Dogs of War

Wow. I loved this book. I'm not entirely sure how I found it - I suspect Amazon randomly recommended it to me, and it was definitely a random purchase - but so glad I did.

I'd just finished reading Snow Crash which has a small character which is an enhanced dog (called a Rat), and a few years back I'd read We3 which has animals who escape a tyranny of human kind...so I think I was expecting something like that. I was wrong!

The book opens from the point of view of Rex, a “bioform” dog - part machine, part dog, part human DNA. The first few pages read as a little trite “I am Rex. I am Good Dog” etc - but this quickly falls away as I realised the darkness of what was being described from Rex's point of view.

Then each chapter is told from different individuals point of view, including Hart - the engineer/carer for the bioforms, Honey - a bioform Bear and many other characters.

The story is split over 5 parts that, I can assume, is covering several years. It starts in a war torn country, but once this part is over, the story goes on to raise the question of the bioform's rights, and whether a human-made thing can be human if it can feel for itself. By human, we mean the condition rather than the species.

The story is a mix of the future of AI and augmented lifeforms, fear of different, corporations and their relationship with slavery - and through it, somehow, the protagonist is a dog that I can actually relate to as he even evolves through the book (the author does a brilliant job of evolving Rex's language and vocabulary as Rex is exposed to more of the world and the story moves on).

Other thoughts that this book brought up for me:

- If humankind make a thing and a thing can think for itself, should it have rights? What does that process look like - and how long does it take?
- Can and should humankind survive in it's current state. Is an augmented human less or more human?
- A fully autonomous intelligence is effectively immortal, so it can also outlive generations of humankind until the generations come to accept it?

If you're interested in how technology can evolve in our future with AI, singularities, and the like, then I'd definitely recommend this book.

I loved this story, really great stuff!

I'm a cat person and though I like dogs only a bit less than cats I think this book emphasized the stuff I value in cats and annoys me in dogs a lot. So I am probably a bit biased.

I was hyped for this. Genetically engineered bioforms made to listen to their masters. Without ethics, without conscience. But when the master is tried as a war criminal what happens to them? They're not animals but they aren't as smart as humans either. Or are they? Do they have rights? Are they weapons? Animals? People? Something else? This is what the description promises, this is what I heard on the Internet. And the execution of these existential questions sucks. Only one act out of five is really talking about it in depth. The real story is about Rex, a good dog turned bad. Or is it the other way around?

He's a bioform designed to infiltrate enemy territory and kill everyone his master deems as enemy. No second thoughts allowed, biochip in his head makes sure of it. Other bioforms help him - Honey (a bear), Dragon (a lizard) and Bees (...bees). Something goes wrong and they are freed from master's leash. These bioforms are half human, half animals with slightly different body structure (like human hands), except Bees who really is just bees. And now they have to decide what to do, how to survive.

This part of the book was the most engaging for me, however most chapters are from Rex's POV and by page 82 I was done reading about how he wants to be a good dog. The thing is, these bioforms were overdesigned. Some more than the others. The human creators had no idea what they've created. How smart they made Honey and Bees. Even Dragon is smarter than Rex but he's too lazy to care about anything. So imagine a scenario where three Einsteins are commanded by Forest Gump in war conflict. By page 82 I was hoping things change.

And they did. This was the end of first act and soon Rex miraculously jumped from 70 IQ points to 110 without any character development. It made the rest of his chapters much better but at the same time it wasn't earned. Tchaikovsky simply needed to make him smarter for the rest of the plot to work and so he did. But it's a smooth sailing almost to the end.

I say almost because, again, Tchaikovsky simply felt the need to tie the bow and loop all that happened to the beginning. And so there is a completely pointless few pages where a bad guy not unlike Rex's master shows up only to reveal he's not the real bad guy and there's something above him controlling the strings. And that something is so eyerollingly stupid I couldn't believe it.

This book has different structure than typical novel, it's telling Rex's life story, it didn't need to be cyclical tale like that and I actually can't imagine a more bland ending than this. I won't spoil it but I was ready to cry throughout most of the book because I thought this can end only one way. And then the reveals happen and I'm staring at the pages in disbelief. I think it was an attempt to make it more emotional. But it completely failed for me.

BUT! Now to my favorite parts: everything that has to do with Honey who's the real hero of the story in my opinion. You can sense since the beginning that she's much more than she pretends to be and that she tries to guide Rex to do correct decisions. [Redacted]'s chapters were also enjoyable, trying to figure out who [Redacted] is early on and then simply following [Redacted]'s plan. [Redacted]'s as much a puppeteer as Honey is. These two characters made the book for me and if it wasn't for the ending I would have given it 5*.

I know I bashed this book a lot but that's me. If a great book disappoints me I tear it apart more than a shitty book because of all the lost potential. The story was alright. It was a fast read and mostly enjoyable too. The premise is amazing but the ethical part of the story is underutilized and ending disappointed me. I guess I can't expect the same depth out of Tchaikovsky than out of authors like Erikson or P.K. Dick. Still great book I would recommend to everyone who is interested in this kind of sci-fi. Hopefully sequel will utilize this premise, this world Tchaikovsky created, better.