Tangled Up In Blue - Joan D. Vinge

[sholio]

A long time ago, when I was but a teenage sholio, I read and really enjoyed Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen, and at some point after that, I obtained the sequel (Summer Queen) from a used bookstore ... and never read it. I have literally dragged that book all over the country with me, always meaning to read it and always bouncing off the first couple of chapters whenever I tried.

However, at some point in one of my used book dives I obtained another book in the series, Tangled Up In Blue, which is significantly shorter and more straightforward with less of a barrier to entry than the sprawling epic nature of the other book, so I decided to see if I still enjoy the series by using this one as an entry point. I remember Gundhalinu was my favorite from the original book (though I don't remember why) and he's featured pretty heavily in this one.

Honestly my biggest takeaway from this book is how much it feels like a Cherryh pastiche. Partly it's just that the whole plot is very Cherryh (corrupt and uncaring Powers That Be, mostly powerless characters buffeted by fate and disillusionment, clinging to their basic decency and each other in the face of it) but most particularly because of the damsel-in-distress-ish young male protagonist who spends most of the book miserable, depressed, and high on painkillers. Even the writing style reminds me of it a little bit, especially the dissociating-on-painkillers-and-depression parts of Tree's POV. (Yes, his name is Tree.) I'm honestly not sure if Vinge just shares a lot of narrative kinks with Cherryh or if she had binge-read a ton of Cherryh before writing this book. The main thing that does not feel Cherryh-like is Tree's waifish hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold love interest. In a Cherryh book she would probably be fifty, cynical, and vaguely predatory. I don't think Cherryh has a waif setting, at least for female characters.

Anyway, I enjoyed this enough to be engaged to the end, though I think I would have liked it better 20 years ago. The worldbuilding is really gorgeous, and I particularly enjoyed one scene in which protagonist no. 2, straight-laced aristocratic Gundhalinu, falls in with Tree and Tree's girlfriend Devony right after he's been dosed with a truth drug that makes him babble whatever comes into his mind, and he gets sort of gently interrogated while they're trying to burn the drug out of his system in a sauna. That was delightful. I OT3 it.

I don't remember enough about the original book to know how sympathetically the two sides of the planet's central conflict between the technology-averse Summer people and the technology-phile Winters was developed, but I found myself coming down pretty hard on the Winter side here, even though they're technically the baddies. I mean, okay, there is the whole genocide of gentle sea beasts to drink their blood and live forever, which is definitely a problem, but I'm not sure if the "let's chuck our technology into the sea" hippie cult comes across as an improvement. (I do remember the original book was at least somewhat about that, but it's also been thirty years since I read it, my memories of it are extremely vague, and I think I was a lot more on board with the anti-technology hippie cult when I was 17.)

But I also wasn't engaged enough to go ahead and read Summer Queen. I decided to skim the last couple of pages to see how things turn out for everyone, and then place it gently in the box of books to go to the used bookstore.

Comments

[sovay]

I remember Gundhalinu was my favorite from the original book (though I don't remember why) and he's featured pretty heavily in this one.

Ditto, and that is also the reason I bought Tangled Up in Blue when I found it in a used book store in college, and I can't remember a thing about it! Not even BZ in a delightfully compromising situation! I believe I tried The Summer Queen and bounced. I can't remember trying World's End.

(My formative Vinge was the Heaven Chronicles (1991) and Psion (1982), to which I was stupidly attached in middle and high school and still object to the sequels breaking off on a depresso cliffhanger.)

[sholio]

I'm glad that I'm not the only person who bounced off Summer Queen (actually this is looking like a majority opinion based on the comments!). I remember liking her Cat books best, although it's been forever since I read any of them. Also, somehow it doesn't surprise me that we share opinions on yet another character. I still don't know if Adult Sholio would agree with Teenage Sholio's opinions on him, but I did like him in Tangled Up In Blue!

[yhlee]

You might like World's End, actually, which was IIRC wall-to-wall Gundhalinu whump! It wasn't to my taste when I was twelve but I think if I had been older I would have eaten it up with a spoon. :)

I loved the first Cat book (Psion) but disliked the depressing ending of one of the later books, although the titles aren't coming back to me offhand. Ah, yes - I think it was the resolution of Dreamfall in which Cat [spoilers] and because it [spoilers].

