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Dec. 11th, 2009 12:18 am"Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don’t stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn’t act, it allows. And that’s what gives it so much power." ~ Joan D. Vinge.
A couple of days ago, a conversation with a friend reminded me of some of the concepts from a favorite novel of mine, a sci-fi novel called "The Snow Queen", by Joan D. Vinge - and that made me want to re-read it, in the original English this time (as opposed to the Hebrew translation I own - or rather the family owns.)
My deities. Re-reading this thing made me realize again how much I love it. Now that i read it in English, a lot of the subtle dialect quirks on the different human cultures - especially on the Kharemoughi, who seemed to speak a lot more poetically in the Hebrew version and that's because they speak like god damn YODA in the original. XD
I find it amusing, the way that the novel focuses a lot more on the human cultures than anything else. Don't get me wrong, the story is pretty damn gripping on its own right, a lot of the characters - the main in particular - are exceptionally vivid - and has much to it that is fucking awesome - but Joan D. Vinge's forte is anthropology - and it shows. It certainly made the differences between the different human cultures more pronounced, which made the humans rather interesting from a civilization perspective - in many ways, they are the same old typical humans, only they find new ways of showing it - ways that certainly make them feel more real - I could SEE Humanity having civilizations like this. Made the worlds feel more alive.
One vague issue that I have with the novel is the descriptions of alien creatures - they are very scattered and though you can get images that are rather vague. While this gives my mind a good exercise, I would still love to know what the author pictured her own creations as looking... Hn. I'm weird that way.
I love this book, anyway. XD Need to pick the sequels up...
A couple of days ago, a conversation with a friend reminded me of some of the concepts from a favorite novel of mine, a sci-fi novel called "The Snow Queen", by Joan D. Vinge - and that made me want to re-read it, in the original English this time (as opposed to the Hebrew translation I own - or rather the family owns.)
My deities. Re-reading this thing made me realize again how much I love it. Now that i read it in English, a lot of the subtle dialect quirks on the different human cultures - especially on the Kharemoughi, who seemed to speak a lot more poetically in the Hebrew version and that's because they speak like god damn YODA in the original. XD
I find it amusing, the way that the novel focuses a lot more on the human cultures than anything else. Don't get me wrong, the story is pretty damn gripping on its own right, a lot of the characters - the main in particular - are exceptionally vivid - and has much to it that is fucking awesome - but Joan D. Vinge's forte is anthropology - and it shows. It certainly made the differences between the different human cultures more pronounced, which made the humans rather interesting from a civilization perspective - in many ways, they are the same old typical humans, only they find new ways of showing it - ways that certainly make them feel more real - I could SEE Humanity having civilizations like this. Made the worlds feel more alive.
One vague issue that I have with the novel is the descriptions of alien creatures - they are very scattered and though you can get images that are rather vague. While this gives my mind a good exercise, I would still love to know what the author pictured her own creations as looking... Hn. I'm weird that way.
I love this book, anyway. XD Need to pick the sequels up...
