glaciers and frozen mountaintops, buried deep within the mountain core waiting for that quintessential moment where it can once again feast on unsuspecting human flesh.
With the antagonist looming so large it would’ve been easy for the story to consume much of the monster’s backstory and traveling as it sought a better food source, yet the opening sequence largely captures everything a reader could want to familiarise themselves with this abominable terror. Not only does it provide context but sets the scene a harrowing horror story.
Reading like a men’s adventure magazine story at times, The Snowman is machoism taken to the extreme, with bold characters, brawn, and hardened bodies of men hell bent on eradicating the beast whose sole purpose is portrayed as a never end quest for destruction. This flavour of horror won’t appeal to every reader but I enjoyed the obscene and unbelievable tale for what it was; short, sharp horror bagged in gory goodness.
With the antagonist looming so large it would’ve been easy for the story to consume much of the monster’s backstory and traveling as it sought a better food source, yet the opening sequence largely captures everything a reader could want to familiarise themselves with this abominable terror. Not only does it provide context but sets the scene a harrowing horror story.
Reading like a men’s adventure magazine story at times, The Snowman is machoism taken to the extreme, with bold characters, brawn, and hardened bodies of men hell bent on eradicating the beast whose sole purpose is portrayed as a never end quest for destruction. This flavour of horror won’t appeal to every reader but I enjoyed the obscene and unbelievable tale for what it was; short, sharp horror bagged in gory goodness.
March 1, 2021
Best-selling author Norman Bogner penned Snowman in 1978, his crack at producing a Yeti horror-adventure novel while the market for such a thing was hot. Taking place in California's high sierras, Snowman finds the titular beast accidentally migrating its way to U.S. soil with thanks in part to a rogue iceberg. It's here where the mammoth creature stumbles upon a newly opened ski resort where it decides to settle—the convenience of quick meals served on sticks is all too appetizing. Meanwhile, a reporter named Ashby, covering a beauty pageant starlet found shredded at the resort, soon uncovers an old newspaper article detailing the very same inexplicable pentagram-like wounds found on the body and rainbow-fractal impressions left in the snow, allegedly caused by a creature of impossible size, all previously reported by an explorer years before who, after being shunned for losing 19 men on that ill-fated trip, eventually shirked civilization for self-exile on an Indian reservation. The focus then switches to Daniel Bradford, that man haunted by his past. In particular, that failed expedition in 1966 where he and his team ran afoul of the mythical Yeti on the south face of Lhotse, Everest; only they weren't prepared for what they found, towering over twenty-feet tall, bristling with bone in place of fur, radiant with an evil heat, naturally concealed by the blanket whiteness covering the mountains. Oh, the evils of evolution. Not long after, Bradford is tracked down and presented an offer he can't refuse—a chance for revenge. With a team consisting of Vietnam vets, demolition and weapons experts, and an old friend, Bradford and company decide to make a final stand high atop the mountain, armed with tactical crossbows fitted with bolts tipped with mini-nuclear warheads, to put a stop to this abomination once and for all.
Snowman does a lot of things right; chiefly, Bogner nailed the titular abominable snowman, taking obscene liberties with the lore, but in the process, created a genuinely harrowing monster of immense proportions. Imagine a hulking behemoth whose jaws are filled with sword-length teeth; grinding them in greedy anticipation of a screaming meal causes sparks to fly out as if steel. Long arms unfurl to extend razor-sharp claws, footsteps scorching the snow-covered mountains, leaving in its wake glistening rainbow impressions that burn the earth volcanic. Loss of life is handled dutifully, avoiding the trappings of excess but instead focusing on dread and the finality of the situation, moments before their terrifying dismemberment or being eaten alive. I appreciate the delicate balance achieved here, in Norman Bogner's lone-horror output, where it juggles the preposterous with poignant prose well.
This novel's biggest detractor is a romantic subplot between Bradford and an advertising director named Cathy; the inclusion feels alien compared to other strands of narrative DNA here—in a word, shoehorned. It only takes something around twenty pages for the two to meet and for her to fall madly in love with the reticent man; this with having shared only a few scenes, but by the climax, Snowman mostly makes up for it thanks to continued character development, ignoring the clumsy first steps. Outside of that and the amount of disbelief it asks you to suspend, Snowman is a lean and taut piece of giant monster storytelling, reinventing the myth of the Yeti into a cruel irony, a violent punchline of cryptid fiction. Here you have a snowbound arctic creature whose fiery hatred of snow incites a frenzied rage every time snow falls, mutating the primeval creature purely out of elemental spite over small eternities. But then it's also a gripping survival thriller, echoing the hallmarks of 70s/80s action cinema with a team of grizzled men on a suicide mission—the cellular annihilation of an impossible monster with unreasonable nuclear weaponry. Buy it for the beast.
Snowman does a lot of things right; chiefly, Bogner nailed the titular abominable snowman, taking obscene liberties with the lore, but in the process, created a genuinely harrowing monster of immense proportions. Imagine a hulking behemoth whose jaws are filled with sword-length teeth; grinding them in greedy anticipation of a screaming meal causes sparks to fly out as if steel. Long arms unfurl to extend razor-sharp claws, footsteps scorching the snow-covered mountains, leaving in its wake glistening rainbow impressions that burn the earth volcanic. Loss of life is handled dutifully, avoiding the trappings of excess but instead focusing on dread and the finality of the situation, moments before their terrifying dismemberment or being eaten alive. I appreciate the delicate balance achieved here, in Norman Bogner's lone-horror output, where it juggles the preposterous with poignant prose well.
This novel's biggest detractor is a romantic subplot between Bradford and an advertising director named Cathy; the inclusion feels alien compared to other strands of narrative DNA here—in a word, shoehorned. It only takes something around twenty pages for the two to meet and for her to fall madly in love with the reticent man; this with having shared only a few scenes, but by the climax, Snowman mostly makes up for it thanks to continued character development, ignoring the clumsy first steps. Outside of that and the amount of disbelief it asks you to suspend, Snowman is a lean and taut piece of giant monster storytelling, reinventing the myth of the Yeti into a cruel irony, a violent punchline of cryptid fiction. Here you have a snowbound arctic creature whose fiery hatred of snow incites a frenzied rage every time snow falls, mutating the primeval creature purely out of elemental spite over small eternities. But then it's also a gripping survival thriller, echoing the hallmarks of 70s/80s action cinema with a team of grizzled men on a suicide mission—the cellular annihilation of an impossible monster with unreasonable nuclear weaponry. Buy it for the beast.
September 22, 2017
I'm a sucker for nature on the rampage type books like this. Which means I get suckered in to some dogs from time to time. This one starts off with a bang. How could a snow man ( Yeti ) who hitchhikes on an ice burg from the Far East to the Sierra mountains in California go wrong? A beauty queen gets mangled. A greedy developer wants the death covered up. A small town newsman wants the story to himself so he enlists the aid of a mountain climber who had a run in with the snow man ten years earlier. He forms a team of ex soldiers to fight the beast.
The first half is much better that the second. The resort that the book takes place in is not used to good effect. The snow man hardly terrorizes it at all. Most of the action takes place on the mountains. It drags a little when they track the yeti through the frozen tundra. It could of been so much more. Still a nice bit of 70's insanity.
The first half is much better that the second. The resort that the book takes place in is not used to good effect. The snow man hardly terrorizes it at all. Most of the action takes place on the mountains. It drags a little when they track the yeti through the frozen tundra. It could of been so much more. Still a nice bit of 70's insanity.
August 27, 2025
A fun and gory read featuring a cryptozoid villain that many of us read about in our childhood. The novel works, I think, as a bizarre tribute to those old legends, and is more of an adventure and hunting novel than anything else. It's well worth reading, and I can say this is another gem from the paperbacks from hell.
March 6, 2019
2.25
Snowman by Norman Bogner is essentially a book about a flesh hungry yeti, or at least that’s what they sell this book as. I was incredibly disappointed with this book, I am a fan of monster fiction and I went into this book with the mindset that this book will have a lot of gory, fun monster scenes. In reality this book ended up being 98% humans preparing to hunt down and kill said snowman whom we barely see at all in this story. It almost should’ve been titled “HUNTING THE SNOWMAN” maybe then it wouldn’t have felt like such a disappointment. I understand that some build up is required when writing certain monster fiction stories but I believe it unnecessary to spend so much time with characters that were unlikeable and flat.
