Sundering the Gods: Inspirations Part 3

FEVER SNAKES

The fever snake is mentioned in Eve of Snows, but the little darlings don’t make an appearance until Trail of Pyres, along with the Daevu. For those of you haven’t read ToP yet, I don’t want to hand out much in the way of spoilers, but it’s safe to say that a person would wonder how there are snakes in a frigid climate. Better yet, just what brought these critters into being?

The answer goes back to the early 1980s, when friends of the family created and patented a little toy called the Snow Snake. Their idea was to market this simple, but rather adorable, furry snake (they also wore little hats) at Colorado’s ski resorts. This little snake had a legend that sort of made them the gremlins of the ski slope.

If you were skiing down the mountain and fell for no reason... blame a snow snake for tripping you.

Many years later, as I first started writing the chapter “Bones for Songs” and wondered what sort of little creature might be around... Bam! The fever snake was born, and there was no doubting its connection to the decades old legend of the Snow Snake. Aside from this connection, I loved the idea of the fever snake because it raised questions and hinted at the very magical nature of the world in a subtle, organic way.

That said, fever snakes are not cute, don’t wear hats, and the word mischievous could be replaced with nasty, but their origins still lay hidden in the cute, furry buggers known as snow snakes.