The Snow Queen
- 496
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
- Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
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Our view
“The Snow Queen” blends space opera, palace intrigue and fairy tale with real ambition, and it won Vinge the Hugo Award in 1981. Genetic engineering and a queen’s hold on power sit at the heart of a story set far out among the stars. Some readers find the world and the side characters more engaging than the two leads, and the pace slow in places. It opens a series of four books.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Snow Queen is a 1980 science fiction novel by American writer Joan D. Vinge. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1981, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1981.
Reading order · Tiamat
Full order & progress →- The Snow QueenThis book
7.67.6 / 10 - World’s EndWorld’s End–Not ranked yet
- The Summer QueenThe Summer Queen–Not ranked yet
- Tangled Up in BlueTangled Up in Blue–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.0 across 77 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 34% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.6 comes out. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.0 | 8 | 10% |
| Hardcover | 6.8 | 69 | 90% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Snow Queen?
It has 496 pages — longer than 63% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 7.6, the closest to this book.
