An Oath of Dogs

by Wendy N. Wagner

Kate Standish has been on Huginn less than a week and she s already pretty sure her new company murdered her boss. But extractions corporations dominate the communities of the forest world, and few are willing to threaten their meal tickets to look too closely at corporate misbehaviour. The little town of mill workers and farmers is more worried about the threat of eco-terrorism and a series of attacks by the bizarre, sentient dogs of this planet, than a death most people would like to believe is an accident. When Standish connects a secret chemical test site to a nearly forgotten disaster in Huginn's history, she reveals a conspiracy that threatens Standish and everyone she s come to care about."

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure, Adult, Animals

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 4, 2017

About the author

Wendy N. Wagner grew up in a town so tiny it didn’t even have a post office. With no television reception, she became a rabid reader, waiting impatiently for the bookmobile’s fortnightly visit to her tiny hometown. Today, her family struggles to find room for her expanding book collection in their Portland, Oregon, home.

Wendy's work ranges from horror novels to poetry to environmental essays. Her books include THE SECRET SKIN (a gothic novella), THE DEER KINGS (a horror novel), AN OATH OF DOGS (science fantasy), and two tie-in novels for the Pathfinder role-playing game. A Hugo award-winning editor of short fiction, she currently serves as the editor of NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE and the managing/senior editor of LIGHTSPEED.

Reviews

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exciting page-turning murder mystery set on a forested moon, with overtones of magical realism. It seems kind of odd to describe a SF book as having a magical realism feel, but that is really the only way I can describe certain elements of this book.

It's a murder mystery set in the midst of a small settlement with a divided population based on forestry and subsistence farming. The resource extraction is all being financed by a giant corporation, with all the usual bottom line BigCorp concerns. The small group of subsistence farmers in the community are part of a group of religious settlers similar to Mennonites.

Throw into the mix a group of militant eco-preservationists who want the forests left alone and a pack of wild dogs who dig up bodies in the graveyard (among other things) and you have a small settlement with more than a few problems on its hands.

Wagner has created a very realistic scenario for what outpost settlement on a resource rich planet, or in this case a moon, might look like. The tensions that exist are imported directly from Earth and start to play out pretty much as you might expect. But the place this is all happening, the forested moon of Huginn, isn't Earth, and that means not every outcome can be predicted in the same way.

Although I wasn't completely surprised by the end, I don't think that is necessarily the point of this particular story. It's more of a slow revealing of new ways of thinking and acceptance by the characters rather than any of them solving a specific crime. It's an interesting book with a lot of different elements that kept my attention right to the end.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting setup with a murder investigation on a forest moon colony with some really interesting world-building, but an ultimately unsatisfying story that leaves too much important stuff unexplained.

Kate Standish is a communications engineer who is recovering from a horrible accident which has left her with traumatic agoraphobia and the need for a service dog. Standish and Hattie (her service dog) have come to the moon colony of Huginn in the Yggdrasil system to work in an outlying forestry community only to find that the man she has come to work for is dead and she has his job. As Standish settles into the community it becomes clear that everything is not right. The death of Duncan Chambers (Standish's predecessor) is the focus of a cover-up, there's a pack of wild dogs that's terrorizing the community and there appears to be something deeply strange with the descendants of the first settlers of the moon, a religious community called the Word Made Flesh. Meanwhile Duncan's ex-lover Peter Bajowski, a biologist working for the company that runs the primary industry on Huginn, is discovering some very strange things about the local biology.

There's a lot going on here. Company town politics and a murder mystery along with a really different ecosystem and an overarching weirdness that may have a rational explanation, but feels more like magical realism (thanks to Justine's Review for pointing this out). I'm actually reminded strongly of a classic SF novel here, but just the reference is something of a spoiler for what's happening: Solaris with the moon seeming to have an overarching intelligence.

