Tangled Up in Blue (The Snow Queen Cycle, #4) by Joan D. Vinge

Tangled Up in Blue (The Snow Queen Cycle, #4) Reviews

• 
  Zoe

  I loved this series! I really liked seeing Arienrhod again even though I would rather read about the actual follow-up events of The Summer queen.
• 
  Melanie Page

  The last installment of The Snow Queen Cycle by Joan D. Vinge, Tangled Up in Blue is a novel parallel in time to the first book, The Snow Queen. I think of such novels as “Meanwhile. . .” books. We’re back in the capital city on the planet Tiamat, and the malicious Snow Queen still rules. The main character is beloved BZ Gundhalinu, who plays a leading role in all the novels. At this point, he’s a new police officer fresh from his home, Kharemough, a planet divided by classes that values loyalty and honor above all else. He tries to make his black-and-white values fit into police work, but he’s often behind a desk and not facing the gray scale that is real life. Until he meets Nyx LaisTree.
  
  Nyx LaisTree from the planet Newhaven. Interestingly, the police service is a conglomerate that has jurisdiction over eight planets, but almost all police are from Newhaven. Thus, they can be fairly prejudiced against people on Tiamat, the most primitive planet in the bunch. Under the Snow Queen, the capital is a fairly lawless place, so when a group of police officers, including LaisTree and his brother, start vandalizing technology, they get away with it. That is, until they are in the wrong place at the wrong time and are massacred. All except LaisTree, whose heart has to be restarted three times he so near death.
  
  The story leans toward a sci-fi detective novel, revolving around figuring out who the murderers are, LaisTree’s grief, and Gundhalinu learning that honor and loyalty are valued on his home planet — but they’re not guaranteed traits. They receive help from Devony, a native of Tiamat who delivers gossip to the Snow Queen while she is with “clients.” That is, she’s a prostitute. Her pimp invested in her, purchasing a “sensenet” at enormous cost, which allows her to completely shape shift to look like any person. Being able to change into any man’s fantasy makes her a fancy prostitute, and fortunately she follows the cliche of having a heart of gold.
  
  Early on, I wasn’t sure if liked this novel. It’s paired way down to focus on a smaller event, whereas in The Summer Queen they were fighting against the complete colonization of planet Tiamat. I’d already done a huge journey across three novels, two of them massive, with Gundhalinu, so it was awkward to see him as a total stubborn newbie. But as characters I knew popped in and out — Jerusha PalaThion, a minor character in all four books; Mundilfoere from The Summer Queen; Fate Ravenglass from The Snow Queen — I felt more comfortable and connected. Several Goodreads reviews note folks can skip this novel, and they can. Though, there is a loose connection to how Reed Kullervo, from The Summer Queen, unwittingly becomes a genius in his early twenties.
  
  Even though it’s not a necessary addition to the series and readers may not enjoy going back to the beginning timeline-wise, Tangled Up in Blue is a good, fun science fiction buddy-cop sort of story.
  
  This review was originally published at
  Grab the Lapels.
• 
  Jim Mcclanahan

  I enjoyed the Snow Queen series when I read them some time aqo. This one, written some years later, is a tad disappointing. The characters were interesting, but a little two dimensional. The scenario, although fitting into the Tiamat world nicely, seemed to be forced. A little like The Maltese Falcon in space. A throwback to film noir. The artifacts being pursued by so many of the characters and factions seem to be, in the final analysis, just Mcguffins, i.e., "the stuff that dreams are made of". Many of the events described made little logical sense and the characters' reactions to them even less so.
  
  Despite this, I read right through it and didn't feel betrayed all that much by the ending. For the Joan Vinge completist.
• 
  Tim Hicks

  I had read this before, years ago, and I enjoyed it just as much this time.
  
  I like the character of Gundhalinu, I like Vinge's style, and I like her Snow Queen/Summer Queen world.
  
  At times it was a bit too much of a standard film noir/police procedural.
  It would only take a small rewrite to set this on today's Earth. But that's OK.
  If I want worlds of wonder, there are plenty of those out there. Sometimes you just want a good story.
  
  The action at the end is almost ludicrous, but it would make a heckuva movie scene.
  
  Tree seemed to flip back and forth between naive rookie and tough experienced cop.
  Devony's a little hard to believe, but it's set up carefully and I accept it.
  
  A very good read.
  
