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The Claus Effect

by David Nickle (Goodreads Author), Karl Schroeder

3.38 of 5 stars 3.38 · rating details · 8 ratings · 3 reviews

"The Claus Effect" is a continuation of "The Toy Mill," the 1993 Aurora-Award-winning story about a malevolent, post-industrial-revolution Santa Claus and Emily, the little girl whose wish to be a Christmas Elf nearly destroys the world. The Claus Effect takes up eights years later, when events propel teen-aged Emily and West Point cadet Neil Nyman on a breakneck journey t...more

Paperback, 241 pages

Published March 23rd 1997 by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing,

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Feb 16, 2009 Anna rated it 2 of 5 stars

The Claus Effect started as a short story, "The Toy Mill", which won an Aurora Award in 1993. The award was well deserved. Tightly written and a clever concept, "The Toy Mill" tells the story of Emily, a little girl who wishes to become a Christmas Elf. she meets Santa on Christmas Eve, and he decides to grant her wish, sprinkling magic powder on her and taking her to the North Pole. While she's there, Emily discovers Santa isn't the kind soul from the stories, and the workshop is far from the j...more The Claus Effect started as a short story, "The Toy Mill", which won an Aurora Award in 1993. The award was well deserved. Tightly written and a clever concept, "The Toy Mill" tells the story of Emily, a little girl who wishes to become a Christmas Elf. she meets Santa on Christmas Eve, and he decides to grant her wish, sprinkling magic powder on her and taking her to the North Pole. While she's there, Emily discovers Santa isn't the kind soul from the stories, and the workshop is far from the jolly place she expected.

The novel picks up six years after the events of "The Toy Mill." Emily is sixteen years old, working her job as a security guard at ValueLand, her time at the North Pole a distant memory. But Claus isn't as dead as she thinks he is, and the sadistic man in red is out for revenge, aided by a hoarde of psychotic elfs. Emily's not alone this time, as there are a group of special operatives determined to take Claus down, but it's just after the end of the Cold War, and Santa's gotten his evil mitts on some of the unused nukes.

This sounds absurd enough to be a hilarious story, but if it's meant to be humourous, it's written dry enough that you have to interpret the humour for yourself. Actually, the tone of the book is more akin to that of an action movie than a black comedy, with plenty of drama and explosions.

The pacing was a little frantic, and things felt like they were happening all over the place. There are a lot of auxiliary characters, and they all have their own viewpoint, so while there's a lot going on, most of it feels like filler. The transitions aren't always clear, either, and sometimes I would be several paragraphs into a section with a new narrator before I realized we'd switched over. The whole thing actually felt like Nickle and Schroeder got together to write a second short story, and then figured they might as well stretch it out to be a full novel while they're at it.

I think the biggest issue here is that what worked really well as a short story just became too much for a full book. An evil, vindictive Santa was clever and original in short form, but over the 250 some-odd pages of the novel, it just became weighty and depressing. The characters weren't given any extra depth; instead, there were a bunch of extra ones tacked on, substituting quality for quantity. There were several big action sequences, most of which erupted rather abruptly and ended up going nowhere.

Overall verdict is to read "The Toy Mill" if you can get your paws on it, but skip over the long version. Once I got past the backstory (which basically consisted of the short story), I just felt like I was trudging and not getting anywhere doing it.(less)

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Apr 15, 2010 June rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is very different; dark, absurd, skewed humour, Santa Claus run amok.

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Jul 19, 2010 Lucas rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

Even though the book is only about 240 pages long, the middle third of it is unnecessary and repetitive action sequences. They are meant to be humorous, but the jokes involving gun battles with Santa's elves are exhausted early on. The writing style of the action was off-putting, I would lose interest and skim over it sometimes. Maybe it was meant to parody pulp writing found in military themed serial novels, but things like always referring to a gun by its brand name irritated me.

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Apr 17, 2013 Andrew Bloomgarden marked it as to-read

Feb 22, 2013 Derek Newman-Stille rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian-speculative-fiction

Jan 19, 2013 Peter rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian-fantastika

Dec 22, 2012 Michael Healy marked it as to-read

Oct 18, 2012 Terry McGarry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oct 26, 2012 Colleen Hillerup added it

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Feb 23, 2010 Steven marked it as to-read

Feb 23, 2010 Sandra Kasturi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oct 26, 2009 John Hobbs marked it as to-read

Aug 29, 2009 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Aug 13, 2009 Ric Johnson marked it as to-read

Jan 26, 2008 Joshua marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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About David Nickle

David Nickle lives and works in Toronto. He's had more than 30 short stories published in magazines, anthologies and online, and adapted for television. In 1997, he and Edo Van Belkom won a Bram Stoker Award for their short story "Rat Food." In 1993, he and Karl Schroeder co-wrote "The Toy Mill" and won an Aurora Award for short form work in English. In 1997, they published The Claus Effect, an ex...more

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