While I though the writing was solid and the plotting pretty good, at least in the first half of the book, I really didn't buy the magic realism element (transubstantiation). For a book that goes to some pains to get its technical elements correct, I found the swerve to the "just-so" element a step too far. I also thought that some of the more unlikely biological discoveries (a new terrestrial/extra-terrestrial symbiosis) required more explanation and/or background. And a minor nitpick that I felt was important: how could shipping timber interstellar distances possibly be economical?

I think that this author is worth watching, but I felt let down by the world-building and follow-through of this particular book.

[Scott Hitchcock · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story, characters and world never engaged me. The action didn't provide any real tension. I did like the writer's style and I will give her credit for trying something different. I still might not have made it through had I not owned this from a Kindle one day sale.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally written for my blog

I received this as an e-Arc from the publisher as I'm a big fan of Angry Robot and as soon as I saw the cover for this, I just had to read it. It's a sci-fi novel set on the planet Huginn which is earth-like but with very different native flora and fauna. Kate arrives to find her boss dead and so she slowly tries to figure out what happened as she learns more about the society which compromises mill workers and a group of religious people called Believers.

Kate's story is also interspersed with entries from the diary of one of the Believers back when they first settled on the planet and these are very fascinating as one aspect of Sci-Fi that I love is the early settler period where they are discovering all the differences from earth and trying to figure out how to make a living on the planet.

The characters are all fantastic and I just adore Kate. She has a service dog, Hattie, who is by far one of my favourite characters because I adore dogs. I'm breaking my no-spoilers policy here to mention that Hattie does not die. I spent a lot of the book worrying about that and I would have enjoyed it much more if I'd known that going in, and I also know that some people might not want to read it unless they had that guarantee so don't worry - the dog lives! The other characters are all very interesting too and the Believers in particular are very interesting to read about - especially as you slowly learn more of their history through the diary.

I really enjoyed this novel, it's exactly the kind of Sci-Fi that I adore with strange alien biology, stories of settlers trying to make a living and it has an adorable dog in it. I would definitely recommend this novel to those that enjoy Sci-Fi as it's just excellent and I can't wait for it to be released to I can make my friends read it.

[Chessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this science fiction mystery! I am a sucker for stories set on alien planets, especially when the flora and fauna are part of the story. Add in a questionably ethical mega-corporation, a religious sect that helped colonize the planet, mysterious and scary feral dogs and MURDER - and you've got yourself a good story. I liked that the perspective changed - seeing both out of biologist Peter Bajowski's eyes and that of newly-emigrated communications manager Kate Standish (who has a therapy dog companion, Hattie) made the story more interesting. But maybe the most interesting were the diary excerpts from the Believer woman who was part of first human convoy to the moon of Huginn. These slowly reveal the creepy story that is in the background of all the action taking place.

If you like Sheri S. Tepper, the later books in the Ender series by Orson Scott Card or even the movie Avatar, you should definitely give this book a try.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

[Clair · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Oath of Dogs is a wonderfully unusual sci-fi thriller that fuels your imagination. Kate Standish arrives on Hugin and discovers a town threatened by eco-terroism, killer sentient dogs and suspects her old boss has been murdered by the corporation she works for.

I loved the world building, the unusual biome filled with fungi and strange alien creatures and the dogs. The book had a good pace throughout to keep the pages turning as you discover more about the planet of Hugin, its inhabitants and the corporation Songheuser. Vivid descriptions bring the world to life. Diary excerpts from the first settlers and book passages add an additional layer of history and intrigue.

The Songheuser corporation came across as a sterotypical greedy firm with no care for the destruction it causes in order for them to achieve maximum profit. But the book explores questions of how corporation, environment and government interact and what balance is right for the planet and the people on it. How humans impact on the environment and how the strange alien world effects them.

The characters are an interesting mix including members of the Believers of the Word Made Flesh (a cult of New Age Mystics who focus around farming), Corporation Staff, and a whole wide range of different personalities. Peter Bajowski, an inquisitive biologist made observations of the alien species which fascinated me. But Kate Standish especially is a brilliantly thought-out character and a relatable heroine. She battles her anxiety with the help of her therapy dog as she unearths the conspiracy giving her a balance of weakness against strengths. I really liked this positive portrayal of someone battling with their mental health. I found myself cheering her on and really cared about what happened to her throughout the book.

