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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
This book has everything. Snake healing! Giant albino villains! Radioactive wastelands!
I picked up Dreamsnake when news of the death of its author, Vonda Neel McIntyre, reached me. I had not heard of her but the fact that this novel won a Hugo, Locus AND Nebula award back in the late 70's made me keen to check it out.
Dreamsnake tells the story of the healer "Snake" (there's a reason, albeit not a great one, that she's named that) as she roams post-nuclear-apocalypse Earth somewhen in the far future. The future of Dreamsnake is a similar one to the Star Wars future, wherein lies super-duper advanced technology that can turn snakes into gene-scanning bio-replicators and people do manual genesplicing with microscopes but, at the same time, everyone gets around on horses and spends a bunch of time herding animals in the desert and not being entirely sure how to rise beyond the basic blacksmithing level. It's not the most terrible thing in the world, but I found it a little distracting at times.
Anyway, Snake's been trained up as a healer, equipped with a set of the aforementioned scanner-snakes and is out on-duty, healing all those who require healing. She's out in the desert and attempts to help out a sick child but, whilst dealing with the child, someone with a bit of a snake phobia (that's called ophiophobia it turns out) feels the need to kill the anaesthetic snake, Grass, who was left looking after the child and thus Snake the human becomes a crippled healer, Grass the snake becomes dead and our story kicks off.
Snake goes on a massive guilt-trip about being Grass being killed whilst in her custody because, apart from being a requisite third of the traditional healer triptych of snakes, Grass was also a very rare type of snake the loss of which could lead to the expulsion of Snake from her order. Thus, Snake goes into self-imposed exile whilst trying to work out some way to make amends for the loss of Grass.
What follows is a somewhat whacky set of wanderings through what I felt were somewhat Tolkeinesque landscapes where Snake (the very much good person in this story) proceeds to right all wrongs that she encounters, whilst being a little moody about being 2/3 of a healer.
There's not a whole lot of nuance to the characters: there's Snake, angsty healer and doer of right, doing right to a bunch of naive (or, I feel more likely, realistically-portrayed) villagers turning a blind eye to wrongs that don't directly affect their lives. The right-doing just kinda happens by default as Snake thrashes around attempting to work out how to replace Grass because she's exceptionally even-minded and fair.
Then we have Arevin, the "POW!! You're a love interest character!" whom drops out of the sky at the appropriate time to setup a sub-plot. He's one of the desert dwellers (part of the clan that killed Grass) and who feels that Snake is being overly self-recriminating (correct!) and that his clan is far more to blame than she. He is also instantly besotted with Snake (and vice versa) but there's more angst to this love story and Snake bails on her Grass-replacement adventure while Arevin pines at home...or does he?
There's a pretty big supporting cast after that, but those two are the main plot-bearers, at least until midway through the book when we get a new sub-plot and a couple of characters out of it whom I shan't describe because spoilers.
I found the overall pacing a little bit slow but the last third of the book took a delightfully adventurous and swashbuckling turn as Snake (finally!) takes life by the scruff of the neck and gives it a damn good shake. I was reminded quite a bit of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom actually (which came after this book, just to be clear)!
One other thing to mention, this book was published in 1978 and features a lot of leading female characters, not the least of which is Snake. This doesn't really raise (much) of an eyebrow in these semi-enlightened times but (as confirmed in an interview with Ms McIntyre: https://io9.gizmodo.com/feminism-astronauts-and-riding-sidesaddle-talking-to-30859488) it was very much a thing back then. You can take it in your stride now as just a part of the plot, just another thinking (as opposed to "kill them all") style sci-fi story but if you read enough really old sci-fi then you can see the break from the pattern.
Overall, the story told here is pretty interesting (even if it is a bit circuitous and angsty) and there's a bunch of fun to be had!
Dreamsnake tells the story of the healer "Snake" (there's a reason, albeit not a great one, that she's named that) as she roams post-nuclear-apocalypse Earth somewhen in the far future. The future of Dreamsnake is a similar one to the Star Wars future, wherein lies super-duper advanced technology that can turn snakes into gene-scanning bio-replicators and people do manual genesplicing with microscopes but, at the same time, everyone gets around on horses and spends a bunch of time herding animals in the desert and not being entirely sure how to rise beyond the basic blacksmithing level. It's not the most terrible thing in the world, but I found it a little distracting at times.
Anyway, Snake's been trained up as a healer, equipped with a set of the aforementioned scanner-snakes and is out on-duty, healing all those who require healing. She's out in the desert and attempts to help out a sick child but, whilst dealing with the child, someone with a bit of a snake phobia (that's called ophiophobia it turns out) feels the need to kill the anaesthetic snake, Grass, who was left looking after the child and thus Snake the human becomes a crippled healer, Grass the snake becomes dead and our story kicks off.
Snake goes on a massive guilt-trip about being Grass being killed whilst in her custody because, apart from being a requisite third of the traditional healer triptych of snakes, Grass was also a very rare type of snake the loss of which could lead to the expulsion of Snake from her order. Thus, Snake goes into self-imposed exile whilst trying to work out some way to make amends for the loss of Grass.
What follows is a somewhat whacky set of wanderings through what I felt were somewhat Tolkeinesque landscapes where Snake (the very much good person in this story) proceeds to right all wrongs that she encounters, whilst being a little moody about being 2/3 of a healer.
There's not a whole lot of nuance to the characters: there's Snake, angsty healer and doer of right, doing right to a bunch of naive (or, I feel more likely, realistically-portrayed) villagers turning a blind eye to wrongs that don't directly affect their lives. The right-doing just kinda happens by default as Snake thrashes around attempting to work out how to replace Grass because she's exceptionally even-minded and fair.
Then we have Arevin, the "POW!! You're a love interest character!" whom drops out of the sky at the appropriate time to setup a sub-plot. He's one of the desert dwellers (part of the clan that killed Grass) and who feels that Snake is being overly self-recriminating (correct!) and that his clan is far more to blame than she. He is also instantly besotted with Snake (and vice versa) but there's more angst to this love story and Snake bails on her Grass-replacement adventure while Arevin pines at home...or does he?
There's a pretty big supporting cast after that, but those two are the main plot-bearers, at least until midway through the book when we get a new sub-plot and a couple of characters out of it whom I shan't describe because spoilers.
I found the overall pacing a little bit slow but the last third of the book took a delightfully adventurous and swashbuckling turn as Snake (finally!) takes life by the scruff of the neck and gives it a damn good shake. I was reminded quite a bit of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom actually (which came after this book, just to be clear)!
One other thing to mention, this book was published in 1978 and features a lot of leading female characters, not the least of which is Snake. This doesn't really raise (much) of an eyebrow in these semi-enlightened times but (as confirmed in an interview with Ms McIntyre: https://io9.gizmodo.com/feminism-astronauts-and-riding-sidesaddle-talking-to-30859488) it was very much a thing back then. You can take it in your stride now as just a part of the plot, just another thinking (as opposed to "kill them all") style sci-fi story but if you read enough really old sci-fi then you can see the break from the pattern.
Overall, the story told here is pretty interesting (even if it is a bit circuitous and angsty) and there's a bunch of fun to be had!
Picked this one up in a used book store jam packed with musty paperbacks. My expectations were low but I found it a surprisingly enjoyable read. Yes to women sci-fi authors writing about women (especially in the 70s).
3/3.5
Interesting premise but I didn't care for the romance.
Interesting premise but I didn't care for the romance.
A little bland and slow moving. Not sure what the point was.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I first read this book back in the 70s and loved it then, reading it now, it is still as fascinating as it was then with great characters and amazing world building. Snake is a great lead character. As a healer in a dystopian society, she travels around with her snakes in what passes for doctors in the distant future. The different people she runs into run the gamut of desert nomad bands to snobbish mountain dwellers to paranoid city dwellers, and even an alien landscape and strange man who attempts to kill her.
Join Snake on her adventures as she travels this new landscape. You won't be sorry.
Join Snake on her adventures as she travels this new landscape. You won't be sorry.
Hugo Readthrough continues.
I'm giving this 2 stars merely because my opinion may be clouded by not being a fanatsy person.
This book, took me forever to read. I jeppt putting it down, and my partner would bring it to me like 'why haven't you just given up' 'I found this fallen behind the trash can, are you trying to say something?'. So with the looming new year I finally buckled down and finished it.
What can I say?
This book is dull, dull, dull. Originally a short story that she expanded, this shows exactly how not to expand a short story. Of the hugo winners so far Leiber has made it on to my official 'garbage list' and I actually liked 'They'd rather be right'. This book is so amateurly written it*s painful.
The characters are boring, hollow, and 2d. The setting is an attempt at throwing you into a post apocalyptic borderline fantasy world (I swear the time it takes to travel from city to city changed each chapter). However her ability just couldn't do it any justice. The plot was incredibly disjointed, and ultimately read likr a series of short stories. The most interesting of which was probably the finale.
Also, and this may be a time period thing, it was awkwardly sexual. I don't mind sex in books, but this was a little too heavy with just, awkward sex, the whole world in this learn how to control their fertility and attend sexual training at a young age. A few times I was convinced she wanted to write a romance novel. I'm pretty sure the moral of the book is that we need to be.more sexually open amd understanding (I get it I'm GGG, but this was literally the point it hinted at).
The plot is that in a post apocalyptic world, far past the event of apocalypse, the world has turned into a series of villages and nomadic tribes. One of the more interesting concepts is that one city still has a lot of technologies, and hoards them, and cuts themselves off. Oh and they're inbred and talk to aliens. This, some hints at radiation, and another lrelic of the past are where the scifi ends for the most part. There are nomadic healers that travel the world with their snakes that they use to create medicine to heal peolple. We follow the aptlg named Snake, as she goes ou to more isolated tribes and her most important snake, tve dreamsnake (alien?) get's killed and she goes on a journey to find another. Along the way, we get like 50 pages of her helping a girl with two lovers and a broken back, 50 to an old man whose a jerk, a sexually untrained guy that she sleeps with randomly, a sexually abused little girl (that she offers to show why sex can be fun....) like 50 a junkie, and a underdeveloped, quickly written cultist. The rest is the set up, and travelling. I might be forgetting something due to my break. Oh also a love story we're somehow supposed to care about. Oh, and Snake is perfect in all ways but acts like she's a failure. Plus the ultimate revelation is so simple and just doesn't feel believable. If dreamsnakes are so important, that if you lose yours ypu can't be a healer anymore, then you'd think the healers would thoroughly study them...
Over all, it bored me to.death. It took the longest to read, and while I HATE Lieber... this gets pretty close to being my least favorite winner...
I'm giving this 2 stars merely because my opinion may be clouded by not being a fanatsy person.
This book, took me forever to read. I jeppt putting it down, and my partner would bring it to me like 'why haven't you just given up' 'I found this fallen behind the trash can, are you trying to say something?'. So with the looming new year I finally buckled down and finished it.
What can I say?
This book is dull, dull, dull. Originally a short story that she expanded, this shows exactly how not to expand a short story. Of the hugo winners so far Leiber has made it on to my official 'garbage list' and I actually liked 'They'd rather be right'. This book is so amateurly written it*s painful.
The characters are boring, hollow, and 2d. The setting is an attempt at throwing you into a post apocalyptic borderline fantasy world (I swear the time it takes to travel from city to city changed each chapter). However her ability just couldn't do it any justice. The plot was incredibly disjointed, and ultimately read likr a series of short stories. The most interesting of which was probably the finale.
Also, and this may be a time period thing, it was awkwardly sexual. I don't mind sex in books, but this was a little too heavy with just, awkward sex, the whole world in this learn how to control their fertility and attend sexual training at a young age. A few times I was convinced she wanted to write a romance novel. I'm pretty sure the moral of the book is that we need to be.more sexually open amd understanding (I get it I'm GGG, but this was literally the point it hinted at).
The plot is that in a post apocalyptic world, far past the event of apocalypse, the world has turned into a series of villages and nomadic tribes. One of the more interesting concepts is that one city still has a lot of technologies, and hoards them, and cuts themselves off. Oh and they're inbred and talk to aliens. This, some hints at radiation, and another lrelic of the past are where the scifi ends for the most part. There are nomadic healers that travel the world with their snakes that they use to create medicine to heal peolple. We follow the aptlg named Snake, as she goes ou to more isolated tribes and her most important snake, tve dreamsnake (alien?) get's killed and she goes on a journey to find another. Along the way, we get like 50 pages of her helping a girl with two lovers and a broken back, 50 to an old man whose a jerk, a sexually untrained guy that she sleeps with randomly, a sexually abused little girl (that she offers to show why sex can be fun....) like 50 a junkie, and a underdeveloped, quickly written cultist. The rest is the set up, and travelling. I might be forgetting something due to my break. Oh also a love story we're somehow supposed to care about. Oh, and Snake is perfect in all ways but acts like she's a failure. Plus the ultimate revelation is so simple and just doesn't feel believable. If dreamsnakes are so important, that if you lose yours ypu can't be a healer anymore, then you'd think the healers would thoroughly study them...
Over all, it bored me to.death. It took the longest to read, and while I HATE Lieber... this gets pretty close to being my least favorite winner...
Snakes are part of the healing process and are crucial to the work of healers in this novel, particularly the type called "dreamsnake", whose bite soothes the pain of patients. Dreamsnakes are rare though, and so it is heartbreaking when Snake (who earned her name for being such a good healer) loses her dreamsnake to prejudice and misunderstanding. Her mission becomes not only gaining a new dreamsnake, but trying to go to the source of dreamsnakes and to possibly find a way to breed them more effectively. During her journey, she will keep healing and saving people, reluctantly leaving some behind while bringing others along with her, but she will also risk her life more than once, as a mysterious person seems to be bent on harming her and robbing her of all her valuables. All the mysteries are explained and revealed in the final part of this very engaging and fantastic novel. Against all odds, with her friends' help, Snake finds the key to solve her people's problems and to help the whole world. Quite a good novel, mixing different genres and ending on a positive note.