Lives of the Monster Dogs

The Monster Dogs in question walk upright, speak through electronic voice boxes, possess prosthetic hands and dress in the fashions of 19th century Prussia - naturally. Incredibly smart they are also fabulously wealthy and descend on New York in our near future after spending a century hiding out in the wilds of Northern Canada. They leave this town called Rankstadt after murdering their former masters, along with every man, women and child and burning the city to the ground - which we find out in an operatic libretto later in the book.

Yeah this is quirky to put it mildly. The dogs straight up murdered an entire city and are now feted in New York. Their creator Augustus Rank is Victor Frankenstein's sociopathic veterinarian brother. It has this gothic feel with shades of Stoker and there is a pervasive sense of wistful melancholy throughout. I'm just not exactly sure what I was supposed to take away from this all.

I first read this book when I was in that gray, everlastingly numb area after a breakup. The main character, Cleo Pira, was in the same place at the beginning of this novel, and Bakis's prose captured that lost feeling incredibly well.

I soon forgot about my own feelings as I was engrossed in the melancholy lives of the monster dogs, their magnificent and horrible creation and escape to modern-day (2008) New York City, and their attempt to make a life as creatures destined to be outsiders.

There is so much feeling in this book, much of it sad, but also accepting. There are twinges of sci-fi and medical horror - the descriptions of the creator of the monster dogs, Augustus Rank, his childhood and brilliantly single-minded and psychopathic devotion to his work, were perfectly chilling. I love stories about mad scientists and what comes of their mad work, and Bakis's novel fits in easily with Shelley's Frankenstein and Wells's Island of Doctor Moreau.