Because our little corner of the universe is covered in snow, we decided to ask our Twitter followers to name as many snow planets as they could as fast as possible. Everyone knows Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back, but what else is there?
Here’s what happened when we crowd-sourced freezing worlds:
User NAS482 on Twitter asked, “does Winter count?” [From The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.] It’s really cold there. And Ursula K. Le Guin is tops. You bet.
Delta Vega from the new Star Trek. Never mind how close it orbits to Vulcan, or the whole thing about Vulcan supposedly having no moons, or the fact that it was actually a totally different planet in the original series. Look! Snow!!
(Thanks csilibrarian and abaddondave)
Rura Penthe from Star Trek VI and Enterprise
Speaking of cold Star Trek planets visited by Kirk (and Archer, too!) We can’t forget Pura Penthe. We know it’s not technically a planet, but rather an asteroid, but come on.
The Planet of the Ood from Doctor Who
It may be cold on the Planet of the Ood, but those folks sure can carry a tune! And they have a giant brain there, too.
Darkover from The Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley
It’s a planet stuck in a neverending ice age! Thanks to Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) for reminding us of this one!
How many snow/ice planets have we missed?
Akkabarr, the planet on which most of Rebel Ice takes place ( book 5 of S.L. Viehl’s Stardoc series).
I think the Stargate episode where they were convinced they’d landed on an ice planet deserves a bonus mention, even if it did turn out to be Antarctica.
Tran-Ky-Ky from Alan Dean Foster’s _Icerigger_.
Stargate Universe had an Ice Planet in the episode “Water.”
Oh, and the ice planet in the old Battlestar Galactica episode
“Gun on Ice Planet Zero”…
No, I didn’t remember the name of that episode – Wikipedia came to my rescue.
Sol Draconi Septum from Dan Simmons’ Endymion (and perhaps even briefly in Hyperion). Inhospitable frozen planet where local sentients live in tunnels under the ice.
R
Hey, this is fun :)
Helliconia, in the right season…
The Stargate episode ‘Beneath the Surface’ also has a snow planet, though its name escapes me at present.
Having done two theses discussing Ursula Le Guin (and other wonderful SF writers), I think she’s tops too!
Not really a planet but there is Kyril Island base above the Arctic Circle on Barryar in Bujold’s The Vor Game.
Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton has a snow planet where the Silfen hunt ice whales.
There’s also the asteroid from Alistair Reynolds’ Pushing Ice
does Earth in the movie Sunshine count?
U.V.6 from the opening sequence of ‘Chronicles of Riddick’.
I’d count Earth, in that classic Fritz Leiber story, “A Pail of Air.”
Robert Silverberg’s ‘Time of the Great Freeze’.
The past Spock travels to in the Star Trek episode ‘All Our Yeaterdays’.
There is the Jaghut warren of Omtose Phellack–The Hold of Ice, in Steven Erikson’s Malazan series.
If we allow Earth, then I nominate Fritz Leiber’s “A Pail of Air”:
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6.htm
Oops, Otter B. @15 beat me to it.
Sorry, didn’t mean to post a dupe.
Dezoris in the classic video game Phantasy Star.
Several more snowy/icy planets from Doctor Who-Ribos from “The Ribos Operation”, a planet whose society was similar to 12th century Russia, stuck in the middle of a 32-year winter; Nekros, planet of mourning (and secret refuge of Davros) from “Revelation of the Daleks”; Svartos, home of the exiled alien criminal Kane’s Iceworld base in “Dragonfire”; Earth itself, stuck in the middle of a new Ice Age in “The Ice Warriors” as well as the setting of Antarctica in “The Seeds of Doom”. Can’t think of any others off the top of my head at the moment.
An obscure but personal favorite of mine is Tharkad, capital world of the Lyran Alliance in the universe of the battletech tabletop war game and its expanded fiction universe.
