【 DOGS OF WAR 】

book #1 in the Dogs of War series

Genre: Sci-Fi
Audience: Adult
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Published: November 2017
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Pages: 352 (paperback)

This was very cool and very fun! It was also my first sci-fi book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and boy oh boy, I am signing up for more.

I had the pleasure of hearing Tchaikovsky speak about the third book in this series recently, which I promptly bought, and then queued up the first two books in the series to catch up on as well. I won’t lie, I was a little apprehensive because I’d read one of his fantasy books previously and not got on as well with it as I would’ve liked. But this was so pacy and so different, and so bloody well done.

Nothing beats a great sci-fi writer who can spin an epic futuristic tale. And that’s exactly what this is. The perspective of the book is fascinating and very well balanced – we swap between Rex’s POV (the key bioform in the book) and various supporting characters throughout the story.

So Rex is a bioform dog. He is essentially a biologically engineered humanoid dog (though I totally just pictured a big dog the whole time), who has some technology embedded in his brain and various parts of his body. There are 3 other bioforms you are introduced to at the start that form Rex’s squad, but I’ll let you enjoy meeting them yourselves. The simplistic internal dialogue and the constant war within himself over whether he’s being a Good Dog was both adorable and heart-breaking.

Where a star was chipped off for me, was simply the time-jump structure of the novel. And I think this is very much so a personal taste sort of thing. I just found the story would hit its stride and then you’d jump forward however many years, and it jolted you out of it a little. I was ready to stay with Rex and his moral quandaries as they were in the beginning for much longer, but alas.

And I do get the point of the structure – and the fact that the book couldn’t have achieved what it did if it didn’t zip forward every now and then. But nonetheless, the speed as which you tick through things, while pacy, sometimes left me the tiniest bit lost or adrift.

And yet, you just can’t get past how clever this book is and how well Tchaikovsky has written Rex. He truly is hero of this book, and I’m really, really intrigued as to where the story will go in book two. At this stage, my understanding is that while all 3 books form a series, they are only loosely connected and could be read independently. But I’m expecting there’ll be plenty of thematic continuation, if not some reappearing characters, too.

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Title: Dogs of War
Series: Dogs of War
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
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A bio-engineered dog fights for its life and its right to life. From the Arthur C. Clark Award-winning author of CHILDREN OF TIME.

My name is Rex. I am a good dog.

Rex is also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy calibre weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instil fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he’s part of a Multiform Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, Mexico. A genetically engineered Bioform, he’s a deadly weapon in a dirty war. All he wants to be is a Good Dog. And to do that he must do exactly what Master says and Master says he’s got to kill a lot of enemies.

But who, exactly, are the enemies? What happens when Master is tried as a war criminal? What rights does the Geneva Convention grant weapons? Do Rex and his fellow Bioforms even have a right to exist?

And what happens when Rex slips his leash?