• 
  Althea Ann

  A perfectly fine cop/crime solving novel. But it's pretty much a straightforward genre adventure, and it really suffers in comparison to works of the scope and ambition of Snow/Summer Queen. If it wasn't advertised as a sequel to those two excellent works, I think I would have liked it more. Still, an enjoyable adventure.
• 
  Bria

  A bit of a disappointment after the incredible rush of ideas and intrigue of the Summer Queen, as this is basically just a crime mystery, but once I got over expecting it to be a continuation of the complexity of the other books, it became quite enjoyable.
• 
  Mark Oppenlander

  The final volume of Joan Vinge's Snow Queen series is actually a prequel, with action taking place around the time of the original novel. Set in Carbuncle, the capital city of the planet Tiamat, it's a gritty, noir-style sci-fi mystery using some of the characters and settings from the larger universe established in the previous three novels.
  
  Nyx LaisTree, a young man from the planet Newhaven, serves as a police officer - or "blue"- for the Hegemony on Tiamat. However, many of the crimes the blues investigate must be prosecuted under local law, forcing the police to turn suspects over to local officials. Arienrhod, the Snow Queen, actually sanctions much of the illegal activity, so most lawbreakers go free.
  
  Tree and his fellow blues are bored on the backwater Tiamat and frustrated by their professional impotence. They take to vigilantism. However, one of their nighttime raids leads them into an ambush with unknown forces that kills almost everyone involved. Tree wakes up seriously injured in a hospital with parts of his memory gone and a sense that he has stumbled into something way bigger than he knows. To survive, he finds himself teaming up with Devony Seaward, a mysterious shape-shifting call girl, and BZ Gundhalinu, a strict, arrogant, and naive police sergeant, to uncover who tried to kill him and his blue friends - and why.
  
  Vinge's approach here reminded me a lot of World's End, which felt almost interstitial when I read it. The pace is fast, the action is limited to one planet, and the story is not nearly as complex as the other two cornerstone novels in the series. It wasn't trying to do too much, and I appreciated that. However, unlike the second book in the series, this one doesn't carry anything new or essential to the larger story arc, which forces it to make a case for itself on its own terms.
  
  How does it do? Well, as a mystery, it's not bad. The suspense builds as the pages turn, and Tree and Gundhalinu's uneasy alliance proves entertaining, in a buddy cop sort of way. Vinge provides us with some of the most intense action scenes in the entire series and enough double crosses to do Sam Spade proud. (Side note: The sex and violence in the books seems to have ratcheted up quite a bit since it began, but that may simply be a reflection of changing times and tastes over nearly 20 years.)
  
  However, I think that the book probably wouldn't work as well as a stand-alone. Had I not read the other books in the series, the chase for a mysterious piece of technology would have felt like a complete McGuffin. With the other three books as context - especially The Summer Queen - I know the importance of the item everyone is seeking and how large its impact will be on Tiamat and the Hegemony overall. Also, the prior knowledge I have of certain characters - Gunhalinu, Arienrhod, and Mundelfoere - allows me to feel like they are well fleshed out, when I know in my heart they are not. By setting this story against an existing universe of characters and situations, even as a prequel, Vinge gives her readers a richer experience.
  
  This book does not seem like essential reading for fans of the series. It's more of a pleasant but ultimately meaningless side trip for those who enjoyed the universe and wanted more. For my money, it's the weakest book in the series, and not to be read at all unless you have the other novels as context.
• 
  Kim Campbell

  I'll start by saying I'm a fan of this series! So I'll be gushing a bit.
  
  This is a noir novel that overlaps the earliest pages of The Snow Queen. The action picks up after BZ no longer joins Jerusha as she makes her required visits to the Queen and covers a few months of the time before Moon leaves Tiamat and Jerusha becomes the commander. (Can we just say Arienrhod is a vindictive woman?)
  
  Patrolman Nyx LaisTree is one of the Newhavenese working in Carbuncle. Frustrated by the Queen's policy of covering for underworld crimes by having a Tiamatan ostensibly in charge (and then immediately let free) he and some of the others begin taking matters into their own hands. They're still cops enough that they don't go out with weapons, but they do still smash smuggled tech and other 'contraband' items to keep the Tiamatans firmly under the Hedgemony's control so that they rich and powerful can continue to control the harvest of the water of life. While they don't stop to look at it from the Tiamatans POV (helloooo) they do find the flouting of the law to be too much to bear.
  
  One night it all goes wrong. A simple planned raid turns bad and only a few survivors, namely Tree, and the unknowing bystanders, Jerusha and BZ, remain. The death of his brother and the other Blues nearly destroys Tree, who then decides he's going after whoever was responsible. BZ and Tree are both treated rather oddly by some of the higherups and that leads to them deciding to put their differences aside and figure things out. What really happened that night? Why were the other Blues there when the warehouse was supposed to be empty? BZ and Jerusha just happened by and were outside when it all happened, but there were more Blues inside than just our vigilantes.
  
  Working together they solve part of it, but more happens that night than they ever realized. (If you know the plot of The Summer Queen then you know what Mundilfoere and Humbaba and The Source were after … and that BZ gets his answers years down the road.)
  
