Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,442
edits
The Snow Queen Series: Difference between revisions
tropelist, added categories, spelling, markup, copyedits
(update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (tropelist, added categories, spelling, markup, copyedits) |
||
Line 1:
{{work}}
''[[The Snow Queen Series]]'', by Joan D. Vinge, is a series of four books set in the far future world of the Hegemony. The first and titular book, ''The Snow Queen'', is a multifaceted, old-fashioned space opera cast in the form of a high-tech fairy tale, with nods to ''[[Dune]]'' and [[Celtic Mythology|Welsh mythology]]. It won the 1981 Hugo Award for its author.
Tiamat is a mostly oceanic world which orbits a black hole, and seasons there last for hundreds of years. In the warm years, the Summer Queens rule and the planet reverts to primitivism; in the cold years, a single Snow Queen kept perpetually at age 18 by the water of life, a youth serum extracted from the blood of a native sea mammal. In the Winter years The Hegemony, remnants of a once mighty star-spanning empire, are able travel through the nearby black hole to exploit Tiamat’s resources and use it as an R n’ R stop; in the Summer years, the black hole becomes too unstable for space travel, and the planet loses whatever luxuries and technology it had.
The story begins when Arienrhod, a Winter Queen whose reign is soon to end, seeks to break the cycle of exploitation by cloning herself among the Summer fisherfolk, with the idea of retrieving her daughter at
Basically there is something for everyone in this book, feminism, adventure, romance, empire building, love triangles, exotic cultures. A sequel, ''The Summer Queen'', was later written as well as two ancillary novels, ''World’s End'' and ''Tangled up in Blue'', which fill in the plot and answer questions about what happened between the two longer books. The books were published in this order:
** The Snow Queen (1981)
Line 20:
** The Summer Queen
{{tropelist}}
* [[After the End]]: The Hegemony is all that remains of a once mighty human starfaring Empire.
* [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]]
Line 45 ⟶ 42:
* [[Heroic Albino]]: Moon Dawntreader, though not technically an albino, is described as having pale skin and hair like cream, with light green eyes the color of moss and mist agate.
* [[Immortality Immorality]]: The wealthy, decadent few who can afford to take the Water of Life.
*
* [[Jerkass]]: Herne, and arguably {{spoiler|Sparks Dawntreader.}}
* [[Junkie Prophet]]
* [[Masquerade Ball]]: These are held by the Snow Queen to honor the Hegemony's periodic visits. Moon was implanted in a Summer woman at one of them.
Line 56 ⟶ 53:
* [[Star-Crossed Lovers]]: Moon and {{spoiler|BZ Gundhalinu}}.
* [[Supervillain Lair]]: The Royal Palace, which is full of CCTV networks so Arienrhod can spy on her court, as well as a bottomless pit filled with dangerous winds all visitors must cross.
* [[Vice City]]: The capitol city of Carbuncle, because,
* [[World Building]]
Line 63 ⟶ 60:
[[Category:The Snow Queen Series]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Snow Queen Series, The}}
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:Hugo Award]]
| |||