An enjoyable eco-sci-fi read I'd recommend to any one who enjoys sci-fi, biology and thrillers.

I received a free copy via Netgallery in return for an honest review.

[Andrea]

Couldn't get into this one. I'm not sure I would have picked it up if I'd known it was magic realism, which is a sub-genre that practically never works for me. It starts out as a planetary adaption and evil corporations story, which do sometimes work for me, but not in this case. I also found the opening following cryo defrost to be weirdly jarring tonally in comparison to the rest of the story.

[enricocioni · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the twenty-third century, and Standish has found a new career in a new town. The new town is a moon, Huginn, and the new career consists of working as head of communication for a huge intergalactic corporation. Standish's predecessor, Duncan Chambers, was murdered. Who killed him, and why? Could it have anything to do with the 100-year-old diary Standish found hidden in his house, detailing the tribulations of Huginn's first colonists? And what about Chambers' former lover, Peter Bajowski, a biologist who many believe has ties to local eco-terrorists? In order to answer these questions, Standish will have to contend with a toxic work environment, roving packs of telepathic dogs, and space Mennonites.

The pacing is perfect--particularly impressive given the book's 400+ pages--and the threat level is consistently adequate--never so low you lose interest, never so high you have to make yourself stop reading for fear of what may happen next. The world-building, too, is excellently balanced. Between the space Mennonites (or, more accurately Believers of the Word Made Flesh), telepathic dogs, and Huginn's weird flora and fauna, the book could have been cloyingly outlandish. Instead, I loved learning more and more about how all these different aspects of the moon's nature and culture fit together--each excerpt from the 100-year-old diary was a treat, each biology-heavy Bajowski chapter a gift.

The characters are a nice bunch, and the two main pov characters, in particular, differ from your usual thriller protagonists: Standish herself is a no-nonsense woman with an anxiety disorder, hopelessly devoted to her big white therapy dog, Hattie, and Peter Bajowski is a bisexual Latino man, meek and nerdy but passionate about nature and doing the right thing. The supporting cast is also quite diverse, including a trans woman named Dewey. Of course, as a cis straight-ish white man, it's entirely possible I didn't pick up on problematic aspects in the way some of these characters were represented, but, for what it's worth, I couldn't detect any glaring tropes or stereotypes, and the words the author uses to talk about Standish's mental health felt like the right calibre of authentic and sympathetic. As--less seriously--did Standish's love for her dog, which, even as a crazy cat man, I found terribly endearing, and probably the main thing I'll take away from this book.

My main problem with the story is that some threads are left hanging at the end. Normally I don't mind this sort of thing--I like discussing ambiguous endings with other people, and/or using my imagination and deduction skills to figure out my own explanations for the things the author left unsaid. Here, though, I found the persisting mysteries frustrating. Perhaps this is because the plot is otherwise crystal-clear, or because half the book reflects the perspective of a scientist--two things that led me to expect a satisfying explanation to everything, not just some things. Ultimately, though, this may be down to personal preference--I'd imagine many readers would be perfectly happy with the explained-to-unexplained ratio.

Overall, An Oath of Dogs is a good, solid sci-fi thriller, set in an interesting world and peopled with sympathetic characters. It probably won't blow your mind, but, should you choose to read it, it'll be a charming companion for the ensuing two or three days of your life.

(I was given a free copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Check out more of my reviews at https://strangebookfellowsblog.wordpr...)

