The Dog Stars is one of those books that seems ubiquitous. I spent the better part of last year passing it on bookstore tables, seeing it pop up on recommendation lists and idly imagining its contents. What could this slim novel possibly be about. Astronomy? Air travel? Flying puppies?
Well last week I got my answer. After a series of emphatic text messages from a friend—”dog stars is really good. really really good”—I decided to take a breather from my delightfully compelling (but extremely dense) NSA-related nonfiction and dive into TDS. As it turns out, the novel is about—natch—the apocalypse.
TDS is set in the not-so-distant future, about a decade after a plague has wiped out the majority of the population. Concerns about surviving the epidemic have for the most part passed, although a lingering blood disease —called, creepily, The Blood—still affects certain groups of people. (Think of it as surviving a plague, only to contract AIDS.)
Our narrator/protagonist is Hig, a resourceful pilot who lives in an abandoned airplane hanger with his “friend”/fellow survivor Bangley. Their symbiotic relationship involves Hig handling the farming, fishing and hunting, and Bangley handling the firearms. Lots and lots of firearms.
Because you see, in this version of the post-apocalyptic future, people have—morally speaking—taken a turn for the worse. The standing protocol is to kill or be killed, and Hig’s reluctant acquiescence to necessary self-defense is countered by Bangley’s almost enthusiastic embrace of it. Bangley is the muscle; Hig is the heart.
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