[sovay]

Ah, yes - I think it was the resolution of Dreamfall in which Cat [spoilers] and because it [spoilers].

I know she's not really writing anymore, but I desperately wanted her to return to Cat for years just because that was such an unsustainable place to leave a series.

[yhlee]

I mean, I guess this is what fanfic is for...

[sovay]

I mean, I guess this is what fanfic is for...

You know, it never occurred to me to look!

(There is a non-zero number of Cat fic on AO3. Huh. Thanks.)

[sholio]

I was just looking them up and I think I read Catspaw and Psion, but I'm not sure if I even knew there was another one!

[sovay]

I was just looking them up and I think I read Catspaw and Psion, but I'm not sure if I even knew there was another one!

It ends on a depresso cliffhanger! It was never intended to be the last in the series; in her introduction to the 1996 reprint of Psion, Vinge said firmly that she had two or three more novels in mind. Then she got hit by the truck and I think we got what we got. The only other Cat fiction of which I am aware is the novella "Psiren," which I have in her collection Phoenix in the Ashes (1985); it was written more or less coeval with Psion and takes place shortly afterward, if I am remembering correctly. This is an entire arena of my id I haven't checked in with in years.

[sholio]

Out of curiosity, how does it end? I don't mind spoilers for this particular thing.

[yhlee]

IIRC Dreamfall involves Cat and an...archaeological expedition (or something similar to that?) and it brings him back in contact with the alien species his mother? (I think it was his mother) belonged to. It emerges that the alien species have sort of a telepathic hivemind (or something like that) AND they are absolute pacifists who believe in never ever killing. The plot, of course, leads Cat to kill a human to protect something or someone that's really important to him, and there's this absolutely gut-wrenching ending in which the aliens reject Cat forevermore and kick him out of the telepathic bond that he had been forming with them and he can never have it again, the end. It absolutely broke me when I was in high school.

[sovay]

Out of curiosity, how does it end? I don't mind spoilers for this particular thing.

Cat, having had the chance to visit the Hydran homeworld, fall in love with a Hydran woman who is canonically his soulmate, have his telepathy reawakened by the peculiar geography of the planet, ends up in the middle of a terrorist situation which is part of a wider power game played by one of the brutal corporations which own all of Vinge's futures and loses everything, most painfully access to the planet where he can be his own healed self with the woman he loves. There's the slenderest filament of hope that his soulmate will be able to hack the system so that someday he can return, but it's literally the last thing Cat thinks of as the bond between them dissolves into distance from the cloud-reefs and the numbing scar tissue of his psi, leaving him with a job offer from the FTA and a bunch of existential thoughts about impermanence and everyone's dreams ending up as lost refuse out of which the best we can hope is that strangers might take comfort or history. The last line of the book and therefore the series as it stands is "The world was called Refuge, but I couldn't imagine why."

[sovay]

I still don't know if Adult Sholio would agree with Teenage Sholio's opinions on him, but I did like him in Tangled Up In Blue!

If I ever get my library out of storage, I'll give it another try!

[yhlee]

I actually was not a fan of Gundhalinu but I also came to Snow Queen when I was like...twelve? ten? so my taste in characters was pretty ridiculous. I do remember years later TRYING to get into Summer Queen despite loving Snow Queen to pieces and finding Summer Queen a gigantic depressing slog. Summer Queen has a subplot in which a woman and a man were childhood friends; they get married; it turns out that the man is gay but married her anyway; he had a bunch of affairs with other men; she finds out because she was faithful to him but he gave her like...some STD, it was gonorrhea or syphilis or something, and she knew that because she was a doctor. I think it says something that there was some kind of epic Kalevala reference plot etc. but the main thing that I remember was the super depressing STD infidelity "bad gay husband" subplot.

[sholio]

I'm vastly relieved that I'm not the only person who bounced off Summer Queen and in fact it sounds like there were good reasons for that, LOLLLLLLWUT. I just could never get into it and in fact tried again relatively recently and STILL found it terribly slow-paced and not very engaging. I definitely did not manage to get to the gay husband syphilis subplot and once again, WUT.

[yhlee]

Honest to God I tried to read it three times at various ages and just could. not. get. into. the. damn. thing despite the awfulness of Unfaithful Gay Husband Syphilis, ZOMG. I hated that subplot like burning.

