Lives of the Monster Dogs: A Novel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.69 (645 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0374537143 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-07-08 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Most important, the monster dogs suffer humanlike frailties and, ultimately, real suffering more serious and affecting than the subject matter might at first glance suggest. . The dogs' descendants arrive in New York City in the year 2008, still acting like Victorian-era aristocrats. A postmodern Mary Shelley, taking the parable of Frankenstein's monster several giant steps farther, might have written this fable of a novel about a tragic race of monster dogs--in this case, genetically and biomechanically engineered dogs (of several major breeds). Created by a German mad scientist in the 19th century, the monster dogs possess human intelligence, speak human language, have prosthetic humanlike hands and walk upright on hind legs
"Misplaced Focus Undoes a Promising Story" according to Atli Hafsteinsson. Lives of the Monster Dogs is essentially two books. Ludwig von Sacher's story speaks of the past, of assorted documents and blanks that even the desperate German Shepherd and historian can't fill in. Cleo Pira's story is that of a young, aimless woman who becomes almost subconsciously involved in the world of this race of monster dogs that literally appear right out of nowhere in modern-day New York. These two stories interweave throughout this interesting, poetic novel.Meeting in the present day New York (2008,. A Customer said Beautifully written, great premise, but disappointing.. If this book had a better plot, I would have given it a ten. What an amazing idea for a novel, and so compellingly executed for the first three-quarters of the book. The author's writing style, creativity, and competence are remarkable. The opera staged by the dogs to illustrate their history was astoundingly clever, almost worth the price of the book by itself. But I should have stopped reading after that. By the end, the story had lost most of its momentum and seemed ultimately pointless. In this regard it rem. "A highly original debut novel" according to D. C. Cannon. For a first novel, Kirsten Bakis proves to be an assured craftsman. This is especially true considering how original her concept is. This is a hard novel to classify - it is not just a horror novel, or a science fiction novel, or an allegory. It is all those things and more, creating a truly unique dreamlike vision. The best parts of her novel is how well Bakis leads us into her world and how convincing she makes her talking dogs think and act. The opera libretto and the politics behind the dogs are quite good.
Possessing human intelligence, speaking human language, fitted with prosthetic hands, and walking upright on their hind legs, the monster dogs are intended to be super soldiers. Told through a variety of documentsdiaries, newspaper clippings, articles for Vanity Fair, and even a portion of an opera librettoKirsten Bakis’s Lives of the Monster Dogs uses its science-fictional premise to launch a surprisingly emotional exploration of the great themes: love, death, and the limits of compassion. The twentieth anniversary of a postmodern classic, blending the gothic novel with bleeding-edge science fictionAfter a century of cruel experimentation, a haunted race of genetically and biomechanically uplifted canines are created by the followers of a mad nineteenth-century Pr