[Lachinchon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I am being harsh. The book is not terrible, and the prose is respectable. It is a murder mystery set on an Earth-like moon (in a galaxy far far away). The structure of the mystery was good and might have rated four stars. There were plenty of plausible suspects with multiple motives, even if, in the end, the butler did it as usual. The world building of an alien ecosystem is where things were not up to snuff. In order for science fiction or fantasy to justify the suspension of disbelief, the foundation must have a firm footing in reality or a rational explanation of why not. In other words, those parts of the fictional world that need not conceptually differ from the reality we know and experience must be plausible. For example, if two antagonists go mano-a-mano during a spacewalk and one shoots the other with a shotgun (bear with me), there cannot be a deafening explosion; Stanley Kubrick got it right – sound does not propagate in a vacuum. This book takes place two hundred years in the future, and they are still stringing cable wire for email? This is a moon in another galaxy, covered in various plant, animal, fungal and microbial life forms, and there was no advanced research before plopping down a handful of religious expats as colonists? There is an entire colonist city over one hundred years old, and they don’t know what is in their backyard? The entire settlement project is relying on lumber company biologists – in their spare time! – to study the local ecosystem? Colonists are starving, but they haven’t looked up in the arboreal canopy or checked out the nearby lake to see if anything might be suitable for consumption?

The theme of corporate greed and destruction of symbiotic ecosystems is not new, even if relevant. James Cameron might sue for plagiarism, because this is Avatar redux. An Oath of Dogs would have been a far better book, and would have more forcefully conveyed its message, if the extraterrestrial setting had been chucked. It very easily and believably could have been set in the Pacific northwest, in the damp forests of Washington State or British Columbia, in the present era.

And please don’t get me started on the half-baked lycanthropy and phytoanthropy (if I can coin a term) goofiness. If morphology, both biologic and linguistic, was intended as a theme, as it surely was judging by the chapter-separating epigraphs, it was as subtle as a chainsaw cutting down a gas-filled “horsetail” tree.

If I recall correctly, Ms. Wagner admitted that this was her first attempt at full scale world building. Her prose shows she has the skills to get better.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendy Wagner's writing is infused with a kindness you really won't find anywhere else (well, maybe if you've seen the Wonder Woman film, you will). You can tell from her writing that she cares about the world and humanity's place in it. Her novel provides readers with a swell science fiction mystery, on a strange new world, along with a wonderful heroine to solve it--a heroine who has a therapy dog. This is another way Wagner's work sings. Her work has heart, and maybe that's what we need most right now.

[Shomeret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd never heard of either An Oath of Dogs or its author, Wendy N. Wagner, and would probably never have encountered them if the book hadn't been nominated as a BOM (Book of the Month) on a Goodreads science fiction group. It didn't win, but it sounded interesting. So I checked libraries. To my great surprise, there was an e-book available. I went to Overdrive and downloaded it. This meant I needed to prioritize it because I had due date.

First, I need to sound a note of caution. Terrible things happen to dogs in this novel. So if you really love dogs, you might want to skip it. I don't want anyone to be blindsided and get exposed to things that may be tremendously upsetting to them.

Why should you read it? I was hooked by the suspenseful mystery element. The book starts out with a murder. The protagonist, Kate Standish, was also mysterious. Mysteries pile upon mysteries. The suspense gets ramped up and never stops until it's resolved.

There were problems. Some characters were stereotypical --most notably the loggers who work for Songheuser. For me, they brought to mind Monty Python's satiric Lumberjack Song which demolishes the stereotype. There was also a paranormal phenomenon described using a theological term that I thought was inappropriate. Christians may find that offensive.

I thought that from a mystery perspective, this was a well plotted novel with unexpected developments. I also found some of the characters engaging. Unfortunately, it was also a very dark book with some horrific elements that I didn't enjoy. My response to An Oath of Dogs was ambivalent. I do think that Wendy N. Wagner writes well. I might be willing to read another book by this author.

For my complete review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...

