The heroine of Vonda N. McIntyre's "Dreamsnake" … kidnaps a young girl, to raise as a daughter. The heroine's name is Snake. Her profession is that of healer; the tools of her trade are genetically altered snakes, whose venom-producing glands have been adapted to manufacture specific medications and vaccines. Sometime in the dim past, Snake's world suffered a nuclear holocaust…. Everything about this world, from its wild animals to its people, is described with luminous clarity. Snake's physical prowess, her ability to take care of herself in tight spots, is abundantly demonstrated but never insisted upon; her love for her adopted daughter, and for the desert tribesman who loves her, is handled without undue sentiment.

The dreamsnake of the title is an off-world serpent whose hallucinogenic venom brings not healing but an easeful death for the terminally ill. When the heroine's dreamsnake is killed, she must search for another...