- Paperback: 291 pages
- Publisher: Sceptre; New edition edition (15 Jan 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340685972
- ISBN-13: 978-0340685976
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 474,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
A group of talking monster dogs in top hats and tails become instant celebrities when they arrive in New York in the year 2008. Refugees from a Canadian town isolated for 100 years, the dogs retain the 19th-century Prussian culture of their creator. But a mysterious disease is wiping them out.
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First Sentence
I remember the night the helicopter landed, because I was walking on the West Side, by the river, not far south of the heliport, and my heart was breaking. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I remember the night the helicopter landed, because I was walking on the West Side, by the river, not far south of the heliport, and my heart was breaking. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I came away from Lives of the Monster Dogs most wistful. Sometime in the near future, according to author Kristen Bakis, the great Monster Dogs would leave thier north Canada village, and bring thier Victorian elegance, thier Frankenstein bodies, thier doomed lives to Gotham*s refuge of New York City. The story line is alternated largely between the sad German Sheppard Ludwig, and a young (human) woman who becomes thier intermediary for most of the outside world. Much is made (too much?)of the life of thier mad creator and *father* August Rank, he learns, he experiments, he kills his half-brother. (Though it is never stated so in the book, I wonder if the young woman is descended from the brother*s posthumous child.) We are given the remote town Rank and his Dogs flee to, the opera written of its rebellion and destruction; in New York the Monster Dogs hold a parade in the snow, build a fairybook castle. And all the while the Dogs are slowly going mad and dying (with the odd exception of a female Samoyed). There exists no fully driving storyline, much of the book exists in retrospective, in describing its portrait of an ultimately doomed society; the beauty is that this techinique is so effective. Ludwig tries, in increasing desparation, to convey his loneliness, his fears to his human friend. I come away wishing the Monster Dogs were real, that such wonders could really invade our simian world. At best, there is only a dark, beautiful glimpse.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book's premise drew me in. What a wonderful idea! I was expecting to learn about these creatures and what they thought and how they felt in their final hours. The relationships with humans also held promise. What was actually delivered was a watery stroy, false relationships and a lot of blathering on about the narrators hard life with no a/c. I give the author all due credit for coming up with an original idea and some interesting and engaging characters, such as Lydia, but I have to say that the story did not due the idea justice and in the end, I felt no closer to caring about the dogs or the peolple than I did in the first paragraph. Too many unanswered questions and assumptions into the relationships.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Loads of great ideas, but all the big ones are thrown at you in the first few pages and so much of the rest of the book is an elaboration of them that nothing much actually happens.
The last part of the book is a bit of an indulgent mess that seemed to have bypassed the editor completely. Disappointed.
The last part of the book is a bit of an indulgent mess that seemed to have bypassed the editor completely. Disappointed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Misplaced Focus Undoes a Promising Story
Lives of the Monster Dogs is essentially two books. Ludwig von Sacher's story speaks of the past, of assorted documents and blanks that even the desperate German Shepherd and... Read more
Published on 2 May 2009 by Atli Hafsteinsson
To see ourselves as others may see us
Lives of the Monster Dogs may owe much to Mary Shelley and H.G Wells but it is a unique experience, well imagined and delivered. Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2009 by Wordy
Dog's breakfast
Lives Of The Monster Dogs came decked with words like "Dazzling", "Moving", "Brilliant" and so on on its cover. Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2008 by lurgee
An unsual, intriguing and easy read, but ultimately flat and...
The Lives of the Monster dogs should have been an exceptional novel. It has an intriguing premise and all the elements required for a gripping plot - dastardly scientists, loyal... Read more
Published on 11 Jun 2006 by Rivercassini
An unusual world view that haunts the soul.
Of all the novels I have read in recent years this book still remains with me,it is full of haunting imagery. Read more
Published on 7 Jan 2001
Ruff-ruff fluff in a frock-coat.
If you've ever read "Frankenstein" or seen "Beaches", then you'll know what this is about. Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2000 by Luke Martin
wow... fantasy at it's best
If i had an ambition to write a book, this is the kind of book i would love to write.Are there more books like this one??
Published on 9 Jun 1999
an affecting and thought-provoking story
This book affected me as many books do not. It is a story of wanting and searching, of loneliness and belonging, of suffering and the tragedies of awareness, and it is about so... Read more
Published on 2 April 1999
Like dog hair stuck to your socks.
Wow, what a mess. I was patient. I sat like a good girl and even rolled over a couple times. This book is a GREAT idea but was so poorly written. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 1999
An incredible literary work!
Kirsten Bakis takes on the chalenge of creating a beleivible novel about the fantastic- and pulls it of masterfuly. Read more
Published on 3 Jan 1999
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