The Dog Stars: The hope-filled story of a world changed by global catastrophe
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
A life-affirming dystopian tale of global disaster, survival, and belief for any reader of Emily St John Mandel's STATION ELEVEN or Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD
'THE ROAD crossed with a post-apocalyptic romance...[engages] deep emotions to spine-chilling (and suspenseful) effect' Lawrence Norfolk, Guardian Books of the Year
Readers fell in love with THE DOG STARS
'Every bit as good as THE ROAD... A superbly sustained masterpiece' *****
'A beautifully written tale of loss, survival and self-discovery ... suspenseful and touching' *****
'A wee gem ... A great story, beautifully spun and well told' *****
'I absolutely loved this book' *****
Hig, bereaved and traumatised after global disaster, has three things to live for - his dog Jasper, his aggressive but helpful neighbour, and his Cessna aeroplane. He's just about surviving, so long as he only takes his beloved plane for short journeys, and saves his remaining fuel.
But, just once, he picks up a message from another pilot, and eventually the temptation to find out who else is still alive becomes irresistible. So he takes his plane over the horizon, knowing that he won't have enough fuel to get back. What follows is scarier and more life-affirming than he could have imagined. And his story, THE DOG STARS, is a book unlike any you have ever read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the tradition of postapocalyptic literary fiction such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Jim Crace's The Pesthouse, this hypervisceral first novel by adventure writer Heller (Kook) takes place nine years after a superflu has killed off much of mankind. Hig, an amateur pilot living in Colorado, has retreated to an abandoned airport from which he flies sorties in "the Beast," his vintage Cessna, over isolated pockets of survivors. His only neighbor is the survivalist Bangley, who's sitting on a stockpile of weapons and munitions, and the only visitors are plague survivors who have descended into savagery. Hig's one real comfort, besides the memory of his dead wife, Melissa, who fell victim to the flu while pregnant, is his dog, Jasper. But when that comfort is withdrawn, Hig flies west in search of the radio voice that called out to him three years before. Instead, he ends up being shot down and restrained by a doctor named Cima and her shotgun-toting father, a former Navy SEAL. With its evocative descriptions of hunting, fishing, and flying, this novel, perhaps the world's most poetic survival guide, reads as if Billy Collins had novelized one of George Romero's zombie flicks. From start to finish, Heller carries the reader aloft on graceful prose, intense action, and deeply felt emotion.
Customer Reviews
Lovely, wise
Such a pleasure... Thrilling post apocalypse book, with hope!
Not good
Bought this book on a recommendation, wish I hadn't. I found the authors style of writing annoying!
A brilliant book
The kind of book that comes along every so often and just blows you away. Can not recommend enough