[sovay]

I think it says something that there was some kind of epic Kalevala reference plot etc. but the main thing that I remember was the super depressing STD infidelity "bad gay husband" subplot.

It sounds memorable in the worst way.

[yhlee]

There was also a quasiliterate thug assassin possessed by the spirit of Vainamoinen from the Kalevala (I hope I'm spelling that right) but he managed to be completely boring and I have no idea HOW. Usually characters possessed by other characters/ghosts/personalities are my catnip and I couldn't even stay awake for his POV.

[philomytha]

I mostly remember these books because of all the Gundhalinu whump - I can't remember anything at all about any of the plots, but I do remember that Vinge was fairly reliable about doing increasingly unpleasant things to Gundhalinu and that I approved of this choice... the truth serum, and I think there might have been something involving travelling through a desert? and probably other things as well.

[sholio]

She definitely goes for the Gundhalinu whump. I also approve, although the number of times the poor guy got beat up, stunned, blown up, given PTSD from seeing people blown up, etc in this book - mostly in the background while plot was happening to other people - was ... a lot, and this is all the stuff that happened to him even before he got to Snow Queen and his life really went to hell!

[arduinna]

I don't think Cherryh has a waif setting.

♥ ♥ ♥

[sholio]

It was actually kind of an interesting thing to realize, reading this book, that I had never really pinged on before, but Cherryh just doesn't write female characters who are like that; even when they're destiny's chew-toy, as her characters often are, they're still extremely tough and strong-willed and a bit cynical. She writes male waifs instead, LOL.

[yhlee]

She writes male waifs instead, LOL.

Oh God, now I see Justin from Cyteen as a male waif AND I CANNOT UNSEE IT, damn your eyes. XD

[snazana]

It’s been decades since I read World’s End, but twenty-five year old me liked it quite a lot. It’s a Gundhalinu story, and it went places I wasn’t expecting. Also, the book is less than 300 pages long. It might be up your alley.

The Snow Queen is one of my all time favorite books, and young me liked World’s End even better. I’ve never reread The Summer Queen, although I did make it all the way through.

I spent a couple of hours talking with Joan Vinge at a convention once and she was lovely. She did a reading at that con of Tangled Up in Blue. When I finally read the book for myself, I kept hearing the words in her voice, which made it hard for me to get into.

[sholio]

Oh, that sounds lovely to have been able to meet her!

I'll have to keep an eye out for that book; thanks for the heads up! I had thought for a long time that Snow Queen and Summer Queen were all there was of the series.

[st_aurafina]

I've never read either them, but I do remember the cover art on the paperbacks were just beautiful. Tall feathered masks, really lovely.

[sholio]

Yes! They have truly gorgeous covers.

[ellenmillion]

I remember buying Summer Queen for the cover and...nothing else about it, so either I didn't make it through, either, or it did not stick to me at ALL.

[sholio]

It does have a very lovely cover! In fact I have a book of Michael Whalen art around here somewhere with accompanying postcards (it was a Kickstarter) and I think his covers for the series are included.

[viridian5]

I have two books of Michael Whelan art. (My default userpic is his work.) He got me to buy a lot of books in the '80s and '90s.

[cornerofmadness]

It's been so long since I've read those books but yes I do remember a lot of the same themes between Vinge and Cherryh's books. The one series I really liked was Psion/Catspaw and then she revisited it a decade later and completely undid everything the character stood for...

[sholio]

Yeah, people were talking about those above - it does sound like the series fell down a hole eventually!

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah sadly the decade later sequel was something I ended up DNFing because of what she did to poor Cat

[loligo]

Also another Snow Queen fan who never made it through Summer Queen...

[sholio]

A common problem, it's starting to look like! At least it wasn't just me.

[alessandriana]

Her Cat series is one of my favorites (solid whump, though light on the comfort part of h/c), but I've tried to get into the -Queen books several times and just never quite made it. I think I've been carrying those books around through several moves as well.

I remember I emailed her on her website in ~2007 and got a response from her husband. Apparently she was in some kind of bad car accident and that's why she hasn't written since. :\

[sholio]

Oh, that's really sad!

But yeah, at some point I figure it's time to just give up on a book, accept that I'm never going to read it or at the very least I can always buy it again if I want to, and move on.