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Reread: Dreamsnake, by Vonda N. McIntyre
Dreamsnake, by Vonda N. McIntyre (Link points to ebook at Book View Cafe. Book appears to be out of print in paper format.)
Snake is a healer traveling on her proving year, along with her three serpents. Mist is an albino cobra, and Sand is a diamondback rattlesnake; both have been modified so that, when fed the proper catalysts, they can produce medicines: vaccines, antitoxins, antibiotics. Grass, by contrast, is a dreamsnake, an alien serpent whose bite produces dreams and relieves pain. Snake's three snakes are medical laboratory, pharmacy, and hypodermic all in one. But when Snake heals a child from a desert clan of a cancerous tumor, she neglects to realize that the only snakes they are familiar with are the deadly sand vipers, whose bites result inevitably in a lingering, painful death. And so when she leaves their child unattended with Grass, they, ignorant of Grass's healing purpose, kill the snake to protect the child. Unfortunately, dreamsnakes are rare—they are difficult to clone and even more difficult to breed, their alien biology confounding even the healers—and Snake cannot be a healer without one. So she sets out on a search for atonement . . . and for another dreamsnake.
I read Dreamsnake for the first time years and years ago, when I was in high school. I read it at the time because it had won the Hugo and the Nebula (actually, as I understand it, it won the Nebula twice, once for the original short story "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand," and then again for the full novel). But most of all I read it because it had a strong female protagonist, one with valuable skills and who set out to solve her own problems. I reread it, when I saw that it was avaliable on Book View Cafe, because I had very fond (if dim) memories of having read it when I was fourteen.
Interestingly, although Snake was the reason I read the book, I actually feel that I know less about her than many of the other characters. She is very proud and very reserved; I feel like I spent the book seeing through her eyes but not, necessarily, into her mind. Indeed, because Snake had an incisive grasp of other peoples' characters, I often felt that I understood the other characters better than her: the prospectors Jesse, Merideth and Alex; Gabriel, a haunted young man; the scarred and abused Melissa; Grum, the caravan leader.
I've mentioned before that I read for character and worldbuilding first, plot next, and idea last. So when I say that the characters and worldbuilding are fantastic in this book, you will understand why I love it. Though Snake is difficult to understand, it's obviously for a reason: she really is proud and reserved, and that comes through very clearly. And the other characters, major and minor, are sharply and clearly realized like cut gems. The worldbuilding also delighted me—while it's clearly a far-future setting (indeed, it seems to be far-future post-apocalyptic Earth, though I wouldn't swear to that), it's clear that physics and mechanical sciences have taken a nosedive, and biological sciences have taken predominance. Hence the ability to use snakes as portable chemical factories, as well as the fact that 'biocontrol' (a biorhythmic manipulation to control fertility) is expected as a basic skill that every adult should have.
The book isn't flawless, of course. The major flaw is the fact that it doesn't hang together as a single novel very well: it's extremely episodic, with Snake moving from one group of people who she must help to another. Her quest for more dreamsnakes is the thread that ties them together, but most of her stops don't have much to do with that. This doesn't bother me much, since plot isn't my first concern, but it might bug someone who cares more about a smooth or fluid plot than I do. Similarly, I didn't quite... buy the romance; while it was obviously an important part of the book, I didn't understand why those particular characters were so taken with one another, given how little time they spent together. (This is partly not the fault of the book but the result of my own fictional romance preferences; I prefer long-developing romances a la Crown Duel or Graceling, and am dubious about love at first meeting.)
There's no serious spoilers under the cut, I don't think. I'm mostly cutting for length. (Too late, I know!)
A few things about the worldbuilding that I found interesting. It's clear from fairly early on that birth control is a non-issue. Everyone who is sexually mature has enough 'biocontrol' to manage their own fertility; both men and women can render themselves temporarily infertile to ensure that they don't get pregnant, and, should something go wrong, women can also induce abortion. (Indeed, there's a character who had some difficulty with biocontrol, and who accidentally impregnated a girl because of it; he was considered somewhat bizarre and something of a sexual pariah until Snake figured out the problem.) In addition, inoculations against all manner of diseases are commonplace, handled by the healers and their snakes. Perhaps for those reasons, sexual liaisons are very common; propositioning someone has no stigma, when done by either men or women, and having temporary sexual encounters also has no stigma for men or women. While the book touches briefly on rape, Snake and the others view it as an abhorrent and almost inconceivable crime, not something that unfortunately just happens, which may also play a part in the sexual freedom in the book. Polyamory doesn't seem to be uncommon either; various characters have multiple partners, and while it's not totally clear from context whether they're business partners or sexual partners (or, in fact both), I definitely parse Jesse, Alex and Merideth as a polyamorous triad.
(Side note: I didn't realize until reading commentary about the book that Merideth's gender is not specified. I had interpreted Merideth as a man, and didn't notice the ambiguity, even though I tend to assume that the closely-related name "Meredith" is a girl's name. Upon rereading, there's no obvious signaling: Jesse is a woman, Alex is a man, but Merideth could be either. Or Merideth could be intersex, transgender, asexual or genderqueer.)
As to the setting: I went back and forth as to whether I thought it was far-future Earth or a far-future terraformed Earth colony world. The flora and fauna is clearly Earth-derived; the dreamsnakes (and the other non-Terran flora/fauna to the north) are definitely perceived by Snake as alien. But the world is very underpopulated and curiously lacking in history for a future Earth: the towns all have names like "Moutainside" and "The Healer Station," rather than referencing older Earth cultures. I waffled back and forth, but my final conclusion is that it is Earth... but an Earth after a massive nuclear war (there are mentions of radioactive zones) that depopulated the world and destroyed most remnants of the original culture. And perhaps that also lead to a stigmatization of physics and physical engineering, but not of medicine and bioengineering (which would presumably have been even more important after a nuclear winter?), thus leading to the world that we see, where there are no planes, trains or automobiles, but a healer can engineer a virus to breed a pony with a tiger's genes for coat patterns.
I would love to see more about Center, the domed city that retains much of the old technology as well as contact with the interstellar world. And the alien worlds! That would be fascinating.
I was going to say something about the way the book played with the mythological and metaphorical connections between snakes and medicine, snakes and death, women and medicine, women and death, and women and snakes, but honestly I think it's so obvious as to be unnecessary.
I did love Melissa. She may have been my favorite character in the book. (And I find myself thinking about the parallels between Snake and Melissa, and Tenar and Therru from Tehanu. Of course, I didn't care much for Tehanu....)
Snake is a healer traveling on her proving year, along with her three serpents. Mist is an albino cobra, and Sand is a diamondback rattlesnake; both have been modified so that, when fed the proper catalysts, they can produce medicines: vaccines, antitoxins, antibiotics. Grass, by contrast, is a dreamsnake, an alien serpent whose bite produces dreams and relieves pain. Snake's three snakes are medical laboratory, pharmacy, and hypodermic all in one. But when Snake heals a child from a desert clan of a cancerous tumor, she neglects to realize that the only snakes they are familiar with are the deadly sand vipers, whose bites result inevitably in a lingering, painful death. And so when she leaves their child unattended with Grass, they, ignorant of Grass's healing purpose, kill the snake to protect the child. Unfortunately, dreamsnakes are rare—they are difficult to clone and even more difficult to breed, their alien biology confounding even the healers—and Snake cannot be a healer without one. So she sets out on a search for atonement . . . and for another dreamsnake.
I read Dreamsnake for the first time years and years ago, when I was in high school. I read it at the time because it had won the Hugo and the Nebula (actually, as I understand it, it won the Nebula twice, once for the original short story "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand," and then again for the full novel). But most of all I read it because it had a strong female protagonist, one with valuable skills and who set out to solve her own problems. I reread it, when I saw that it was avaliable on Book View Cafe, because I had very fond (if dim) memories of having read it when I was fourteen.
Interestingly, although Snake was the reason I read the book, I actually feel that I know less about her than many of the other characters. She is very proud and very reserved; I feel like I spent the book seeing through her eyes but not, necessarily, into her mind. Indeed, because Snake had an incisive grasp of other peoples' characters, I often felt that I understood the other characters better than her: the prospectors Jesse, Merideth and Alex; Gabriel, a haunted young man; the scarred and abused Melissa; Grum, the caravan leader.
