Publishers Weekly
10/24/2022
Workers try to hold onto their sanity as they maintain a desolate, snow-covered research station in Adams’s dryly funny absurdist latest (after The Heap). Each week, a remote administrator named Kay assigns a meaningless task to Hart, the on-site manager at the obsolete Northern Institute, for Hart to accomplish with his subordinates Gibbs and Cline, their employer having deemed it more cost-effective to keep the place running than to close it down. The crew spends their time testing the noisiness of doors and the stability of chairs, and doing their best to avoid Gilroy, the sole remaining researcher (according to Hart, Gilroy is the type who, when encountered, elicits “distaste is not just warranted, it is the correct evolutionary response”). One day, the men spot something in the snow. The distraction annoys Hart, who views the development as a threat to his already tenuous leadership. After Gibbs reports the object to Kay, Kay replies, “if immobile, not of concern.” Consequently, the crew members become irrationally convinced that the barely perceptible object is moving. The workplace gags are effective, and as the workers turn on one another, things really take off. The strange blend of satire, mystery, and psychological thrills make for a winning combination. Agent: Kent Wolf, Neon Literary. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Eerily compelling." — New York Times
“Imagine Severance alley-ooped to John Carpenter only to be stolen by Kurt Vonnegut for a dunk on the other end. A subtle comedic powerhouse of claustrophobia and frigid workplace bureaucracy.” — Stephen Markley, national bestselling author of Ohio
“The absurdity of the modern workplace has inspired copious satires, and like the creators of ‘Office Space’ and ‘Severance,’ Adams winningly skewers corporate life.” — Washington Post
“A soaring conflagration of absurdity, mystery, and wry humor. This story reads like a Beckett play, in a Black Mirror episode—with all parts played by comedians. A compelling, imaginative, worrying, and hilarious commentary on purpose, priorities, and leadership. Perfect for anyone who has ever questioned why we let time pass, and occupy ourselves with busywork, when there are things of concern to face.” — Emily Austin, author of Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead
"Adams’ quirky look at a confined and isolated workspace also offers an almost Stoppard-like look into character development while making a rather bleak but humorous statement about contemporary working life. Though the world Adams created is spare, the reading mind fills every corner with all that is dreamed and feared." — Booklist
"[The Thing in the Snow is] in direct line of descent from Heller’s Catch-22 . . . . A quintessential fantastical examination and dissection of the postmodern “bullshit jobs” ecosystem.” — Locus
"The strange blend of satire, mystery, and psychological thrills make for a winning combination." — Publishers Weekly
"Who knew there was so much wit in hell? The Thing in the Snow is a mystery, an office satire, and a slow-boil study of madness. Trust nothing in this book save for its deadpan brilliance." — Ryan Chapman, author of Riots I Have Known
“This brilliantly written book will have even the reader questioning everything they think they know about the story as it unfolds.” — Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
"The Thing in the Snow is mesmerizing, unnerving, and borderline miraculous. With a novel that’s at once cozy and unsettling, Adams has composed a lucid anthem for both the brain-fogged and those whose perception is all too clear. . . I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I finished it—I haven’t stopped thinking about it afterwards, either, but now I’m not so sure that I want to." — Calvin Kasulke, author of Several People Are Typing
"Adams succeeds at building tension while exploring the lengths to which people will go to retain power, the narcissism often embodied by those in leadership positions and the effect of monotony on a person’s memory. Inexplicable phenomena can be devastating to the mind, but as this perceptive novel and any undervalued employee can attest, tedium is just as destructive." — BookPage
“Sean Adams does a masterful job balancing wry humor, a mind-boggling mystery, fantastic character work, and a major creep factor. This is my favorite kind of book; a story of big ideas that demands to be finished and sticks with you after you're done.” — Rob Hart, author of The Paradox Hotel
