Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the story:

“Rattlesnakes and Men” by Michael Bishop

This novelett was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2015. Available on-line @Asimovs (LGT PDF.)

This story is part of the 2015 Nebula Award nominees short story discussion.

This novelette is one of those stories that's barely science fiction (or fantasy), though it does flirt with contemporary horror a bit.

A family (mom Wylene, dad Reed, young daughter Celeste) find themselves out of a home and job from a tornado, so they pick up and move to a small town in rural Georgia where an army buddy of Reed has promised him a job as mechanic for local agribusiness. As soon as they've moved in, the welcome wagon arrives with their complementarity "starter snake". It seems everyone in town keeps rattlesnakes: threshold sentries, personal protectors, even infant guardians. Yes, it's a snake cult, and almost the whole town is in on it.

The story is narrated by Wylene, who's considerably less tolerant of the local infatuation with rattlers than her husband.

The tenuous connection to SF/F is provided by a brief reference that both Reed and his friend Dusty are US veterans of the Australian outback war, and the fact that a local company, BioQuirk, performs genetic engineering on rattlesnakes so they "imprint" on the family and so know who to attack.

The story would feel more like horror I suppose if it didn't move so quickly and have so much humor to it in the early going. Wylene is an interesting character, trying to balance motherly protection with getting along with the eccentric neighbors, and ultimately taking arms against local customs.

I found it amusingly entertaining, fast-moving and often quite funny. Allegory, all is allegory.

****

INFORMATION UPDATE: I found Michael Bishop's "Rattlesnakes and Men" is now available on-line @Asimovs as a PDF. I updated the first message of topic as well.

I didn't love this one. The style of humour here never really clicked with me and the allegory may have been a little too on-the-nose. Short stories are hard to write and funny ones that also have something to say seem even harder.

The doctor should have been the protagonist.

★★★

It's been a long time since I read a piece from Michael Bishop which set expectations quite high for this Nebula Award nominated piece of work. I was disappointed: Heavy handed satire and political criticism (embedding anagramatically names of active politicians) in a comical way disguised as SF. Rattlesnakes are a heavy-handed aphorism for guns, of course. This is where the author comes from and I can fully understand why he has written this story: Michael Bishop's son Jamie was one of 2007's Virginia shooting victims where Jamie lectured as a German teacher.

As such, I don't like the story itself but I respect and sympathize with what the author tries to achieve.