I've mentioned before that I read for character and worldbuilding first, plot next, and idea last. So when I say that the characters and worldbuilding are fantastic in this book, you will understand why I love it. Though Snake is difficult to understand, it's obviously for a reason: she really is proud and reserved, and that comes through very clearly. And the other characters, major and minor, are sharply and clearly realized like cut gems. The worldbuilding also delighted me—while it's clearly a far-future setting (indeed, it seems to be far-future post-apocalyptic Earth, though I wouldn't swear to that), it's clear that physics and mechanical sciences have taken a nosedive, and biological sciences have taken predominance. Hence the ability to use snakes as portable chemical factories, as well as the fact that 'biocontrol' (a biorhythmic manipulation to control fertility) is expected as a basic skill that every adult should have.
The book isn't flawless, of course. The major flaw is the fact that it doesn't hang together as a single novel very well: it's extremely episodic, with Snake moving from one group of people who she must help to another. Her quest for more dreamsnakes is the thread that ties them together, but most of her stops don't have much to do with that. This doesn't bother me much, since plot isn't my first concern, but it might bug someone who cares more about a smooth or fluid plot than I do. Similarly, I didn't quite... buy the romance; while it was obviously an important part of the book, I didn't understand why those particular characters were so taken with one another, given how little time they spent together. (This is partly not the fault of the book but the result of my own fictional romance preferences; I prefer long-developing romances a la Crown Duel or Graceling, and am dubious about love at first meeting.)
There's no serious spoilers under the cut, I don't think. I'm mostly cutting for length. (Too late, I know!)
A few things about the worldbuilding that I found interesting. It's clear from fairly early on that birth control is a non-issue. Everyone who is sexually mature has enough 'biocontrol' to manage their own fertility; both men and women can render themselves temporarily infertile to ensure that they don't get pregnant, and, should something go wrong, women can also induce abortion. (Indeed, there's a character who had some difficulty with biocontrol, and who accidentally impregnated a girl because of it; he was considered somewhat bizarre and something of a sexual pariah until Snake figured out the problem.) In addition, inoculations against all manner of diseases are commonplace, handled by the healers and their snakes. Perhaps for those reasons, sexual liaisons are very common; propositioning someone has no stigma, when done by either men or women, and having temporary sexual encounters also has no stigma for men or women. While the book touches briefly on rape, Snake and the others view it as an abhorrent and almost inconceivable crime, not something that unfortunately just happens, which may also play a part in the sexual freedom in the book. Polyamory doesn't seem to be uncommon either; various characters have multiple partners, and while it's not totally clear from context whether they're business partners or sexual partners (or, in fact both), I definitely parse Jesse, Alex and Merideth as a polyamorous triad.
(Side note: I didn't realize until reading commentary about the book that Merideth's gender is not specified. I had interpreted Merideth as a man, and didn't notice the ambiguity, even though I tend to assume that the closely-related name "Meredith" is a girl's name. Upon rereading, there's no obvious signaling: Jesse is a woman, Alex is a man, but Merideth could be either. Or Merideth could be intersex, transgender, asexual or genderqueer.)
As to the setting: I went back and forth as to whether I thought it was far-future Earth or a far-future terraformed Earth colony world. The flora and fauna is clearly Earth-derived; the dreamsnakes (and the other non-Terran flora/fauna to the north) are definitely perceived by Snake as alien. But the world is very underpopulated and curiously lacking in history for a future Earth: the towns all have names like "Moutainside" and "The Healer Station," rather than referencing older Earth cultures. I waffled back and forth, but my final conclusion is that it is Earth... but an Earth after a massive nuclear war (there are mentions of radioactive zones) that depopulated the world and destroyed most remnants of the original culture. And perhaps that also lead to a stigmatization of physics and physical engineering, but not of medicine and bioengineering (which would presumably have been even more important after a nuclear winter?), thus leading to the world that we see, where there are no planes, trains or automobiles, but a healer can engineer a virus to breed a pony with a tiger's genes for coat patterns.
I would love to see more about Center, the domed city that retains much of the old technology as well as contact with the interstellar world. And the alien worlds! That would be fascinating.
I was going to say something about the way the book played with the mythological and metaphorical connections between snakes and medicine, snakes and death, women and medicine, women and death, and women and snakes, but honestly I think it's so obvious as to be unnecessary.
I did love Melissa. She may have been my favorite character in the book. (And I find myself thinking about the parallels between Snake and Melissa, and Tenar and Therru from Tehanu. Of course, I didn't care much for Tehanu....)
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