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Draka #3
The Stone Dogs
A cold war between the American-led Alliance and the Domination, rivals in the Draka conquest, erupts in a space confrontation that will decide the freedom or slavery of humankind. Reissue.
522 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1990
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About the author
S.M. Stirling
170 books1,645 followersStephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.
MINI AUTO-BIOGRAPHY:
(personal website: source)
I’m a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico at present. My hobbies are mostly related to the craft. I love history, anthropology and archaeology, and am interested in the sciences. The martial arts are my main physical hobby.
MINI AUTO-BIOGRAPHY:
(personal website: source)
I’m a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico at present. My hobbies are mostly related to the craft. I love history, anthropology and archaeology, and am interested in the sciences. The martial arts are my main physical hobby.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 2, 2014
This one takes us through the space race, but amped up intensely by competition between the Draka and the U.S. Alliance. By 2014, much of the solar system has been colonized, terra-forming is more than just a dream, and the advances in bio-engineering are mindblowing, including genetically designed mutant infantry, part baboon, part cat, part man.
The handling of the new technologies is a mixed bag. Sometimes Stirling's ideas are clever and extremely well presented. At other times I got the feeling, one common to his books, that he was in love with hardware for its own sake.
And then there are the things he did that didn't make much sense to me. By 1970, the Draka have developed a bracelet that is embedded in nerve centers, and a remote control that will activate all the pain nerves in the body at once. They use this for control of badly out of line serfs. Wouldn't they also develop something similar to stimulate pleasure centers. What would such a device do to a culture? Think of the recreational possibilities. But even more, in terms of operant conditioning, the ability to reward serfs with boosts of absolute pleasure would do way more to get serfs in line than just about anything I can think of. And it would have the potential to reduce people into totally unthinking pleasure addicts -- almost perfect slaves. But it's not on Stirling's radar because he always seems to want to focus on the sadistic.
There are all the familiar Stirling elements here. Aside from the sadism and cruelty of the Draka, and the extensive descriptions of military hardware, we also get fairly large sized helpings of extremely competent military personnel and lesbian sex. I sometimes think that there is no world in the Stirling multi-verse that doesn't have these, or at least no world worth writing about.
There are returning characters from the past books, and their children and grandkids. Their interactions sometimes pushed past the limits of credibility. In particular, the kids of an escaped serf are now spies, and they get sent back on a mission to the plantation from which their mother escaped. Then, they both run into the main villain/hero of the book, Yolande. And this happens in ways that forced a suspension of disbelief at least once to often.
As for the chief here/villain of the book. We start in her teen years, and I found them to be dull. By the middle of the book, she goes crazy and becomes one of the worst monsters I've seen. Despite the craziness, I thought the main character lacked depth.
There's a fourth book, and its not included as part of the series. This book finishes the story of the Domination of the Draka, and its a solid conclusion. I wasn't disappointed, but neither was I wowed.
The handling of the new technologies is a mixed bag. Sometimes Stirling's ideas are clever and extremely well presented. At other times I got the feeling, one common to his books, that he was in love with hardware for its own sake.
And then there are the things he did that didn't make much sense to me. By 1970, the Draka have developed a bracelet that is embedded in nerve centers, and a remote control that will activate all the pain nerves in the body at once. They use this for control of badly out of line serfs. Wouldn't they also develop something similar to stimulate pleasure centers. What would such a device do to a culture? Think of the recreational possibilities. But even more, in terms of operant conditioning, the ability to reward serfs with boosts of absolute pleasure would do way more to get serfs in line than just about anything I can think of. And it would have the potential to reduce people into totally unthinking pleasure addicts -- almost perfect slaves. But it's not on Stirling's radar because he always seems to want to focus on the sadistic.
There are all the familiar Stirling elements here. Aside from the sadism and cruelty of the Draka, and the extensive descriptions of military hardware, we also get fairly large sized helpings of extremely competent military personnel and lesbian sex. I sometimes think that there is no world in the Stirling multi-verse that doesn't have these, or at least no world worth writing about.
There are returning characters from the past books, and their children and grandkids. Their interactions sometimes pushed past the limits of credibility. In particular, the kids of an escaped serf are now spies, and they get sent back on a mission to the plantation from which their mother escaped. Then, they both run into the main villain/hero of the book, Yolande. And this happens in ways that forced a suspension of disbelief at least once to often.
As for the chief here/villain of the book. We start in her teen years, and I found them to be dull. By the middle of the book, she goes crazy and becomes one of the worst monsters I've seen. Despite the craziness, I thought the main character lacked depth.
There's a fourth book, and its not included as part of the series. This book finishes the story of the Domination of the Draka, and its a solid conclusion. I wasn't disappointed, but neither was I wowed.
