Snake Dreamer

Rating:
Summary: An excellent and chilling re-telling of the Medusa legend
Review: If you have ever visited Greece or Italy, you know that, in spite of their modern veneers, the ancient past often still lies very close to the surface, if you have just a little bit of imagination (at one point Perse even warns: "here the old times not dead"). The old gods never truly disappeared, and you can still imagine Ulysses' ships on the horizon. Here Ms. Galloway has written a brilliant psychological thriller set in modern-day Greece on a remote island clinic run by two Greek doctors obsessed with dreams and snakes ... could these two women really be the immortal Gorgons? By the way, the idea of Medusa as a tragic heroine is completely consistent with the Greek mythology. A highly recommended companion to this book is Bernard Evslin's "Medusa", which has dazzling artwork and also tells of Medusa's life story. A highly interesting femininist slant also pervades this book, asking us to question whether Perseus and the other macho Greek heroes were really as "heroic" as they seem. You can decide for yourself whether Dusa is simply had a fantastic hallucination or whether she really did encounter powerful beings from another age.

Rating:
Summary: great story but not skillfully crafted
Review: snake dreamer holds a great idea for a story, but due to a combination of many things (annoyingly overused exclaimation points etc...) it was sort of unpleasant. now i'm a sucker for a good medusa myth, but some of this was unbearable. it could have been written a bit more magically and much more artistically. however, i did read the last 160 pages in one night, so i gave it three stars for that excitement.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't Live Up to the Hype...
Review: To be fair, I read this after Donna Jo Napoli's Sirena and it pales in comparison. Galloway has been compared to Napoli by other reviewers, but I find the similarities solely in the subject matter. Galloway indeed presents an interesting twist on the Medusa myth, but it's a rather superficial story. Snake Dreamer lacks the rich description and character reflection that make Napoli shine.