[Sarah B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy reading books about colony worlds and this is the most recent one I read. The story follows the adventures of a woman who has a service dog and comes to live in a tiny rural town on this planet of lush greenery and odd plants. The lifeforms there are even odder. The locals however are scared of dogs because there is a big pack of killer dogs running around. Now this is not a horror story...it's science fiction. There is a secret about the dogs and why they are acting the way they do. There is also a murder for her to solve, as the man who had the job before her was murdered. The book descriptions of the alien plants and local wildlife are beautiful, made me want to attempt drawing a picture. The book has a twist / surprise which was nice too. I also liked how some of the locals change because of where they are now living; they adopt and become part of the planet. I can't say if this is good or bad for them but it's a nice addition to the plot.

[Matthew Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating novel! I loved the ecology of the planet, the religion that morphed from it, the fact that both main characters came off as prickly but then you get to know them... There are several interesting twists as well.

I feel like I've got a lot to say about it, but so much would be spoilery so you'll just have to read it so we can discuss it.

Though the book is a complete tale, there are plenty of questions left unanswered. I don't know if this means there will be a sequel, but, if not, these aren't the kind of questions that would be maddening. They're interesting ones to ponder and debate, rather than cliffhangers.

I suppose what stands out to me most is that even though a lot of awful things happen on this far off moon, I still picture it as breathtaking and would love to visit.

[Katie Welikanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too long to get in to and a whole 200 pages of nothing much.

I am sorry to my book club friends for making you buy this!!

[Rin Apologist · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

I liked a lot about this book. The plot was interesting, the world was neat, and the themes were mostly very well done! Also, the conclusion didn’t wrap up quite as neatly as it seemed like it was going to and I thought that was a major plus.

However, a lot of the individual scenes were a bit off. Like they were clearly there for a plot purpose. Which is obviously a necessity, but it felt like that to an unnatural degree. The clearest example is the two (and maybe three?) times a character went to the local diner, ordered a meal, had some sort of social interaction immediately after, and then left without eating their food. Or took a bite of there food, talked to a person and left. Why aren’t you eating your food! Please, I am worried for you.

Characters going somewhere, doing/encountering what needs to happen for the greater narrative, and then just bouncing without regards to what they were doing in a place short term happened enough times so it was noticeable and bothersome.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man, that was compelling as hell. Definitely has some Horror logic, in that creepy stuff happens just because that happening would make your skin crawl, but yikes. Murder Horror mystery I read the first page of (where a man is dying), went "welp, that's the ride I'm on" and then kept reading without ceasing.

The timeline intermingling with quotes from diaries and scholarly works was just really masterfully done.

[Spencer Ellsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great cozy mystery on an alien planet. It has all the things I love about a well-drawn alien place--weird creatures, weird trees, a weird mystery among the humans and their dogs who keep going feral--and an increasing ratchet of tension, up and up and up, as we close with the ending.

I loved the setting and loved Hattie, a take-no-guff character who refuses to admit she is out of her depth as she is increasingly out of her depth.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75*s
   An Oath of Dogs is one of those books I like to call ‘sci-fi lite’. This would be a great book to give to a reader wanting to try adult science fiction. This has just enough to feel like it fits in the SF category but so closely follows it’s characters that it’s a relatable. It follows two characters, a woman and man who get embroiled in a murder investigation that quickly spirals into something much bigger, with very intelligent dogs. Kate Standish, who goes by Standish, as she arrives on the moon Huginn a forest rich world being logged by large corporation called Songheusser. She is accompanied by her support dog Hattie, who helps Kate with her agoraphobia. Peter Bajowski is a biologist already working on Huginn for Songheusser. He’s also grieving the death of an ex-lover who worked on Huginn, and who conveniently enough was going to be Kate’s supervisor.