Pluto in Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit; Will Travel
almuric @23: d’oh! Can’t believe I forgot Pluto. I just reread that book after the Heinlein juveniles came up in Jo Walton’s rereads, too…
Well… ok so it isn’t really a planet… but a tasty, snow-ball looking, improbably made dessert… the Ice Planet from Firefly.
ah’hem
Pluto is not a planet.
(Now running for saftey.)
And again, not so much a planet, but if asteroids can count, how about Frigia, from Flash Gordon :-) the floating ice kingdom of Mongo.
New Syrtis also from the Battletech universe is a frozen planet
We just had a post about The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and yet you forgot Narnia? Always winter and never Christmas!
EE Smith’s Palain IV (Lensman series)
James Blish’s Jupiter (“Bridge,” They Shall Have Stars)
Denali from Julian May’s Saga of the Exiles / Galactic Milieu books (the icy home of Elizabeth Orme). A skier’s paradise, apparently.
There’s that planet the agent known as Cheradenine Zakalwe, better forgotten as Elethiomel the Chairmaker, was fighting on, just before Diziet Sma recruited him for The Culture’s Special Circumstances – you remember, his own crew got sick of him, bashed him up and tossed him out into a subzero blizzard … the book? Iain M Banks’ Use of Weapons.
Lankiveil, home of the fur whales, from the Expanded Dune series.
Is there too much snow to compile the final ranking for the Best SFF Nocels of the Decade Reader Poll?! We are waaaaiting!!!
32: not an ice world; he was just living in an airbase built on top of a tabular iceberg.
So, ice worlds:
Europa: 2001, 2010 etc.
Diadem, in the Alistair Reynolds short story “Glacial” – the world with the little worms that burrow through the ice and leave trails for each other.
The unnamed ice planet that the crew crash on in “Red Dwarf: Marooned”.
Schar’s World, in “Consider Phlebas”.
The frozen Earth in Michael Moorcock’s”The Ice Schooner”.
Half of Mercury, in Niven’s “The Coldest Place”, and all of Pluto, in “World of Ptavvs”.
I seem to remember Leigh Bracket’s Skaith was an ice planet.
There’s Dhrawn from Hal Clement’s Starlight. A great piece of worldbuilding, near to his Mission of Gravity…
Here’s an very cold planet that I can’t forget from Kevin J Anderson’s Saga of the Seven Suns.
Plumas – An ice-bound planet where Roamer operated water mines are located. Run by the Tamblyn clan, the main settlement on Plumas was deep under the icy surface in caverns lit by artificial suns.
PS. Roamers Rule!
Aquaria/Aquarion in the Reimaged Battlestar Galactica is a frozen ice planet populated by scientists and hippies according to Bob Harris’ “Beyond Caprica: A Guide to the 12 Colonies’.
The world in J.V. Jones’ Sword of Shadows series is arctic, and Brian Ruckley’s Godless World may count as winter world as well. And what about the lands north of GRR Martin’s Wall? :)
In Arthur Clarke’s short story “History Lesson” the earth almost completely freezes over. And in the epilogue of his novel “Fountains of Paradise” the earth has also frozen over (temporarily in this case).
Andoria, as well as most of the Andorian colonies in Star Trek Enterprise, should make the list.
All is relative, I nominate Earth in Hal Clement’s Iceworld
Helliconia Spring – at least, the first part of it; and Helliconia Winter.
a rather obscure, but entertaining Children’s fantasy series has another one: Garth Nix’s The Seventh Tower. his planet is “the dark world” and due to the existence of a magical veil blocking the sun, the inhabited world is perpetually encased in freezing, icy darkness.
Don’t forget Marta Randall’s _The Sword of Winter_.
USS Voyager crashes on a snow planet in episode Timeless
If computer games count for this, there’s Noveria of Mass Effect. (The fact that it’s barely habitable by the standards of most of the sentient species in the game, and therefore not terribly desirable as territory, is actually a plot point.)
Ultima Thule was an early stopover for the travelers on Moonbase Alpha (Space: 1999; Death’s Other Dominion).