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Dogs of War
- Author
- Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 25 December 2025
- Run Time
- 9 hours 29 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
A bio-engineered dog fights for its life and its right to life. From the Arthur C. Clark Award-winning author of CHILDREN OF TIME.
My name is Rex. I am a good dog.
Rex is also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy calibre weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instil fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he's part of a Multiform Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, Mexico. A genetically engineered Bioform, he's a deadly weapon in a dirty war. All he wants to be is a Good Dog. And to do that he must do exactly what Master says and Master says he's got to kill a lot of enemies.
But who, exactly, are the enemies? What happens when Master is tried as a war criminal? What rights does the Geneva Convention grant weapons? Do Rex and his fellow Bioforms even have a right to exist?
And what happens when Rex slips his leash?
'Detailed and clever worldbuilding... Tchaikovsky pulls off an impressive feat in making Rex’s character evolution genuinely moving. Readers will be wowed' Publishers Weekly
Critics Review
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Rex, a 2-metre-tall bioengineered dog, is one of the most achingly human characters I have ever encountered in an SF novel. A gripping dive into bioethics and artificial intelligence
New Scientist
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This is superior stuff, tackling big themes – gods, messiahs, artificial intelligence, alienness – with brio
Financial Times
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A joy from start to finish. Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human
Patrick Ness
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Detailed and clever worldbuilding... Tchaikovsky pulls off an impressive feat in making Rex's character evolution genuinely moving. Readers will be wowed
Publishers Weekly
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A timely warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence and super weapons in the hands of unscrupulous powers
Guardian
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The novel [is] thoughtful and emotionally affecting, yet also exciting and unpredictable
SFX 5* review
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Tchaikovsky is a phenomenal author, a modern powerhouse of fiction... Speculative fiction at its best'
Starburst magazine
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When it comes to science fiction, my primitive brain always craves action and pretty explosions. My higher self is looking for a plot that forces me to engage my brain and think. With Dogs of War, Adrian Tchaikovsky has managed the near impossible and delivered both masterfully
The Eloquent Page
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A novel which takes war and broadens the concept to include peacetime ramifications of this new frontier technology through sociopolitical commentary which in turn gives the characters and theme a 360 feel delivered through a multi POV narrative... This book is great, read it'
Just a Guy Who Likes to Read
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The nuance of the story could easily have been lost in imagery of massive animals running impossible missions, but Tchaikovsky is a skilled navigator and guides us deftly along to a very satisfying conclusion... The work of an author on the very top of his game'
Boney Abroad.
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A chilling portrayal of the future, humanised, ironically, by the lovability of the primary character, Rex... Tchaikovsky demonstrates, yet again, that he is an excellent storyteller whether in fantasy of science fiction'
Concatenation.
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A pretty stellar work of speculative fiction... I promise you'll never see dogs in the same way again'
The Roaring Bookworm
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrator
- Laurence Bouvard, Nathan Osgood, William Hope
- Duration
- 9 hours 29 minutes
- Release Date
- 25 December 2025
- ISBN
- 9781035923694
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Science fiction: cyberpunk / biopunk, Science fiction: military
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky, read by Nathan Osgood, Laurence Bouvard, and William Hope.A bio-engineered dog fights for its life and its right to life. From the Arthur C. Clark Award-winning author of CHILDREN OF TIME.My name is Rex. I am a good dog.Rex is also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy calibre weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instil fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he's part of a Multiform Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, Mexico. A genetically engineered Bioform, he's a deadly weapon in a dirty war. All he wants to be is a Good Dog. And to do that he must do exactly what Master says and Master says he's got to kill a lot of enemies.But who, exactly, are the enemies? What happens when Master is tried as a war criminal? What rights does the Geneva Convention grant weapons? Do Rex and his fellow Bioforms even have a right to exist?And what happens when Rex slips his leash? 'Detailed and clever worldbuilding... Tchaikovsky pulls off an impressive feat in making Rex’s character evolution genuinely moving. Readers will be wowed' Publishers Weekly
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