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The Snow Queen

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The Snow Queen

By: Joan D. Vinge
Narrated by: Ellen Archer
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The imperious Winter colonists have ruled the planet Tiamat for 150 years, deriving wealth from the slaughter of the sea mers. But soon the galactic stargate will close, isolating Tiamat, and the 150-year reign of the Summer primitives will begin. All is not lost if Arienrhod, the ageless, corrupt Snow Queen, can destroy destiny with an act of genocide. Arienrhod is not without competition as Moon, a young Summer-tribe sibyl, and the nemesis of the Snow Queen, battles to break a conspiracy that spans space.

©1980 Joan D. Vinge (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Epic Fantasy Science Fiction
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Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1981
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Joan Vinge is a master world-builder. In The Snow Queen she creates a society with the perfect blend of the alien and the familiar. She populates it with engaging characters, folds in a good measure of political intrigue, and seasons it with a dash of iron-age fantasy and a sprinkle of futuristic technology. In addition to being an exciting story, the novel is noteworthy in two other respects. First, most of the story is told from the perspective of women. In the SF of the 1980s that was rare. Second, it invites the reader to reflect on a range of ethical issues without ever losing sight of the story being told. These issues include sexism, racism, caste-based discrimination, financial inequality, and animal ethics. There are also reflections on unequal life expectancies and on ways in which first-world economies foster third-world dependencies. It richly deserved the Hugo Award for Best Novel that it received in 1981.

A world-building masterpiece

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