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A review by msgtdameron
Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin
5.0
This is Sorokin's best work that I've read. This work covers 70 years of a group of beings of light who four billion years ago created earth and got trapped on it. During the story both the people of light and us humans have radical waking dreams of both the near and far future and the near and far past. Sorokin also has a under current of population ecology in that the 23000 light people will make the earth melt back into the cosmos. Or another way, there's to many people on the planet and that's bad. We humans are described as meat sacks with out hearts. We are conceived in an act of violence, born through pain, live in a world filled with pain that other meat sacks have created for us, meet other meat sacks who we commit the act of violence with, collect money and precious metals, build stone caves, exist until we stop pumping blood. While doing all these violent acts we fight, kill, attack both our fellow meat sacks and the natural world around us. While in the world of light people talk with their hearts and their is no violence against each other. Violence against meat sacks that get in the way of finding other brothers and sisters of the ice/light is OK. This could be seen as a call to stop the destruction of earth and her resources through mining, over fishing, unsustainable land use, polluting the atmosphere warming the atmosphere. overpopulation, uncontrolled greed, lack of social conscience basically the entire Paulininen play book as put forward by the extreme right in this and other countries. THIS LAST PART CONTAINS SPOLIERS SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT THE ENDING, CLOSE THIS SCREEN.
Moving on. The ending is not what one expects by the end. The reader is cheering for the destruction of the earth because that's what the people of the ice/light want, but as humans we don't want our earth to be destroyed. So in the end the final circle is formed with 23,000 brothers and sisters of the Ice/Light and two who did not pass the test of ice. The earth is still their 23,000 light/ice people are dead and our two that failed the test are exhausted but alive. Three ways this gets here that I can figure out. One: While the children of the light created earth and it was a mistake and they were caught here they also created the laws of biology. The Law of Evolution created us, humans. As Voltaire said, "If God did not exist man would have created him." SO the humans the Ice/Light people created, created God and that God became more powerful than the Ice/Light or the Cosmos. This could be where Sorokin is going. He has one of the people of the Ice with a Oh S&%T look on his face such as would happen when what you expected to happen did not. Option two: This is another Ice/Light dream of what happened for the two who were not part of the 23,000 and were just failed tests. As I said through out both humans and Ice people have dreams of the past, present , and future. This may be a gift from the Ice/Light to these two for helping the Ice/Light people come back to the Cosmos as light photons. The gift being that in the last few moments before the Earth disintegrates or melts they live the rest of their lives prior to becoming cosmic dust. Option three: The light left the 23,000 and returned them to the Cosmos. But the light also left the Earth as it is and the Cosmos will work around it. That the earth was not destroyed but the people of Ice/Light had their lights sucked into the Cosmos and home thus leaving behind the Ice/Light peoples bags of meat. All three could be were Sorokin was going. Or maybe he just left the reason for the ending up to the reader. Any way this is a Great Book and if you like Russian Sci-Fi it's a must read.
Moving on. The ending is not what one expects by the end. The reader is cheering for the destruction of the earth because that's what the people of the ice/light want, but as humans we don't want our earth to be destroyed. So in the end the final circle is formed with 23,000 brothers and sisters of the Ice/Light and two who did not pass the test of ice. The earth is still their 23,000 light/ice people are dead and our two that failed the test are exhausted but alive. Three ways this gets here that I can figure out. One: While the children of the light created earth and it was a mistake and they were caught here they also created the laws of biology. The Law of Evolution created us, humans. As Voltaire said, "If God did not exist man would have created him." SO the humans the Ice/Light people created, created God and that God became more powerful than the Ice/Light or the Cosmos. This could be where Sorokin is going. He has one of the people of the Ice with a Oh S&%T look on his face such as would happen when what you expected to happen did not. Option two: This is another Ice/Light dream of what happened for the two who were not part of the 23,000 and were just failed tests. As I said through out both humans and Ice people have dreams of the past, present , and future. This may be a gift from the Ice/Light to these two for helping the Ice/Light people come back to the Cosmos as light photons. The gift being that in the last few moments before the Earth disintegrates or melts they live the rest of their lives prior to becoming cosmic dust. Option three: The light left the 23,000 and returned them to the Cosmos. But the light also left the Earth as it is and the Cosmos will work around it. That the earth was not destroyed but the people of Ice/Light had their lights sucked into the Cosmos and home thus leaving behind the Ice/Light peoples bags of meat. All three could be were Sorokin was going. Or maybe he just left the reason for the ending up to the reader. Any way this is a Great Book and if you like Russian Sci-Fi it's a must read.