Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Review by Jordan S.
I've been on a "reading Adrian Tchiakovsky books" kick lately and been enjoying both his most recent releases and his backlist. In the past year or so, I've read two of his Tyrant Philosophers books (I have the third and it's going on vacation with me in a couple months), Alien Clay (which you'll hear my thoughts on sometime in the coming weeks) and various other novels and novellas by him. So far, House of Open Wounds has been my favorite of his books but an unexpected contender has appeared, specifically Tchaikovsky's 2017 novel, Dogs of War.
Dogs of War is set in a near future Earth, at first glance the least alien setting of any of the Tchaikovsky books I've read yet. It follows Rex, a dog-inspired bioform (imagine Robocop if it was still mostly human shaped but also thought it was a dog) who leads a small crew of other animal-like bioform soldiers. All Rex wants is to be a Good Dog but when you're essentially a walking, talking killing machine what makes him that isn't always pretty. When Rex and his squad gain free will and have to ask themselves what they want to do when their mercenary creator wants them to do it leads to conflict both within their squad and with the greater world around them.
On first glance this concept could be viewed as silly. Our main conflict is a robot supersoldier who just wants to feel that he's a Good Dog? However, Tchaikovsky does what he does best and upends our expectations and gives this book a depth that makes it one of my favorite books in his bibliography yet. Rex's quest to be able to tell himself that he's a good dog was thrilling and heartbreaking in equal measure. I cheered with Rex in his moments of freedom and felt his struggle in trying to balance on the expectations of everyone around him. In this reviewer's opinion, Rex has earned the title of Best Doggo.
The other bioforms are also great. Honey, the bear bioform, has probably the most interesting character arc outside of Rex. Where Rex continues being Rex throughout most of the duration of the story, Honey goes on a different journey and becomes something of a civil rights politician. If that sounds wild just trust me; Tchaikovsky pulls it off. There's also Dragon, a chameleon/snake-like bioform and Bees, a swarm of bees that are both the sum of their parts and not. Each of these characters was wholly unique and brilliantly written. Judging by the title of the second and upcoming third installment of this series, I look forward to learning more about Honey and Bees in the future.
I absolutely loved this book and it only deepened my opinion that Tchaikovsky is a force to be reckoned with in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. Not only is output maybe even more than the scale of Brandon Sanderson but also he's incredibly reliable in terms of quality. Dogs of War is definitely one that I would recommend as a great starting point if you've never read another of his books. And if you've read a lot of his books and have been sleeping on this one, I urge you to reconsider. I think this one will be one of your favorites too.