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A review by pezski
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
4.0
One of those SF books I've been long aware of but have never got around to, Dreamsnake is the tale of a woman called Snake, a healer who travels a blasted, post-apocalyptic landscape offering her services where they are needed, partly via means of genetically engineered serpents which can synthesise cures to ailments and then inject them by biting the patients. When the rarest of her three snakes is killed she sets out to redeem herself for what she sees as an irreplaceable loss that she has caused.
The world is well rendered, the apocalypse there as a fact, some indefinable time in the (distant?) past, complete with areas of deadly radiation and strange (alien?) plants and humanity scattered into tribes with their own traditions and cultures that warily trade with each other via wandering caravans. It feels small, this world, with travel only possible on foot or horseback and, while there is a definite sense of danger, most of the world seems to have settled into a relatively safe equilibrium. One where the young woman snake feels that she can travel alone in safety, protected only by the regard people have for her profession. While we do realise that Snake is somewhat naive, this is certainly not [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320606344s/6288.jpg|3355573], or even [b:A Canticle for Leibowitz|164154|A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1)|Walter M. Miller Jr.|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329408540s/164154.jpg|250975]. The people we see generally cope well, in small communities, with their agrarian or small-town lives. I'm sure this could be criticised as overly optimistic, although we have no idea how long humanity has had to settle into this after the devastation, and we do see an example later on of those who have coped less well.
What McIntyre does very well is her characters, which are drawn vividly with economy and grace (a good description of her writing overall, in fact, which is sometimes quite beautiful) and the lack of explication - she mentions several times 'forever trees', only stating toward the end when the characters are looking for firewood that there were marks where someone had foolishly tried to hack into their iron-hard trunks; the way that people are trained to control their fertility; the apocalypse itself - all mentioned in the manner of things that people know and take for granted.
Just as I was starting this book I happened to hear an interview with [a:William Gibson|9226|William Gibson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1373826214p2/9226.jpg] (on the Inquiring Minds podcast) where he mentioned that when he tried to get back into reading SF he found much of it disappointing, with the exception of the branch of feminist SF in the 1970s - [a:Octavia Butler|8302480|Octavia Butler|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1407500795p2/8302480.jpg], [a:Ursula K. Le Guin|874602|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1244291425p2/874602.jpg], [a:Joanna Russ|52310|Joanna Russ|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1218217927p2/52310.jpg] - and I think that I would place Dreamsnake in there, although perhaps it stands out as less obviously so than some other works.
The world is well rendered, the apocalypse there as a fact, some indefinable time in the (distant?) past, complete with areas of deadly radiation and strange (alien?) plants and humanity scattered into tribes with their own traditions and cultures that warily trade with each other via wandering caravans. It feels small, this world, with travel only possible on foot or horseback and, while there is a definite sense of danger, most of the world seems to have settled into a relatively safe equilibrium. One where the young woman snake feels that she can travel alone in safety, protected only by the regard people have for her profession. While we do realise that Snake is somewhat naive, this is certainly not [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320606344s/6288.jpg|3355573], or even [b:A Canticle for Leibowitz|164154|A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1)|Walter M. Miller Jr.|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329408540s/164154.jpg|250975]. The people we see generally cope well, in small communities, with their agrarian or small-town lives. I'm sure this could be criticised as overly optimistic, although we have no idea how long humanity has had to settle into this after the devastation, and we do see an example later on of those who have coped less well.
What McIntyre does very well is her characters, which are drawn vividly with economy and grace (a good description of her writing overall, in fact, which is sometimes quite beautiful) and the lack of explication - she mentions several times 'forever trees', only stating toward the end when the characters are looking for firewood that there were marks where someone had foolishly tried to hack into their iron-hard trunks; the way that people are trained to control their fertility; the apocalypse itself - all mentioned in the manner of things that people know and take for granted.
Just as I was starting this book I happened to hear an interview with [a:William Gibson|9226|William Gibson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1373826214p2/9226.jpg] (on the Inquiring Minds podcast) where he mentioned that when he tried to get back into reading SF he found much of it disappointing, with the exception of the branch of feminist SF in the 1970s - [a:Octavia Butler|8302480|Octavia Butler|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1407500795p2/8302480.jpg], [a:Ursula K. Le Guin|874602|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1244291425p2/874602.jpg], [a:Joanna Russ|52310|Joanna Russ|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1218217927p2/52310.jpg] - and I think that I would place Dreamsnake in there, although perhaps it stands out as less obviously so than some other works.