The Dog Stars

by Peter Heller
Category: "Fiction - Adventure"
Pages:320
Year of Publication:2012
Date Added:02/12/2019
Date Read:09/05/2019
Notes:Hig is one of the few survivors. A flu epidemic as killed 99% of humanity and many animal species. Many of the survivors have a wasting blood disease, but not Hig. He lives on a small airport outside Denver with his dog Jasper and Bangley, a mean, sour weapons expert. Hig is a pilot and flies reconnaissance around the perimeter. Because most of the healthy humans have become predators, killing on sight for whatever they can get. Whenever someone enters the airport perimeter, Hig warns them off. If they keep coming, Bangley kills them. As a lifeline to the past, Hig takes Jasper up into the mountains to fish. On one of the trips, Jasper dies. Hig has nothing left to care for, so he takes off in his plane and flies west over the mountains. He finds a valley where a man called Pop lives with his grown daughter Cima. At first Pop treats Hig as a threat, but Cima realizes he's harmless. Hig lives with them in their hidden valley for a month or so. He and Cima become lovers. The creek in the valley is drying up, so Hig flies them back to his airport. There's been an attack, and Bangley is near death. Cima nurses him back to health. The four of them live there as family.
My Rating: 6

Reviews for The Dog Stars

Review - Dog Stars, The

I'm not sure the book intended to point out the reality of original sin, but it did a good job of it. Even Hig, who is the hero, kills when someone gets too close, although he sometimes regrets it. Cima is the only character with any true virtue. The book is crude and sad and without much of a point except that life is worth living, even if there isn't much left to enjoy.

Reviewed by Roger on 2019-09-05 09:49:46

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