Booklog 44/2025: 44. Adrian Tchaikovsky: Dogs of War – Dogs of War #1 - Audiobook
Audiobook narrated by Laurence Bouvard, Nathan Osgood & William Hope.
Rex is a Good Dog. He does what Master says and keep the pack in line. He's also a bioengineered killing machine. He knows he's not too bringht (not as bright as Honey, one of his pack and a bio-engineered bear - but he knows how to follow orders and thet makes him a Good Dog. When the pack is cut loose from Master, things begin to happen that Rex doesn't understand. Why do the villagers fear him and Bees and Dragon and Honey? They are not enemies, they have nothing to fear. And why are enemies attacking the defenceless village? And, oops, why is Master one of the people trying to wipe out the villagers? Though simple minded, Rex is caught up in a courtroom drama which will determine his right to live - his and all bioengineered beings. Good job his lawyer is smart, and Honey is smarter still. This is a fascinating look at the ethics of war and bioengineering, well narrated. Adrian Tchaikovsky's imagination is a wondrous thing.
Narrated by Nicola Barber
Narrated by Shaun Grindell.
Audiobook narrated by Emma Newman.
Narrated by Ben Allen
Charles is a robot valet, the latest in robot service technology, working for the master in a large but seemingly isolated manorial-style house. Everything is going very well. Each day he repeats the same tasks, quietly content, until one day he cuts Master’s throat with a razor, for no apparent reason. After that he’s on his own, heading for diagnostics to find out what’s wrong, and to hopefully be reassigned (since he’s only committed one small murder, so far). But many mansions are in decay and diagnostics has queues that could take hundreds of years to work through, even supposing they were working at all. Then Charles meets The Wonk, a rather strange robot with a rather strange agenda, and his situation begins to change. The Wonk is determined to find the reason for the full-scale collapse of society, and drags Charles (or Un-Charles) along with her until they reach a place where questions might be answered and all is revealed. A quirky, engaging story with some interesting thoughts on AI and the parameters of robot programming.
Novella. Nyr is an anthropologist, sitting (or long-term sleeping) in his tower, after the rest of his team have shipped back to base. He's somewhat depressive (alone and abandoned) and has given up on the idea that someone will come back for him, so he's still studying the human colonists he's forbidden to help or interfere with. But he's broken the rules before, and when fate comes knocking on his door in the shape of Lyn he might have to break the rules again. Lyn reminds him so much of her now long-dead great grandmother, with whom he fell in love three hundred years earlier. That time has passed in an eyeblink for Nyr because he's been asleep the whole time. He has memories of what Lyn thinks of as ancient history.
A complex, quirky time travel novella which takes place (mostly) at the end of time, after the Causality War has destroyed pretty much everything. The first person narrator – I'm not sure we ever learn his name – is a survivor of the war determined never to let it happen again, however-many people he has to kill if they find their way to his idyllic farm. He lives pretty well. Robots do most of the work, though he amuses himself by looting different time-streams for whatever he needs. If he gets lonely he simply gets into his own time machine and pops out to the 1700s for a party at Versailles or goes to see a Shakespeare play – with the Bard himself. His pet allosaurus, Miffly, helps him to dispose of errant time travellers. He also goes gadding around the timestreams putting an end to anyone who might contemplate time travel. Then one day, visitors arrive from the future. How can that be when he's already at the end of time itself? Weldon and Smantha (that's not a typo) come to viisit, and suddenly he has a problem. It seems he might be their many greats-grandfather. How is he going to avoid a second epochalypse? Funny and poignant in turns this is as sharp as a tack and well worth reading even though it chucks your logic circuits into a blender and serves them back up to you with a side order of wheee! I loved it.
I had this as both a review copy and an audiobook from Netgalley. I usually listen to audiobooks on my phone. I'm not sure what the difference is between a Netgalley audio and an Audible audio, but while listening my phone got so hot that I had to switch it off. So I listened to the first half and read the second half. The audio was well read by Sophie Aldred, but I think I got more out of the text.
This novella shines a light on to a dystopian future where climate change, capitalism and class have brutalised the human story on Earth. Mao, Lupe and Hotep are firewalkers. They repair and retrieve tech from the brutal equatorial desert to the Anchor, the base of the space elevator that takes those who can afford it, and who fit the profile, up to the waiting space liner. Given the task of figuring out why the power supply from the solar fields is browning out Mao & co. set off into the desert in a 'bug' which is barely up to carrying the three of them, keeping them cool (ish) and supplying them with water. They make some discoveries that change the way they see the world. The characters, particularly Mao, are well drawn. Mr. Tchaikovsky manages to wrap a gritty, gripping adventure into a piece that starkly outlines our own (current and future?) social problems. It's a quick read, but when it comes, the ending is fast, maybe too fast. This is a novella, but it could so easily have been a novel. The last chapter had enough to fill a book (which I would be happy to read).
Due to be published by Solaris, 28th May 2019.