      The book opens with a hell of a chapter, I’d be impressed if someone wasn’t hooked by that brutal opening. From there we move to Standish as she wakes from cyro, and we’re shown immediately how important Hattie, and dogs, are important to the story. Interspersed between the chapters of Peter and Standish’s shenanigans we’re given quotes from a mysterious man and journal entries from the earliest days of Huginn. These entries and thoughts may not seem important to the plot at first but if you pay attention it can give you HUGE hints at where the story goes. Standish lands to find out her now former boss, Duncan, was reported ‘lost’ and believed to be dead and now she has his job, as well as his house. The reader knows, thanks to that brutal opening chapter, the truth about the man. We get to watch as Standish begins to step into the community, earn friends, and discover that maybe everything isn’t all right with Canaan Lake, her new little town. Not only is Duncan presumed dead but the townspeople are being plagued by a pack of rabid dogs. Dogs that seem intelligent and intent on digging up the dead around the town. They’ve been know to nose around houses and as you see later in the book, go after people.

      Initially I didn’t care for Standish or Peter, but they grew on me. Standish is prickly and Peter is a bit of a wet rag. Throughout the story though they grew on me. Standish’s character seemed at times inconsistent but you could see what she was as prickly as she was. She was by no means a perfect woman or character. Peter was the same for me though I thought his character was more consistent through the novel. Once you figure out why he is the way he is, you can understand him. Past our two main characters, we see some great attempts at character depth on others but I’m not sure if I was fully convinced on some of them. I wanted more depth in some of those people, but I do like what we got.

       Besides some what felt like inconsistent character behavior (which seemed to smooth out as the book went on) my other problem with the book was just the way it seemed to jump over things, again at the beginning. I felt like maybe things were trimmed or cut that would have filled in gaps or explained missing time. Things like jumps between when Standish is at home then at someone else’s house, staying there, then back at her own home. We can safely assume why and it might mention in passing, but it felt like something was missing in the execution of this. Past the half way mark this seemed to even out. I’m not entirely sure if this is due to the copy I had, how I read it, or the way the book actually is, but it did affect my enjoyment.

      Other than that I liked a lot of things about this book. The focus on therapy animals, the neo-Mennonite community and their impact in Canaan Lake, the talk about the biology of the planet and the hints at the way it changed the people. In fact I think the book might be entirely worth a read just for the therapy dog and the unique neo-Mennonite community. Those are things I don't think that I've ever read about in a SF book. They bright a splash of depth and color that I really didn't expect, and honestly why I rated the book so highly. I loved the interplay of that community and the religion with how they settled the moon for Songheusser (not to mention the diary entries) and how that affected the story. I also just got excited everything Hattie was on the page, which was really most the pages.

    I'd definitely read it again and really recommend this one for new readers of SF or for someone interested in some really unique and different elements.

     Cover Thoughts: Initially I was not impressed with the cover, but once you get up on it and see the details, the line work it really pops. The meticulously hidden details are amazing, I love pieces like this. You don't realize what you're looking at unless you look deep. I highly recommend inspecting this cover closely. I'm not surprised either, browsing the artist's site, JOEY HI-FI, I can see this is something he excels at. The symmetry in it just makes me so happy, look at that bottom edge with the branches and smoke. How can that not make you happy?

[K. Lincoln · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of an anxiety-ridden communications engineer sent to a logging town on another planet (sorry, moon) where she encounters eco-terrorrists, a mennonite-like cult, and corporate cover ups didn't quite live up to its potential, I thought.

And the problem is, I'm not sure how much of that feeling was influenced by unmarked POV changes that due to formatting issues (Kindle edition) were really tricky to spot. The paragraphs were shoved right up against the prior POV paragraph with very little other than an odd capital letter to mark the change. It meant I often to to stop, go back to find the POV change, and then start rereading again. Very tiresome and happened often when I was JUST hitting my groove either with the voice of the mennonite women in her journal entries or with main character Standish the engineer. I wish we had just stuck with Standish (the other main POV is Pete the company biologist) and the journal entries since they were easy to spot changes (both because the tenor of the voice was entirely different and the italics). Pete wasn't as interesting to me.

Standish arrives in Canaan Lake just as her boss dies out in the woods alone. She's sure its a murder, but the local Sheriff, who may or may not be in the pocket of the corporation bankrolling the whole logging town, rules it most likely suicide. Standish starts to investigate and discovers mysterious, unmarked roads, a pack of wild dogs that is targeting the colonists' dead in the cemeteries no one wants to discuss, and strange behavior on the part of the local fauna.

Huginn is an interesting world. The sciencey bits about the local fungi, flora, and fauna were pleasingly extra-terrestrial. The "magical" bits about the dogs and Olive (young girl who spends most of her time in the woods and whose hair color changes) etc. tantalizingly borderline hallucination vs fantastical.

But some of that gets lost in the corporate logging interests vs ecoterrorists part that somehow has to do with Standish's friend back in the spaceport city? And then there's stuff about the Sheriff who seems to switch sides? Anyway, I guess I wanted more about Standish figuring out who she wanted to be and recovering from her trauma and uncovering the secrets of the faux mennonites and less logging stuff. Still, interesting take on extra-terrestrial world.

[Kel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on what life out in the universe would like to humans colonising through the stars. Specifically, on a planet that has an entirely different ecosystem, a reliance on cutting down the native trees, and the corporation that controls practically the whole planet.

Except the wild pack of dogs that dig up the dead...

The use of a service animal within the plot was fascinating, if uneven, while adding to the tension of the town's internal suspicions and unknown histories, with the added foil of scientific endeavour and exploration not being encouraged by the loggers or greater corporation. Use of a first-settler's diary entries were cleverly done, adding to the creeping dread as the plot progressed. World building was clever, visual and at times terrifying, and the story has lingered with me for some time.

[Ahimsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit Laura Ingalls Wilder, a little bit Jeff Vandermeer, a little bit Elmore Leonard; this is an exceptional story that despite some familiar trappings manages to be entirely original.

I don't want to say too much about the plot, other than that I liked the characters quite a lot (apart from the Dewey ex machina, which felt unearned) and the pacing was great.

One thought: If the moon Huginn (thought) changes based on what people think, what in the world happens on Muninn (memory). Are people becoming unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim style? Or is it more like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, falling into memory after memory? Or maybe it's like Memento, with memories being elusive and untrustworthy. Please write the sequel, Ms. Wagner!

[Garrett Calcaterra · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Oath of Dogs drew me in right from the start with a hook reminiscent of a murder mystery, and in a large part, the novel is a murder mystery. It's so much more than just that, though. It's a far future sci-fi story set on another planet where the protagonist, Kate Standish, struggles with PTSD and working for a corporation that cares little for the land or the people living there. Kate has a service dog, Hattie, who runs amuck with the strange feral dogs on the planet, and this adds a nice sublayer of character and milieu. As the book draws to a close, a lot of strange ecological things take place, to the point where the story becomes borderline fantasy, but without feeling contrived or unbelievable. All in all, a great story.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the smell of rain, damp earth, and forests in this story. Take time to make friends if you want a place to feel like home. And find yourself a good dog.

[Cameron Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this read, but wish it had gone all the way. At times it felt too held back by our known world and scenarios, and at times, reached brilliantly into a new kind of place.

[Elizabeth Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed everything in this book, story, characters, verse, mystery. It all felt so realistic, I could see this happening in the past and the future.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: mc with agoraphobia, Guatemalan/Mexican American bi mc, trans side character

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fantastic worldbuilding, but a bit bogged down in the last third or so.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

On an inhabitable moon, humanity has formed a colony, largely through a corporations that control the valuable resources that are found there. Kate Standish arrives to start a new job, and finds immediately that her old boss has disappeared.. and may have been murdered, but it's a company town and looking into things that harm the company is dangerous. Also, Kate Standish has a dog, an emotional support animal, which may be a problem, as this part of the planet has a reputation, that dogs tend to disappear and join one of the feral packs that are a constant nuisance, maybe even a threat, to the population. Of course, the biggest threat might be from the corporations trying to increase their profits.

Disclaimer: I got this book for free from the publisher through a Twitter contest. I don't think it affected my review.