“Adams lures readers into a world as claustrophobic as a snow globe, then shakes things up with a flurry of satirical commentary on the surreal and absurd nature of workplace culture. . . A uniquely hilarious yet frightening vision.” — Little Village Magazine
“Cutting satire. . . . A compelling narrative with unexpected twists and darkly comic turns.” — New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice, on The Heap
“The Heap is dizzying in scale, but at its heart it’s an endearing and downright fun story about a man who defies all odds to reestablish a familial link that’s been sundered by technology, catastrophe and commerce. . . . The first great science fiction novel of 2020, The Heap is sharp, acidic and sweet.” — NPR
“Like Snowpiercer’s train, a George Saunders amusement park, or the fractured cityscape from a Donald Barthelme story, The Heap’s Los Verticalés is a sardonic monument to our decadent culture teetering on the brink of collapse. A wry, inventive, and highly original debut.” — Chandler Klang Smith, author of The Sky Is Yours
“[The Heap] recalls elaborate dystopian scenes found in Terry Gillam films. . . . Irresistibly clever commentary steeped in wit and secrets.” — Booklist
“As intellectually playful as the best of Thomas Pynchon and as sardonically warm as the best of Kurt Vonnegut, The Heap is both a hilarious send-up of life under late capitalism and a moving exploration of the peculiar loneliness of the early 21st century. A masterful and humane gem of a novel.” — Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
Booklist
Irresistibly clever commentary steeped in wit and secrets.”
Shaun Hamill
As intellectually playful as the best of Thomas Pynchon and as sardonically warm as the best of Kurt Vonnegut, The Heap is both a hilarious send-up of life under late capitalism and a moving exploration of the peculiar loneliness of the early 21st century. A masterful and humane gem of a novel.
Chandler Klang Smith
Like Snowpiercer’s train, a George Saunders amusement park, or the fractured cityscape from a Donald Barthelme story, The Heap’s Los Verticalés is a sardonic monument to our decadent culture teetering on the brink of collapse. A wry, inventive, and highly original debut.
NPR
The Heap is dizzying in scale, but at its heart it’s an endearing and downright fun story about a man who defies all odds to reestablish a familial link that’s been sundered by technology, catastrophe and commerce. . . . The first great science fiction novel of 2020, The Heap is sharp, acidic and sweet.
Booklist
[The Heap] recalls elaborate dystopian scenes found in Terry Gillam films. . . . Irresistibly clever commentary steeped in wit and secrets.”
Kirkus Reviews
2022-12-14
Snowy, nearly uninhabitable living conditions drive a team of caretakers stationed in a deserted research facility to the brink of madness.
The Northern Institute rests in a remote expanse of snow that purportedly never melts and is hazardous to one’s health. When an unnamed incident causes the facility to lose its research funding and shut down, the sole remaining researcher—a shrewd, cold man named Gilroy—hires a crew of three to maintain the facility since he deems it “cheaper to hire a small team to look after things than to make the anticipated repairs were the building simply left vacant until research could resume.” With Hart, the team’s supervisor, as our narrator, we experience time passing in this strange, lonely facility, days filled with the completion of laughably mundane tasks: testing doors for noises or chairs for their stability. Tension rises between Hart and the other caretakers when the three spot an unidentifiable object out the window lying in the snow. Cline, a painter with an eye for light, and Gibbs, who is skilled in the powers of description, are beguiled by the object, growing more and more fixated on its nature, while Hart—who prides himself on his leadership ability and powers of efficiency—perceives the distraction as a threat to his faltering authority. Time, though, begins to distort for all three, days blurring together, day and night becoming indistinguishable. And after tireless observation, Cline and Hart agree with certainty that the object is changing color, that it is moving. Is the object responsible for the slipperiness of time and the sense that gravity itself has destabilized? The novel gains momentum and intrigue as new mysteries arise and discord between Hart and the others rises to a head. Dry and sometimes-unsettling workplace humor adds delight and levity to a novel whose themes explore the drudgery of the modern workplace and the depths to which the mind in isolation can tumble.
A fine, intriguing hybrid of satire and thriller.
