Amy Miller Reviews:

Lives of the Monster Dogs
by Kirsten Bakis
Warner Books, 1997,
$12.99 trade paper

This is not your father's Frankenstein. Not his Lord of the Flies, either. In a sense, it's both.

We begin with a mad scientist. A really mad scientist -- Augustus Rank, who gets his kicks by amputating and reattaching cows' legs. (Animal lovers, beware: You'll want to hold your nose for about ten pages). With orders to manufacture an army of genetically engineered animals, Rank chooses dogs for their unflagging loyalty and unthinking savagery. In the frozen reaches of northern Canada, he builds a small army-in-training of highly intelligent dogs ... and then he dies.

That's when the Lord of the Flies part begins. The dogs are too intelligent -- trained to walk upright, wear clothing, and speak English through voice-synthesis boxes. Without the demagogic Rank to lead them, the dogs realize that they're slaves of their human captors, and they revolt -- with spectacular success.

Then, in a wonderful 21st-century twist on the old gothic-horror formula, the liberated dogs find their way to Manhattan, where they're instantly embraced as celebrities. They take up residence at the Plaza Hotel, get the photo-spread treatment in Vanity Fair, and throw lavish parties for the enthralled populus. The media and public are so fascinated by these exotic, erudite creatures that they're willing to forgive them of virtually anything, even their bloody past.

But there's trouble ahead. The dogs' engineering is prone to malfunction, and one by one, they're reverting to their natural doglike state -- an "illness" the sophisticated dogs find shameful and terrifying.

Bakis covers a great scope of ideas here: what is human, what is celebrity, and whether we can navigate the ethical dilemmas of manufacturing living creatures. The end result is a melancholy and entertaining fever dream -- thought provoking, highly imaginative, and highly recommended.