brucefarrar 's review for:

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
5.0

In the centuries since the world was blasted by nuclear war, the practice of medicine had made some unusual developments. Snake is a healer. In addition to medicines, her little black bag contains three living instruments: a cobra, a rattlesnake, and an alien reptile called a dreamsnake. The dreamsnake can provide an anesthetic effect on a patient as well as pleasant and comforting dreams. But when a superstitious and fearful desert tribe kills her dreamsnake, Snake must go on a quest to find another of the rare creatures.

Snake’s adventures won McIntyre science fiction’s highest awards the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus for best novel when it was first published.