Staff Pick

The Snow Queen

Joan D. Vinge

$23.99

Publication Date: October 27th, 2015

Publisher:

Tor Books

ISBN:

9780765381774

Pages:

496

Staff Reviews

This classic Hugo Award Winner is a story which still rings true to this day, both in theme and technology. Written in 1980, some of its imagined technology and science has now come to fruition, along with mass extinctions and climate change, unfortunately. Our desire to strike out to unknown places is reflected well in Vinge’s wonderfully imagined colonization of Tiamat, along with our all-too-real need to dominate other cultures, but these only underpin the real story of love and redemption which you will not easily forget, and which are still relevant today. A brilliant book. I’ve read it four times since first picking it up in 1980. This is the SciFi+ book pick for the month of May. Join us on the 21st at 7pm!

— Kim

Description

This reissue of a modern classic of science fiction, the Hugo and Locus Award-winning and Nebula-nominated The Snow Queen, marks the first time the book has been reprinted in fifteen years.

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. Their only chance at surviving the change is 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.

Interstellar politics, a millennia-long secret conspiracy, and a civilization whose hidden machineries might still control the fate of worlds all form the background to this spectacular hard science fiction novel from Joan D. Vinge.

About the Author

Joan D. Vinge wrote the Hugo Award bestseller The Snow Queen, sequels including the Hugo finalist The Summer Queen and the Nebula finalist World's End, and the Cat series. She's written more than a dozen movie adaptations, including the #1 bestseller The Return of The Jedi Storybook. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.