I must say that I enjoyed the bits of the story written in the snowman’s perspective and I wish the author would’ve given those bits more attention and include more snippets throughout the story. I didn’t absolutely disliked this book, I think it had potential but the blurb and synopsis are a bit misleading.
With that being said, if you enjoy stories about not the monster itself but the victims/hunters surrounding the story, then go and read it but don’t expect a lot of action on the snowman’s part.
Snowman by Norman Bogner is essentially a book about a flesh hungry yeti, or at least that’s what they sell this book as. I was incredibly disappointed with this book, I am a fan of monster fiction and I went into this book with the mindset that this book will have a lot of gory, fun monster scenes. In reality this book ended up being 98% humans preparing to hunt down and kill said snowman whom we barely see at all in this story. It almost should’ve been titled “HUNTING THE SNOWMAN” maybe then it wouldn’t have felt like such a disappointment. I understand that some build up is required when writing certain monster fiction stories but I believe it unnecessary to spend so much time with characters that were unlikeable and flat.
I must say that I enjoyed the bits of the story written in the snowman’s perspective and I wish the author would’ve given those bits more attention and include more snippets throughout the story. I didn’t absolutely disliked this book, I think it had potential but the blurb and synopsis are a bit misleading.
With that being said, if you enjoy stories about not the monster itself but the victims/hunters surrounding the story, then go and read it but don’t expect a lot of action on the snowman’s part.
June 24, 2020
A million year old yeti with laser eyes and rock like skin terrorizes a Northern California ski lodge at the height of tourist season and the only one who can take the Snowman out is a disgraced mountain climber and former Vietnam vet.
That’s pretty much the gist of this typical late 70’s horror novel. And that pretty much all there is to it.
Snowman is short on exposition or even really anything of any substance. Things happen. Things get resolved. People die in the middle. It’s formulaic as hell, and honestly, not all that great. I didn’t hate this book, but I wouldn’t go back and read it again.
That’s pretty much the gist of this typical late 70’s horror novel. And that pretty much all there is to it.
Snowman is short on exposition or even really anything of any substance. Things happen. Things get resolved. People die in the middle. It’s formulaic as hell, and honestly, not all that great. I didn’t hate this book, but I wouldn’t go back and read it again.
August 14, 2012
I reread this book while going through my horror collection to see what to donate and what to save. While the plot isn't stellar (Yeti terrorizes a ski resort fallen on hard times), I did really enjoy the unusual-ness of the creature. Entertaining book, but not rational at all in terms of events, and characters are the usual ones: "prom queen" or in this case, Snow Queen; hotshot handsome guy; hero with a tragic past he can't overcome or outrun; smart, strong female who is his love interest; corrupt reporter; incompetent and greedy resort manager; whiny, jerkoff teen, and a few other ex-army guys to help out the tragic hero take down the monster. You can probably guess from this who gets eaten by the monster, who BTW was the one I was rooting for. 2.5 stars
June 2, 2021
This book was an extremely fun, ridiculous read. I’m a slow reader, but I gobbled this up in a couple days because I just couldn’t put it down. The monster is over-the-top, but the detail in describing the dangers of mountain climbing balanced it out, and the descriptions of the kills were brutally realistic. With some tweaks to the monster, this would make a fabulous action/horror movie, 70s ski lodge setting adding to the fun. Great buffer read between more “serious” books.
July 20, 2020
Going back through and re-reading some of the old school pulp horror/paperbacks from hell/whatever you want to call them. This one isn't a bad representation of the genre at all. Yes, it is too short. Yes, it is light on the details and reads a bit more like a Christopher Pike level horror than an adult horror. With that being said it's got all of the requisite components - a monster eating people, wonderful amounts of gore, keeps to the basic horror movie rules. It almost withstands the test of time, and it would if not for a single racist sentence found on page 192. Remove that and it could be published today, and would probably do quite well, considering the rise in Riley Sager's publicity (though the last few Sager books were, imo, worse than this one.
