22nd century biopunk sci-fi featuring rogue geneticists, thumbed canine assassins, and giant monsters of Royal North Korea.
Warnings: Violence, Animal death, Body horror, Suicide
Category: M/F, F/F
Lost Dogs and Monsters is a gut-punch of a dark sci-fi that takes place in the far distant future and covers the story of a full on kaiju apocalypse. I loved this book, and it functions as a prequel to the author’s Stitch trilogy. I haven’t read the trilogy, but now that I’ve read this one, I may have to pick it up.
WRITING
The writing has a very grittey atmospheric tone to it, the quality of which makes you just feel grungy. It’s visceral in its depictions of a futuristic society where genetic manipulation is common place, where humans have created slave-caste dog people and corporations use clone labour. Being a story that meanders about through the POVs of multiple characters it showcases its story and background gradually, and that story is gripping. Kitty Hawk is a bio-scientist whose fiance was exposed to mutagens in a laboratory that caused her to change into a giant kaiju-type sea beast, and the story follows her journey to save her wife and to enact vengeance on a planet run amok in bio-technology and experimentation. It also follows Patches, one of her manufactured dog creatures, and his story as he weighs loyalty to his creator against his own need for freedom. It’s violent, it’s disturbing, and there are very few ‘good’ characters, and it is a whirlwind of a ride.
EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT
Each and every one of the characters in this narrative are complex and interesting. Kitty Hawk, while a primary character and world player, is hardly a hero. In fact, one could argue that she is absolutely more of a villain. Despite this, we follow her and come to understand the motivations behind her actions, and the ways in which tragedy and love have shaped her into the one who will destroy the world. Contrasting Kitty Hawk is Patches, who is a ray of pure sunshine. His POV is far simpler, and more innocent. He’s a puppy, he loves his mistress, even as his mistress leads him down the path to destruction. He was the main character that I was emotionally invested in, and his story was the one I wanted to follow the most. It also gives us the POVs of a few other more minor players, and each of them are complex as well. It’s hard to know who to root for when everyone’s ideology and perspectives are so well explored, or you may just not root for anyone, unable to look away as the violence unfolds and the characters unravel further and further.
WORLDBUILDING
Exquisite worldbuilding showcased here. Every aspect of the narrative is saturated in its world and setting, in the bio-technology that dominates the planet, in the strange amalgamations that populate it, in the slang and lingo that characters use. This book lives and breathes its setting and it was fantastic. Its also a very dismal setting, not one I would want to live in. The grime and the muck of the day to day feels like it pops off the page onto you, pulling you into its dark and dingey world. There’s so much backstory that the world feels real and vibrant despite the somewhat schlocky sci-fi tropes of giant kaiju monsters destroying the planet. This is the genre taken seriously, and it really made me believe in its environment as much as it made me care for its characters.
STEAMINESS
This book is an absolute treat in the adult content department. Seldom have I read more primal or viscerally carnal scenes. Patches and his girlfriend, a fellow genetically designed dog-creature, end up having a wild and feral whirlwind of a romance. Since they are dogs as much as they are people, these sequences are as bestial as they are sensual. Its a crescendo of violence and raw emotion as they hunt and kill and fuck and indulge in their animal sides in each other’s arms. Fighting for dominance, pinning each other, biting and tearing, its all there and its breathtaking to read. The book also features quite a bit of rather extreme body horror that is written with such vivid description and horrific amounts of emotion as to engage ones full breadth of senses, and it was glorious.
Lost Dogs and Monsters isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s an extravaganza of violence and disconcerting horror blended together with somewhat goofy sci-fi tropes and giant monster features. I adored it, but its not for the faint of heart reader. If you like kaiju movies or just dark speculative sci-fi in general I’d definitely recommend giving this a read.
Have you read Lost Dogs and Monsters? Let me know what YOU thought by leaving me a comment!
Roses And Thorns 