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Josh Mlot

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Josh Mlot is currently reading

The Dog Stars

by Peter Heller

bookshelves: currently-reading, re-read

Reading for the 2nd time

read in December 2012

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Josh Mlot said: " I picked up Peter Heller's "The Dog Stars" knowing very little about it other than it was widely getting positive reviews. The story ended up not at all what I expected, and that was a good thing. It turned out to be one of the best books of 2012.

"Th I picked up Peter Heller's "The Dog Stars" knowing very little about it other than it was widely getting positive reviews. The story ended up not at all what I expected, and that was a good thing. It turned out to be one of the best books of 2012.

"The Dog Stars" is a post-apocalyptic tale - unbeknownst to me when I first opened it - about civilization some time in the future after the world as we know it has been wiped out by a combination of some flu-like disease and a blood disorder. But the story's focus is not a post-apocalyptic world, which is what I liked most about it, I think. It's not gloom and doom and death and horror. There are certainly some horrifying moments and cringe-worthy occasions, but it's really a story of hope and beauty in the most bleak of situations.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of a character known only as Hig, who flies a 1956 Cessna plane and has taken of refuge at an airport in Colorado. He and his survival partner, Bangley, have turned the airport compound into a fortress of sorts and have learned how to survive in a world not conducive to survival. The humans that have survived this long may carry a disease or may murder without thought - survival of the fittest.

It's very clear that Heller has a fondness for poetry - he has an MFA in both fiction and poetry. It seeps out of the pores of the book, from the language and description to the way his narrator, Hig, breaks up his sentences to the fact that Hig, himself, has a fondness for poetry. It helps to give a unique flavor to a post-apocalyptic tale that doesn't feel like your standard end-of-the-world tome. Hig is a very hopeful character who reveals the beauty in what's left - perhaps making the ugliness even scarier - and still seems to have room left in his mind to dream of things that would seem long gone in such a world.

The characters in the book are trying to find there place in the world and exactly what it means to live out your life under such circumstances - what's the point in staying alive just to face death over and over again and never see any of the goodness? Except that Hig seems rooted to the goodness, and in that way "The Dog Stars" is really a tribute to hope and its power. ...more "

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— May 21, 2026 11:50AM

Dec 27, 2012 06:48PM · see review