August 5, 2019
One of Stirling's earlier works, the Domination of Draka series is a thought experiment about what if there was an evil America analogue; it gets all the good breaks in life, it attracts a lot of disaffected losers of history and famous historical figures alike (Nietzsche immigrated there, for instance...his idea of the Will to Power is a mainstay of their philosophy), and it advances apace other nations, if not slightly ahead, and massively ahead in biological sciences. Somewhat spoilery below:
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Stirling builds the tension marvelously throughout the book, both between the Alliance for Democracy and the Domination, but also within the Domination itself between the pragmatist von Shrackenberg and his Conservatives, and Gayner with her Militants. When the Protracted Struggle ends, Stirling does it in a few dozen pages at most, but the sheer horror he manages to convey is astounding and awe-inspiring, in a "my God, this is unthinkable" sort of way. Towards the end of the day the Earth is engulfed in flame, von Shrackenberg is staring at the projections in real time and orders that nuclear weapons cease being used, if something of that power is needed, orbital kinetic bombardment only, because, as we see towards the end...the war nearly destroys the world. The Earth won't fully recover for over a century, and if we didn't know book four was coming, we'd be ending on the note of wondering if humanity would survive the coming years, both on the ruined Earth with the Domination and the 40 year journey of the New America.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Stirling builds the tension marvelously throughout the book, both between the Alliance for Democracy and the Domination, but also within the Domination itself between the pragmatist von Shrackenberg and his Conservatives, and Gayner with her Militants. When the Protracted Struggle ends, Stirling does it in a few dozen pages at most, but the sheer horror he manages to convey is astounding and awe-inspiring, in a "my God, this is unthinkable" sort of way. Towards the end of the day the Earth is engulfed in flame, von Shrackenberg is staring at the projections in real time and orders that nuclear weapons cease being used, if something of that power is needed, orbital kinetic bombardment only, because, as we see towards the end...the war nearly destroys the world. The Earth won't fully recover for over a century, and if we didn't know book four was coming, we'd be ending on the note of wondering if humanity would survive the coming years, both on the ruined Earth with the Domination and the 40 year journey of the New America.
November 23, 2023
Much slower than the previous books (it spans decades, versus the days and months of its precedents), this third volume of the Draka series compares only two philosophies, rather than the four in the second book. Can a Western-style democracy stack up against a slve-powered master-race culture that lives on a permanent war footing? In Stirling's setting, it's a close call, with ever-increasing stakes that turn on the most intimate of motivations. And much of the resolution comes down to luck: whose strategy suffers a greater failure in its first encounter with reality.
The issue I have with this story is of the technological progress that results from a decades-long tepid war. Yes, open conflict provides a significant boost to research, but the leaps attributed to both parties in this world of the Domination begger belief: capabilities that are still multiple decades off in the real world put into production in the 1980s!
Also, there is the question of whether any culture could maintain such a degree of military readiness, and reap the tech-boost benefits of war for half a century. Stirling's alternate history pushes suspension of disbeliefe just a little too far…
The issue I have with this story is of the technological progress that results from a decades-long tepid war. Yes, open conflict provides a significant boost to research, but the leaps attributed to both parties in this world of the Domination begger belief: capabilities that are still multiple decades off in the real world put into production in the 1980s!
Also, there is the question of whether any culture could maintain such a degree of military readiness, and reap the tech-boost benefits of war for half a century. Stirling's alternate history pushes suspension of disbeliefe just a little too far…
June 8, 2025
The ending of this book just left me empty and sad. It's been a long time since I've read it, but that is the primary emotion I remember. Rarely does a series let the bad guys win so completely. And the Dominion of Draka are one of the worst. This isn't a comment on the quality of the rest of the book, which is fine, but if I'm purely rating a book on its ability to make me feel despair it certainly did that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2019
Book Three in the very disturbing, emotionally manipulative, and thought provoking Draka Domination alternate history..... And absolutely, one of the best military sci-fi series I have read.
April 22, 2021
The Stone Dogs is a novel that is—flatly—cynical, ugly, and repugnant in every conceivable dimension.
I’m so tired, y'all.
I’m so tired, y'all.
August 14, 2022
Another great DRAKA series book though I wish there was another in the series after Drakon (Book 4)!!!
March 28, 2025
The book has you on the edge of your seat as you wait for the inevitable destruction of one side or the other. Well worth your time to read the trilogy.
June 13, 2025
The broader scene of international conflict that I like, rather than the more isolated spy-oriented plots of the first 2 books.
