McIntyre has such a clear voice, and describes such a fully realized set of cultures. I wish I'd found her work sooner, but this book had been out of print for so long. It's a shame, since it more than deserves its Hugo and Nebula.

Snake strikes a cord in me not because of her role as healer, but in the way she is like an anthropologist, meeting up against the unknown edges of cultures that cost her her dream snake, shut her out in the deadly desert storms of winter, and revile her and the other healers for their arrogance.

McIntyre's prose carries the reader, her characters strong and distinct outgrowths of this understructure that allow her to treat on matters of sexuality with such frankness that it might feel out of place in another narrative or in the hands of of a writer less skilled.

I find myself thinking back on these images since finishing the book, longing to read more about this future world. I think it's time to trawl through McIntyre's whole body of work.