  Fast paced, full of the noir tropes (a hooker with a heart of gold, vigilantism, the need for vengeance and a beat-up, self-hating hero) the book doesn't disappoint on either front - SF and Noir Mystery.
  
• 
  prcardi

  Storyline: 2/5
  Characters: 3/5
  Writing Style: 2/5
  World: 1/5
  
  The backdrop Vinge created for this series is awesome. The first book hinted at expanses and histories, wonders and surprises. Given that there were three other books left in the series, it all seemed so promising. The author and I simply disagreed on where we wanted this to go. I wanted it to branch out, experiencing the reaches of the universe, and Vinge was looking in, returning to the same places and same characters to fill in details and supply more depth. Much of Vinge's focus in Tangled Up in Blue is on a character I had already tired of and would have been happy to have never seen again. She also returns to a place and time that I needed no more from. The prequel elements clashed with what I remembered from the first book because she has our characters undergo maturation and growth that they do not exhibit in the Snow Queen. The writing was also regularly too straight forward; Vinge spells out all the answers and overemphasizes all the hints to the point where I felt condescended to as a reader. The prequel angle also suffered from trying to stuff too many familiar characters and too many intersections into what could easily have been a completely unrelated plot. It really wasn't an awful book, but it was both unnecessary and a lost opportunity.
• 
  Laurel

  Set before events in The Snow Queen, Tangled introduces us to the greengrass Ghundalinhu, fresh on the Hegemony's police force in Carbuncle. When a vigilante raid goes south leaving one survivor with no memory of events, and two powerful factions of Survey hunting an Old Empire artefact, two police officers find themselves the focus of attention.
  
  I really enjoyed reading this final chapter of The Snow Queen Cycle - it's been a long enough time coming. It was invaluable, in a way, to have the insights given by the other three books - one understands more of the importance of events in this book that way, and the fragility. I found it a quick read, as exciting as the other books, and as vividly written. Definitely well worth the time spent reading it.
• 
  Jason Adams

  LA Confidential...in Space!
  
  “Tangled Up in Blue” feels like an attempt to inject the plotting of James Elroy into the fantastical setting of the Snow Queen. Unfortunately, the result features none of the lyrical dialogue and pacing of an Elroy potboiler, instead relying on exposition heavy inner monologues and muddled fight scenes. The ending is lifted almost entirely from LA Confidential, though.
  It clips by at a fair pace, and there is an interesting maguffin at the middle of it all. As this serves as a prequel of sorts to the Snow Queen, it always feels like the real action is happening somewhere off the page.
• 
  Data

  Listed as number 4 in the series (order in which it was written?), this novel is a snapshot of life in the time period prior to the last events of the
  The Snow Queen. It tells the story of an investigation with some of the characters that are introduced in the first book, notably Gundhalinu and PalaThion. I would strongly recommend reading in series order, not in Tiamat chronological order.
• 
  Kate

  I didn't like this one as much, but it was still good. Fast paced!
• 
  Sarah Rigg

  I really love this series. Joan Vinge is a favorite sci-fi author.
• 
  Paul Close

  Disappointing. This seems to be about an ancient artifact, or a deep conspiracy, but is really just about a young man finding his brother's killers. Stereotypical and not very satisfying.
• 
  Michael J

  It was a good reading. Nice seeing some of the old characters again. Next time I will read it before the others.
• 
  John Loyd

  Tiamat is a low-tech planet because of its cycle of winter and summer. During winter the gate to the other worlds is open and they receive some technology, their main export is the water of life. When summer begins the alignment of the suns makes the gate impassable, the Summers take over and destroy the technology given to the Winters. Arienrhod, the Snow Queen, wants to break that cycle, the Hegemony wants to keep it the way it is. The Survey is supposedly a social group, but at some level they have greater plans. The Source is the head mob boss of Carbuncle. Mundilfoere belongs to some other group.
  
  Nyx LaisTree, his brother Staun LaisNion and a bunch of other Newhavenese cops hate the restrictions keeping the Hegemony police from stopping any crime committed by natives. They have formed a vigilante group that conduct Nameday raids on unsavory establishments. Over the months they have a few of these that are successful. On Tree's Nameday, Saint Ambikos day, they go out for a drink and Tree asks the beautiful Devony for a dance. Later they go on a raid that goes horribly wrong. All of the vigilantes except for Tree die.
  
  There's some ancient Empire tech that goes missing. Everyone seems to want it. The internal affairs officer question Tree relentlessly, he owns up to being a vigilate, but the questions won't stop. He was badly injured at the scene and doesn't remember anything. They suspend him from the force, but let him go free. The straight laced Sergeant Gundhalinu thinks Tree should be charged. The chief inspector gives Gundhalinu the job of following him.
  
