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A review by mburnamfink
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
1.0
One of the blurbs on the back from Frank Herbert describes this book as "readable", and it is just about that, in the sense that Keystone Light is "drinkable" or Taco Bell "edible." Treacly characters, flopsy world-building, and shoddy writing combine for a book that is just embarrassing. What do I mean?
In a post-apocalyptic Earth, ravaged by nuclear war and contact with aliens, Snake is a Healer who used advanced biotechnology in the form of altered snake venom to cure disease. The dreamsnake is a strange alien creature, with a mind-altering bite that brings painless death to those who cannot be cured. Crude and superstitious herders kill Snake's precious dreamsnake, and so she wanders around the wasteland helping out people and trying to find another dreamsnake. Snake is really just the best. She cares about everybody: Snake does what she can for an prospector with a broken back, teaches a nervous young man about love, saves a dying lord, rescues a child from a sexually abusive guardian, fulfills a dying wish, helps an addict, and breaks up a cult that is abusing the powers of the dreamsnake, before finding Tru Wuv. She rides a fancy racehorse when she's not riding the tiger-striped pony she genetically engineered. But Snake's not perfect: she just cares so much it makes her tired and lonely; but she'd never abuse her healing powers in the wasteland for personal benefit; and sometimes she hurts from arthritis brought on by her snake-venom-juiced immune system.
The wasteland is the nicest post-apocalypse I've seen, with honest tribes of nomads, peaceful and prosperous cities, and the right craftsman when you need one. The only hints of conflict or desperation come from Central City, the sole humans who trade with aliens who are divided into paranoid clans. Of course, Snake doesn't actually go into Central City, or interact with them beyond the gatekeeper, because conflict isn't interesting or something. By the way, accidental pregnancy (and related drama) is avoided through "biocontrol" techniques that are explained in detail during awkward sex scenes. The atomic apocalypse, the aliens, the hints of more advanced technologies and hidden schools of esoteric knowledge, seem to be cargo culted from the genre at large rather than included for any actual reason. The seemingly benevolent Healers, like Snake, limit their numbers to the scarce dreamsnakes, rather than using their "mundane" techniques like tumor-melting vipers and vaccine-producing rattlesnakes, to serve as many people as possible. Some humanitarians!
As for the writing, it is overall juvenile, and in places cringe-worthy. And even though the language is simple, it's unclear in critical descriptions of action and physicality. I found myself flipping back a page to check where people were relative to each other, and who had been shot with a crossbow, multiple times. A few nice descriptions of deserts can't save this. The idea of the dreamsnake is woefully underused. We're told Snake needs one to be a healer, but she gets on perfectly well saving lives without one for the entire novel. Compared to other Hugo stinkers, Fritz Lieber at least writes with energy, and the ponderous psuedo-intellectualism of "yeast vat accident Mark Clifton’s They’d Rather Be Right" (props to Scott Lynch) fit the scope of the topics. Dreamsnake can't even live up to it's meager ambitions.
On an interesting historical note, 4 of the 5 Hugo nominees this year were women, with Vonda McIntyre, Ann McCaffrey, C.J. Cherryh, and a withdrawn entry from James Tiptree Jr. Both McCaffrey and Cherryh submitted the third book in a trilogy, which may have hurt their chances in the voting. Neither are my favorite authors, but they have to be better than this book.
In a post-apocalyptic Earth, ravaged by nuclear war and contact with aliens, Snake is a Healer who used advanced biotechnology in the form of altered snake venom to cure disease. The dreamsnake is a strange alien creature, with a mind-altering bite that brings painless death to those who cannot be cured. Crude and superstitious herders kill Snake's precious dreamsnake, and so she wanders around the wasteland helping out people and trying to find another dreamsnake. Snake is really just the best. She cares about everybody: Snake does what she can for an prospector with a broken back, teaches a nervous young man about love, saves a dying lord, rescues a child from a sexually abusive guardian, fulfills a dying wish, helps an addict, and breaks up a cult that is abusing the powers of the dreamsnake, before finding Tru Wuv. She rides a fancy racehorse when she's not riding the tiger-striped pony she genetically engineered. But Snake's not perfect: she just cares so much it makes her tired and lonely; but she'd never abuse her healing powers in the wasteland for personal benefit; and sometimes she hurts from arthritis brought on by her snake-venom-juiced immune system.
The wasteland is the nicest post-apocalypse I've seen, with honest tribes of nomads, peaceful and prosperous cities, and the right craftsman when you need one. The only hints of conflict or desperation come from Central City, the sole humans who trade with aliens who are divided into paranoid clans. Of course, Snake doesn't actually go into Central City, or interact with them beyond the gatekeeper, because conflict isn't interesting or something. By the way, accidental pregnancy (and related drama) is avoided through "biocontrol" techniques that are explained in detail during awkward sex scenes. The atomic apocalypse, the aliens, the hints of more advanced technologies and hidden schools of esoteric knowledge, seem to be cargo culted from the genre at large rather than included for any actual reason. The seemingly benevolent Healers, like Snake, limit their numbers to the scarce dreamsnakes, rather than using their "mundane" techniques like tumor-melting vipers and vaccine-producing rattlesnakes, to serve as many people as possible. Some humanitarians!
As for the writing, it is overall juvenile, and in places cringe-worthy. And even though the language is simple, it's unclear in critical descriptions of action and physicality. I found myself flipping back a page to check where people were relative to each other, and who had been shot with a crossbow, multiple times. A few nice descriptions of deserts can't save this. The idea of the dreamsnake is woefully underused. We're told Snake needs one to be a healer, but she gets on perfectly well saving lives without one for the entire novel. Compared to other Hugo stinkers, Fritz Lieber at least writes with energy, and the ponderous psuedo-intellectualism of "yeast vat accident Mark Clifton’s They’d Rather Be Right" (props to Scott Lynch) fit the scope of the topics. Dreamsnake can't even live up to it's meager ambitions.
On an interesting historical note, 4 of the 5 Hugo nominees this year were women, with Vonda McIntyre, Ann McCaffrey, C.J. Cherryh, and a withdrawn entry from James Tiptree Jr. Both McCaffrey and Cherryh submitted the third book in a trilogy, which may have hurt their chances in the voting. Neither are my favorite authors, but they have to be better than this book.