This continues the discussion started in "Of Mist, Grass and Sand" and expanded in Dreamsnake.
As promised, this is an update when I got the SFRA anthology. The discussion is rather spare--mostly biography and a cursory paragraph about the work in question. It refers to James Gunn's theory about subtle feminism, role-reversal and telepathy, which I don't remember happening (it was very subtle if so). Apparently, according to John Clute at SF Encyclopedia, it occurs in the first novel, Exile in Waiting, which takes place in the city that is only seen in passing in Dreamsnake. So I have more reading ahead. But none of that is especially useful, except to explain why we readers aren't led inside a city to explain the planet fully.
I also picked up Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000 which is presently discounted to $2.99). She seems to cast about for a better SF novel that year.
I wondered what would I recommend if I were the book's editor. The book doesn't quite gel. If she'd dug deeper into the biology of the snakes--how they came to be that way (especially dream snakes since they seem the critical piece, not to mention playing a critical role) and how they figure into the world's new ecology--the novel might have been stronger. She was a geneticist, after all. But maybe her first novel already explained it all. I'd also suggest expanding the mythic motifs, too if she found any useful connections.
I'd also suggest either cutting or streamlining the love-interest subplot. I'm not sure what it adds, and it doesn't make sense the first guy's chasing her around--his interest or hers. She could have also expanded the subplot, but then he'd need to play more of a consequential role in the ending instead of just chasing her.
Of course, McIntyre is no longer with us; this is all just a what-if speculation the genre is famed for.
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