DOGS OF WAR

Rex Education

released OUT NOW! 400 pages | Hardback/ebook

Author adrian Tchaikovsky Publisher Head Of Zeus

Did you see the movie Up, with the dogs who’ve got collars that enable them to talk? Imagine that, but really brutal and full of commentary about geopolitics, technology and human rights, and you’re getting a grasp on Dogs Of War. Adrian Tchaikovsky’s previous novel, the Clarke Award winner Children Of Time, involved a planet colonised by spiders who’d been artificially evolved by humans. Dogs Of War tracks this back to a near-future setting, when the science of bio-engineering animals is in its infancy.

Rex is a seven-foot-tall armoured dog with enhanced intelligence, leading a special ops squad consisting of a bear, a snake and a swarm of bees. Rex is in Mexico, fighting a dirty war on behalf of a private company. He doesn’t know if his actions are right or wrong – he just needs his master to tell him he’s a Good Dog. However, when the operation is investigated by the UN, Rex finds himself freed and thinking for himself. From here the novel is about what he’ll do, and what the world will do with him.

The book moves at great pace, burning through many locations and characters, and the only constant is Rex himself, who narrates about half of it in the first person. This is Tchaikovsky’s big gamble – Rex could easily have become a tiresome idiot-savant figure, but instead these narrated sections work brilliantly. Rex’s simple perspective brings great clarity, and we feel his struggle as he gradually comes to terms with the moral complexity of his life as a soldier. It’s not hard to draw parallels with Rex’s desire for simple certainties and how a lot of people think and act – the difference being, Rex has the excuse of being a dog. All this makes the novel thoughtful and emotionally affecting, yet also exciting and unpredictable. Good Dog! Eddie Robson

Also just out, from Tchaikovsy: Ironclads, a limited-edition novella about a missing “Scion” – a soldier in a lethal battle suit.

The book burns through locations and characters