  The protagonists follow leads, find some answers, get beat up, lather, rinse, repeat. It's a fun read. The characters are great. I may be missing background information, because this is the fourth book in the Snow Queen series. Maybe some of the answers I want are in the first three books, more of the internal politics of Tiamat and understanding of the Snow Queen. The ending was a wrap up for Tree, BZ and Devony, but didn't inform us about the artifact.
• 
  Jamie Rich

  Tangled Up in Blue (The Snow Queen Cycle, #4) by Joan D. Vinge
  
  First of all, even tho this the forth book written, it the first book in the entire series! Yes, it's a prequel! Don't shudder, it's not a prequel in the style of Star Wars, and there is no Jar-Jar Binks.
  Ir is a very worthy introduction to the entire Snow Queen epic cycle. And it is set just prior to the that book. Carbuncle is the same mysterious city of wonders and delights. And we have a motley crew of natives and of worlders in residence. Gundalinhu, and PalaThion are working for the Blues. As is Tree and Staun. This would be the beginning of the Gundalinhu and PalaThion team, but she is side lined for most of the book. Instead, we meet Tree, his brother Staun, and some more merry pranksters wearing the uniform of the Hegemonic Police.
  Eventually, Tree and Gundalinhu must set aside their own built in prejudices against each other's cultures (Honor versus Loyalty) and grudgingly work together, or die.
  So, yes, you can guess where the plot is going in many ways, but it's the clever way that Vinge has of getting us there that keeps you flipping the pages. The pace is tight, and so is the writing. She manages to develop the new, and familiar, characters in her own, interwoven fashion.
  you will want to read this if you have read the other three books. And if you haven't read them, read this first!! You will thank me later!
• 
  Derek

  As a standalone novel, it conforms to a certain amount of film noir convention: the chase after a macguffin whose importance is not relevant to the events of the story, and an untidy ending that does not wrap up every plot thread.
  
  I'm intrigued by the remaining plot threads and the suggestions that they tie back into the rest of the series, which I haven't read. Vinge's universe feels organic and rife with human flaws: the Hegemony is a tiny fragment of a fallen Old Empire; each planet in the Hegemony has a number of strange social problems; the planet Tiamat is being kept from full technology for economic reasons; the city of Carbuncle is a festering jewel of corruption, seated on the raw exploitation of a single disturbing natural resource.
• 
  Kirsten

  While this was a good adventure story, and while I'm always up for another novel set in the Snow Queen universe, this just didn't strike me as having the same depth and level of detail as Vinge's other novels. It's almost a police procedural-in-space, or an attempt at noir, and it doesn't always quite work, IMO. On the other hand, I did enjoy this, and I'll always jump at a new story with BZ Gundhalinu.
  
• 
  Zoe M-W

  I probably would not have been interested in this book if it hadn't been part of the Snow Queen series. However, it was a very light read with an excellently woven plot. I only wish the characters had been more intriguing, as usually that is Vinge's strong suit. The book is the last in the series, but appears to be a prequel. It also ties up a loose end in the Summer Queen, which made me want to read the Summer Queen again.
• 
  Doug

  More of a footnote to The Snow Queen and The Summer Queen rather than a proper sequel (or prequel, given the timeline of the book), Tangled Up in Blue is more like a crime novel set in Carbuncle whose story serves mainly to give another look at some of the characters in the other books and explain the origin of the Vanamoinen construct in The Summer Queen. It's a short, fun read, though not necessarily essential.
• 
  Alexa

  This very much suffers from the constraints of a prequel; it is frequently difficult to tell a tale whose ending is already known. She chooses to further exacerbate the situation by involving her series’ main characters, even though their participation in this particular set of events was unknown to them in the future. She then further adds to the misery by spending about one third of the novel on repetitive exposition. All in all not much to recommend here.
• 
  Erinn

  It's a darn good thing I could remember very faintly the series that this is a prequel too. The book started right off with odd names and places, very little of a decent intro. Be that as it may, I still enjoyed this book. It was nice revisting old characters, but if you have never read Snow Queen don't read it until you do.
• 
  Mike

  This is the final installment (so far) in the Snow Queen saga. It ties several loose ends together and is actually a prequel to the entire story. As in any prequel, some of the plot items are contrived, but not enough to make it annoying. Vinge is a great one for "show-don't-tell" writing, so this appeals to me.
• 
  Jess

  I had absolutely no idea this was a part of any series at all, so I was understandbly confused when I started reading the book. After a while I fell into the rhythm of the story, and got a clue to what was going on, somewhat in any case. The writing was very good, but the story itself wasn't very compelling for me, perhaps this is because I didn't read all the other books.