The New Scientist Book Club moved from a far-future space opera in July’s read, Claire North’s Slow Gods, to a much nearer future on Earth in our read for August. Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars takes place after a flu pandemic has wiped out the majority of Earth’s population, and follows the story of Hig, a lonely pilot, his dog Jasper – and their somewhat problematic neighbour Bangley. If that pandemic-struck world sounds like Peter was riffing off the real events of 2020, he wasn’t: he wrote it well before covid, and (as he wrote in an essay for the book club) found it extremely eerie to find life imitating art, as the world shut down around us six years ago.
I have to start with an admission: I am a big Peter Heller fan. He was an adventure writer and journalist before turning to fiction, and I really enjoyed his thrillers The River and The Guide for their unique blend of gorgeous nature writing and heart-in-your-mouth survival. Somehow, I’d never got round to reading The Dog Stars, and when I discovered that it was about to be released as a film by Ridley Scott – and that it was a piece of post-apocalyptic fiction – I couldn’t wait to read it with our book club.
Read an extract from The Dog Stars by Peter Heller I wasn’t surprised to also love this novel. It combined all my favourite things: wilderness survival, a post-disaster world, lovely writing – and a Very Good Dog. I was fascinated to learn, in Peter’s essay, how he wrote the novel cold – no initial research, no planning: “It was as if Hig were on the other side of a campfire on an October night, with the wind blowing the flames around, telling me what had happened to him a few years before.
I was constantly surprised, awed, devastated by what happened. I’d have tears dripping off my chin onto the coffee shop table.” In our interview, Peter also told me about how he decided on the nature of the apocalypse that would affect his world, and what it was like to see his characters appear on the big screen, courtesy of Scott – spoiler alert, there were tears. There was more of a mixed response to The Dog Stars from book club members.
Karen Warren “found the first half a bit tedious, and probably wouldn’t have carried on if it hadn’t been a book club choice”. But ultimately she was glad she did, and “couldn’t put it down towards the end”. The writing in this book is very distinctive – jumpy and disjointed, reflecting Hig’s state of mind.
Readers entered into an interesting debate about the reason for this. Overall, Alan was not a fan. He compared The Dog Stars to Tim Winton’s Juice – another book club read that is also set post-apocalypse, this time a climate one.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