This is a frustrating book to review. I'd heard before trying it out that there were some elements that were more fantasy than science fiction, but depending on who's saying that, that could range anywhere from 'telepathy exists' to 'there are literal magic spells.' And, starting to read the book, I was really enjoying it as a SF story, it had a believable alien world with a vivid, consistent-seeming ecology and a bit of a mystery to it, good characters I enjoyed laerning more about, and the science was paid attention to enough that it looked like anything 'weird' might be explainable in classic science fictional terms, perhaps implausible or outright impossible in the way SF stories can often be, but still with the spirit of being science. But then, finally, one of the key mysteries get revealed and... it's outright fantasy. Like to the point that it almost angered me. And tainted much of what I was liking about the book, not just in the sense of "I liked the book but now I don't" but in the sense of "if you include THAT then every scientific part of the book feels like a waste of time." Because when there's also a murder mystery, based on the other big mystery's solution, now I have to wonder, "Maybe the murderer was a evil sorceror.' Could happen, just as valid as the other revelation. When there's some little mystery involving the ecology of the planet that crops up, but, based on the other mystery, I'm forced to consider that it's no less plausible that it'll turn out that it's working that way because somebody made a wish on a genie in a lamp, or fairy folk made it that way, and, to parphrase an old saying, if literally anything can happen, because nothing has to logically proceed from anything else, why should I care what exactly happens? And that's what the fantasy elements opened the door to. Furthermore, the particular revelation removed a lot of the cool tension on the early parts of the book about what would happen with the main character and her dog.

It just feels so incongruous to me, too.. not that it wasn't, to some degree, set up by the narrative, but it felt to me like the author wrote 90-95% of a great hard SF planetary mystery story, then got bored, slapped the first random fantastic thing to come to mind in order to quickly wrap up the big mystery and then in revising the novel set up a few references so that it had a bit of support.

That's where the frustration comes in, because if it was otherwise awful, I could just toss it aside as a bad book (or at least one that wasn't at all for me). I wouldn't be so annoyed if the rest of it didn't show so much potential as science fiction, and in fact gave me a good deal of enjoyment. Which makes it difficult to rate. Because I want to give the first half/three-quarters of the book something around four stars, and the remainder two (and even that score largely because the actual prose was good). I guess I'll rate it a three, but a very conflicted three. I want to read an ACTUAL science fiction novel by this author, without some mystical fantasy element, because I think it could be great. I think, if I saw another work from this author, I'd be interested if I could first be assured that it go into fantasy at all.

This is just my tastes, of course, as someone who can get into fantasy occasionally but vastly prefers science fiction (and is more than a little particular about things that matter little to anyone else). Objectively, I can't say there's necessarily a problem with the approach the author took, but it made me react badly. Others may well enjoy it without problems, but I can only rate from my own perspective.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An uplifting mix of horrifying colonist disaster, xenobiology and a good old murder mystery wrapped up in great writing, characters and a glorious cover.

[T.J. Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Oath of Dogs is a fun science fiction murder mystery steeped in the danger of an alien world. Wendy does a great job of making Huginn feel unfamiliar and threatening, while at the same time homey and mundane. Juxtaposing a murder investigation onto this complex and scary world amplifies the power of each. I even found myself silently rooting for characters to be more careful among the local flora and fauna. I was going, "No, don't touch that! Look out!" Which is always a sign that I'm totally engrossed in the story.

I love that the main character, Standish, is a tough woman with an even tougher past. Her constant companion is her therapy dog, Hattie, who is written with enough personality that she truly felt like a human character all on her own. It's important that we get a chance to see how an animal companion assists someone with mental health challenges. Representation is key.

The story also broaches a thoughtful discussion about the intersection of faith and science. My only wish was for more flashbacks to Standish's accident. There were bits and pieces, but I wanted to feel like I'd lived through the terror with her to understand her current emotional reactions. But I bet that story could make a book unto itself.

This is a great science fiction read. If Wendy writes a sequel, I'd be glad to hop back on a shuttle to Huginn!