October 22, 2025
crap and they don't all die, which is what I really wanted to happen
September 10, 2015
SM Sterling is an extraordinary science fiction writer, yet unknown to the great public. He is one of the victims of the termination of Utorrens, a world online library where the elite culture people shared their books with the less fortunate, the elite few of the world that reads secondhand by recommendation online the world over. Both groups helped each other, one bought and kept fed the authors, the other celebrated the choice and pressured for more quality writing, considerably increasing the audience and with it helping to foster the demands of the paid audience which in turn produced more high quality writing of those mentioned. It was a superb publicity scheme, much better than the unfortunate commercial systems we are subjected now. Pre Internet schemes are not only lousy, they turn the small audience to which it speaks into a world of newspaper news, forever disappearing in oblivion.
With Utorrens, I got accustomed to read the authors I liked in complete work mode, a modality I have never experienced before Internet rendering, and of course could have never afforded. I not only read tenfold, but my book buying got selective, only for those very few books that rounded the overall view and were opportunities not easily shared (unknowns), and would have never been included in a previous buying spree.
I started reading SM Sterling by recommendation of my 12 year grandson, and got fascinated and tried to read as possible his whole work. Of course, he was and author in the make, maturing from small fiction into a very rare and personal view of fiction, but it had the potential of Arthur C. Clarke. I kept looking for the next rendering, year after year from that day on.
With Utorrens, I got accustomed to read the authors I liked in complete work mode, a modality I have never experienced before Internet rendering, and of course could have never afforded. I not only read tenfold, but my book buying got selective, only for those very few books that rounded the overall view and were opportunities not easily shared (unknowns), and would have never been included in a previous buying spree.
I started reading SM Sterling by recommendation of my 12 year grandson, and got fascinated and tried to read as possible his whole work. Of course, he was and author in the make, maturing from small fiction into a very rare and personal view of fiction, but it had the potential of Arthur C. Clarke. I kept looking for the next rendering, year after year from that day on.
November 25, 2013
This one is *much* better than the preceding two - it really has a place to go with the story, although where that is is murky until the end. It's somehow less wastefully character focused even though plot development is not exactly foremost. The way the author tells small parts of lots of different stories over a long time period makes the book seem much larger than it is, in a good way.
The chapter preamble "documents" are really unfortunate. In most cases, the documents are from years or decades ahead of the next section of the book, and the jerking around in time is really unfortunate. The timestamps on the documents also give away parts of the plot...if the Alliance is publishing things in 1995, then obviously the 1970 chapters are not going to lead to much!
I think the ending is great, both in how it develops Eric (from the previous two books), and it how it's a good out to keep the series going.
The chapter preamble "documents" are really unfortunate. In most cases, the documents are from years or decades ahead of the next section of the book, and the jerking around in time is really unfortunate. The timestamps on the documents also give away parts of the plot...if the Alliance is publishing things in 1995, then obviously the 1970 chapters are not going to lead to much!
I think the ending is great, both in how it develops Eric (from the previous two books), and it how it's a good out to keep the series going.
June 25, 2018
The third installment. Definitely the biggest of the Draka novels in terms of pages as well as covering several decades. Epic actually is the word that comes to mind. The Draka are advancing and there is a strong sense of doom regarding the fate of the free half of the Human race. This installments is probably the strongest ,in terms of science fiction elements, as well, As far as the rest. Well the Draka are basically invincible and fate continues to treat them kindly. South Afrikan Superpeople conqueror not just the world, but the solar system.
August 30, 2011
In the third of Stirling's Draka series, it is the 1970s and 1980s and the superpowers have expanded into space while plotting the deployment of superweapons against one another. The Draka are even more twisted as a society, and the subplots have become more sordid. As with Stirling's other works, there's lots of detailed military action and a growing sense of doom.
September 12, 2011
Loyalists from the American Revolution are resettled in the Cape Town colony and become a continental military power known as the Domination of the Draka.
In the third book of the Draka saga, the conflict with the American-led Alliance moves to the solar system.
If you're looking for raw good vs. evil in an alternative history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Draka novels are for you.
In the third book of the Draka saga, the conflict with the American-led Alliance moves to the solar system.
If you're looking for raw good vs. evil in an alternative history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Draka novels are for you.
September 7, 2012
This is number 3 in a series that just got better and punchier and darker as it went along. And it suckered me, and it will sucker you with the sweetness and light start.
Do not start here. Go directly to the beginning, Marching through Georgia, (that's Georgia on the Black Sea btw), follow up with Under the Yoke and then treat yourself to Stone Dogs.
Do not start here. Go directly to the beginning, Marching through Georgia, (that's Georgia on the Black Sea btw), follow up with Under the Yoke and then treat yourself to Stone Dogs.
February 5, 2016
I love alternate history stories. This one shows what could happen if you had a country as efficient and dedicated as the Germans but not run by madmen. Extremely great storyline, highly recommended.
June 6, 2018
The conclusion to a terrifying story.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews