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The Snow Queen (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 4) | 
 enlarge | Author: Mercedes Lackey
Publisher: Luna
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $8.76
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 46640
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 037380265X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780373802654
ASIN: 037380265X
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
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Product Description
Aleksia, Queen of the Northern Lights, is mysterious, beautiful and widely known to have a heart of ice. No one would seek her wisdom except as a last resort. But when she's falsely accused of unleashing evil on nearby villages, she realizes there's an impostor out there far more heartless than she could ever be.And when a young warrior following the Tradition disappears, leaving his sweetheart and mother to fear the worst, Aleksia's powers are needed as never before. Now, on a journey through a realm of perpetual winter, it will take all her skills, a mother's faith and a little magic to face down an enemy more formidable than any she has ever known.…
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 somewhat disappointing August 7, 2008
The Show Queen is not up to Ms. Lackey's usual level. This book qualifies as a light, entertaining read that goes well with its publishing as a Luna romance, but her previous Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms were more engaging. I liked that she did not have explicit sex in this novel, which means I won't have to hide it from my kids, but the romantic relationships lacked the attraction, tension, longing, and the sizzle that make her books enjoyable. Also, the only character development I noticed was in the spoiled children learning their lessons and Ilmari learning to appreciate someone his own age. I don't expect depth from a romance novel, but it would be nice to see some reason for attraction between the mature protagonists besides the usual "she's beautiful, smart and brave" meets "he's strong-bodied and brave, yet willing to learn from her superior female viewpoint." (Quotes are my indication of a cliche, not actual quotes from the book.)
The most annoying thing was the poor editing. There are some glaring problems with internal consistency and continuity. As just one example, Ilmari is described in Chapter 4 as having "gray in his hair and beard," but in Chapter 14 "his hair was not yet graying." There are many others, and they were distracting and annoying.
The first and second books in this series were well-written (for the genre) and engaging. The third was cute enough and was interesting for expanding into Russian folklore. This fourth book feels like a draft, not a finished novel. There are some fun passages in here, and it does have the feel-good, "this is how it should be" ending that she referred to in her Author Note, so I won't give up on the series yet. Here's to hoping she returns to her usual level and gets better editing.
A New Take on the Old Tale July 30, 2008
This was an interesting take on the old fairy tale, The Snow Queen. It starts off with the Snow Queen, who is actually a "good fairy godmother". If you've read the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, you will understand the "Tradition" that is always trying to push people into fairy tales. The Snow Queen finds out that someone is terrorizing the countryside in her name and sets out to find this imposter. When dealing with tradition, the godmothers must be very careful to twist and redirect the magic that the tradition builds around events and people. The Five Hundred Kingdom series cleverly update and transform well known stories into adventures that delight readers. The Snow Queen is a delightful and somewhat more mature read, and will satisfy a craving for light reading fantasy.
 The Snow Queen Impostor July 7, 2008
44 out of 44 found this review helpful
The Snow Queen (2008) is the fourth fantasy novel in the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, following Fortunes's Fool. In the previous volume, Guiliette forgave Rheinhardt and herself and a beam of light took her into the heavens. Katya, Sasha, the Queen of Copper Mountain and the dragons returned the Jinn to his bottle, then sent the bottle to the City of Brass to hold until the Jinn reformed.
In this novel, Aleksia is the Snow Queen and the Ice Fairy, the Godmother of her domain. Although the ice and snow come from the position of her palace high in the mountains, she does have the northernmost Godmother domain. She almost exclusively deals with boys who are following traditional paths into evil ways.
While Aleksia has the brownies for company and mirror contact with Godmother Elena, most of the time she is dealing with self-centered boys and love-struck girls. Her days get quite lonely and irritating. She is beginning to detest sulky boys and naive girls.
Kay is her latest project. He is very clever and even more spoiled by his parents. He wears black garments despite his fair coloring and tends to stick out his lower lip when he is frustrated. Kay is well on his way to becoming a Clockwork Artificer.
Gerda is a very determined -- yet dependent --- maiden who loves Kay. Unfortunately, she is currently incapable of denying him anything. She is well on her way to becoming the forgiving, defensive and verbally abused wife of an arrogant man.
In this story, Aleksia has brought Kay to the Palace of Ever-Winter and given him everything he desires except company. She is acting ever so haughty toward him and has made the brownies invisible. Moreover, she is keeping the Palace rather cold so that he is always chilled. Hopefully, he will soon become so lonely that he recognizes the worth of Gerda.
Meanwhile, Gerda is traveling toward the Palace to rescue Kay. She is so nice that farmers and other travellers have given her rides most of the way. But now she is traveling cross-country and is soon to be accosted by a band of robbers within the woods.
Overall, everything with Kay and Gerda is following the script devised by Aleksia from long and boring experience. While she is waiting for developments, Aleksia receives a mirror call from her friend Alena. It seems that someone is impersonating the Snow Queen and something else called an Icehart is killing people.
The problem appears to be restricted to the land of the Sammi. These reindeer herders are not directly served by a Godmother, but are vaguely within Aleksia's rather extended domain. At least, she is the only nearby Godmother.
Aleksia starts gathering information on the impostor. Her mirror spirit Jalmari searches for mentions of the Snow Witch while she finishes up the situation with Kay and Gerda. However, the data provided by Jalmari convinces Aleksia that she must become directly involved in the new problem.
This tale takes Aleksia into the Sammi Underworld to question the dead villagers who were killed by the Icehart. The problem she faces is not getting into the Underground, but rather getting out. The task gains her a little more knowledge, but ruins her clothes and requires a major soak and shampoo to take away the stain and stench.
Like the previous volumes, this is a tale of high romance. It may be the most romantic of the whole series so far, at least by the couple count. Enjoy!
Highly recommended for Lackey fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of fairy godmothers, magical quests, and high romance.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Pleasant Fairy tale July 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a nice summer read with good character development. It isn't the best in the Tales of the Hundred Kingdoms series, but it has some nice twists.
Good, but not my favorite of the 500 Kingdoms series July 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While this is a well-written book, it isn't my favorite in this series, or my favorite of Mercedes Lackey's books. I agree with several of the reviewers that the unpredictability of the plot, and the overall much darker tone of this book did not endear it to me. I actually prefered One Good Knight because of the plot twists (Go George!), and my favorite so far in the series is Fortune's Fool.
What does fascinate me about this series is the intermingling of fairy tales and cultures. The Snow Queen, the Katchei, the Bereginia, and most of all, the Godmothers. Having spent part of my childhood in Europe, I'm more familiar than some with the fables and tales of other countries, and really LIKE Misty for mining them for her series!
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