I really liked this story because I liked how the narrator was such a tough survivor--how many people would have the balls to bargain for food with dogs?--even though she got mushy in the end and changed her 5th Law of Survival to "Take a chance--love everything." That seemed kind of a slip in character. I mean, sure she regained her ability to love the dogs, but was still willing to abandon Earth and any chance of finding her son again. Also, I loved the whole idea of a permanent partnership with a dog--partly because I'm such huge dog lover--but also because it highlighted the whole point of human existence: finding someone who will always be there for you. It was kind of ironic that aliens were also searching for the same thing and that it seemed to only exist on Earth.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Laws of Survival
This tale set in the future, pretty near in fact, after a suppsed World War III devastated the entire world and left people living in trash pits. Only a handful of cities remain, like Raleigh, and some army posts who do nothing to aid the people. Aliens descend, build domes that are mysterious and impervious. The narrator, Jill a vetern surviver, found out that the robot spheres in the dome wanted dogs in exchange for food. One day, Jill mouthed off too much and gets abducted into the dome to train the dogs--apparently, the reason the aliens came to Earth was to obtain canines who they viewed as the perfect, loyal symbiote to fuse with. Along the way, Jill remembered life before the war, her son, and embraced her humanity again--which she had shut off in order to endure--as she connected with the dogs she trained. When the army blew up a dome with nukes, the aliens leave and Jill goes along because there was nothing left for her on Earth.
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To be honest, I thought this story was totatlly bizarre. I mean aliens come to earth....for dogs? A race advanced enough to travel through time and space are unable to really communicate with us or understand that what they saw dogs doing(which I thought might be from tv or something) isn't always how a dog acts. The entire story seemed a little far-fetched to me.
ReplyDeleteI got the impression that Jill's son was dead, not just missing.
Yea, I assumed her son was dead. And I couldn't figure out what was going on with the aliens. They built robots and came to earth and apparently ruined everything, but they're little grub things? And they're obsessed with dogs based only on their limited understanding of what a dog is?
ReplyDeleteI also couldn't figure out why they came to earth, if there was a reason. Was it just because of the dogs?
I thought her son was dead as well. We only saw the aliens from Jill's point of view so maybe there was more to the alien visit then just dogs. And for an alien race that can travel through space and take over a whole world, they have some pretty terrible computer programming skills! I would have expected the robots to be much more sophisticated then they were.
ReplyDeleteDid an alien race even show up on Earth or was this just a probe sent out by the aliens that consisted of just droids?
This could be the strangest story we have read so far. The aliens obsession with dogs was strange and a little confusing. You made a good point Kenny about only seing it from her point of view. I enjoyed this story, but it definately could have been expplained better.
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