September 21, 2022
3.5 Stars
Ok, this book was way more fun than it had any right to be. This is not a deep book with interesting characters, but it is a fun adventure with a ridiculous monster. The snow man in this book is unlike any I have ever read or heard of before. At times it feels more like a balrog from Lord of the Rings then a yeti. It makes no sense at all, and I don't care.
The characters all kind of blend into each other, but the general adventure moves along fast enough to be engaging and fun. The book never outstays it's welcome, so if you enjoy pulpy horror, this is a great read.
Ok, this book was way more fun than it had any right to be. This is not a deep book with interesting characters, but it is a fun adventure with a ridiculous monster. The snow man in this book is unlike any I have ever read or heard of before. At times it feels more like a balrog from Lord of the Rings then a yeti. It makes no sense at all, and I don't care.
The characters all kind of blend into each other, but the general adventure moves along fast enough to be engaging and fun. The book never outstays it's welcome, so if you enjoy pulpy horror, this is a great read.
January 4, 2022
Read years ago (80s), found it at first used bookstore I went to in hometown. Was thinking about crappy but readable books (and the used bookstore was full of them. Also how I found things like The Nest), and this one came to mind. Didn't officially remember name, but looked-up "Yeti" and "nuclear-tipped arrows" and found out others still remembered it.
September 21, 2022
Dumb but tolerable.
March 10, 2025
Beauty queen eaten
Mercs ascend to terminate
Snowman no Jerry Reed
Mercs ascend to terminate
Snowman no Jerry Reed
December 15, 2025
Enjoyed reading this classic 1978 pulp horror. A group of men scale a mountain in the Sierras to track down a 20 ft snow monster.
March 10, 2023
Can a book be a B Movie? Snow Man says, yes. Yes, it can. Start off in the Himalayan Mountains with some explorers getting mauled by a 25-foot Yeti with cement spikey skin and Great White teeth. That’s a big Yeti. A standard two-story house is 20 feet tall to give you a frame of reference. Two people survive. Cut to years later and some lady is running a new ski lodge. She’s stressed to the max. She’s hired an up-and-coming celebrity brat for the grand opening. A couple pages of the girl acting snooty and shitty, and you know who’s gonna be Yeti food soon. The Yeti has traveled from the Himalayas to California because he hates snow. I know that sounds like a joke but nope, that’s the premise. Snow makes him mad, but he has to live in snow? I don’t know, man.
So, now here he is on the California Mountain ready to eat people. First up is snooty Hollywood girl. The death scene is pretty glorious with lots of chomping and her splattered guts everywhere. The ski lodge people hire the guy who survived the Yeti from the beginning of the book to hunt it down and kill it. He gets his ragtag group of ex-Vietnam buddies back together. One guy is the explosions guy, the other guy they have to get out of jail because he “plays by his own rules”…you know the drill. The A Team. They hire some underground gun maker to create implosive crossbow bolts. Yeah. Implosive. Off they go to the ski lodge. Ol’ dude hooks up with stressed ski lady. Madly in love after a few hours. Commando team head off into the wild California mountains for some Yeti hunting. The book basically becomes a Men’s Adventure novel for a couple chapters. Ridiculously over the top brutal and gory death scenes. Predator ending.
So, now here he is on the California Mountain ready to eat people. First up is snooty Hollywood girl. The death scene is pretty glorious with lots of chomping and her splattered guts everywhere. The ski lodge people hire the guy who survived the Yeti from the beginning of the book to hunt it down and kill it. He gets his ragtag group of ex-Vietnam buddies back together. One guy is the explosions guy, the other guy they have to get out of jail because he “plays by his own rules”…you know the drill. The A Team. They hire some underground gun maker to create implosive crossbow bolts. Yeah. Implosive. Off they go to the ski lodge. Ol’ dude hooks up with stressed ski lady. Madly in love after a few hours. Commando team head off into the wild California mountains for some Yeti hunting. The book basically becomes a Men’s Adventure novel for a couple chapters. Ridiculously over the top brutal and gory death scenes. Predator ending.
January 27, 2015
There is some sentimental value in this book for me, but other than that, it is pretty so-so.
December 17, 2020
Twenty five foot snowman terrorises brand new ski resort. The yeti has razor sharp teeth and bites and discards bodies through the air. Wanted more gore.
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