The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hig’s wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper, and a mercurial, gun-toting misanthrope named Bangley. 

But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.

The Dog Stars

Hig, Jasper, and Bangley Stole My Heart

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙💛💚
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😋🙂😁🥰😎
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Solo Narration

Character Backgrounds and Plot Summary

The Dog Stars follows Hig, a former pilot and mechanic trying to survive nine years after a devastating flu has wiped out most of humanity. He lives at an abandoned airport with Jasper, his aging dog, and Bangley, a heavily armed survivalist who is almost the complete opposite of Hig. Hig still wants to believe people can be decent, while Bangley assumes anyone approaching them is a threat. Their relationship became one of my favorite parts of the story because, after years together, they bicker and insult each other like an old married couple while depending completely on one another.

Hig flies his Cessna over their territory looking for intruders while Bangley handles the weapons and perimeter defense. One scene that really captures their relationship comes when Hig is returning from a hunting trip and Bangley radios him to warn that nine men armed with machetes and swords are stalking him. Bangley is terrifyingly practical, but he is also surprisingly funny, and some of his comments made me laugh when I least expected it.

The story eventually expands when Hig decides to follow a mysterious radio transmission that he heard a few years back and decides to fly farther than he normally would. His encounter with farmers who initially intend to kill him perfectly illustrates why people struggle with trusting others. He eventually meets Cima and her father, Pops, and discovers something he has almost forgotten exists: a woman his own age, cows, fresh milk, and the possibility of something resembling a future. I especially enjoyed Hig’s reaction to his first glass of milk in years. It is such a small thing, but in this devastated world, it feels almost miraculous.

Highlights and Limitations

The relationship between Hig, Jasper, and Bangley is the heart of the book for me. I loved the contrast between Hig’s reluctance to kill and Bangley’s willingness to shoot first. Their arguments never completely hide how much they need each other. I also appreciated the way the book explores whether survival is enough when there is nobody left to live for.

Jasper was particularly difficult for me emotionally. He is old, increasingly stiff, and losing most of his hearing. Every time Hig worried about him, I worried too. Knowing how deeply Jasper is connected to Hig’s memories, and his former life made his aging especially painful to listen to. The story’s emphasis on loss extends beyond people too. Hig’s sadness over seeing the last trout years earlier really stayed with me because it shows how much of the natural world has disappeared along with humanity.

My biggest limitation was the pacing. I was surprised by how long it took before Hig actually left the airport. I enjoyed much of that portion, especially the day-to-day survival details and Hig and Bangley’s strange domestic routine, but Heller sometimes spends so much time on tiny details that the story feels like it is standing still. There is a tremendous amount of world building, and while it creates an incredibly vivid picture, I often wished the book would move along.

Though I definitely also wanted to know more about how the world ended. Hig mentioned that so many of the world’s animals had also died out, like elephants, blue whales and many birds and mammals, but never explained exactly how. I would take a guess that the loss of humanity had a major impact on animal populations, but nine years seems to be fairly quick for so many species to die out. It doesn’t make sense that so many species would be affected by the flu or blood disease, but maybe I guess since there is the food chain.

Narration

Mark Deakins did a good job capturing Hig’s introspective personality and the melancholy atmosphere of the story. His performance has a quiet, almost dreamlike quality that fits Heller’s poetic prose particularly well. I also thought he handled Bangley’s rougher personality effectively, which helped make Bangley’s dialogue some of the most entertaining parts of the audiobook. Other audiobook reviews have similarly praised Deakins for bringing out the rhythm and poetic quality of Heller’s writing.

My one issue was the speed. Deakins spoke so slowly that I eventually increased the playback speed to around 1.7 to 2.0. At that setting, I found the narration much easier to enjoy. Once I adjusted the speed, I could appreciate how well his delivery suited Hig’s thoughts and the lonely atmosphere.

Final Opinion

This was a surprisingly emotional listen for me. I expected a post-apocalyptic survival story, but what I got was much more interested in loneliness, grief, memory, companionship, and whether it is possible to remain human when almost everyone else is gone.

There were definitely moments when I thought Heller focused too heavily on minutiae, and I would have preferred a faster transition away from the airport. However, when Hig finally pushes beyond the boundaries he has established for himself, the story becomes much more exciting. His encounter with Cima and her father gives him something he has almost stopped believing is possible: connection.

I laughed at Bangley’s ridiculousness, worried about Jasper, felt the tension when Hig encountered strangers, and genuinely cared about what happened to Hig. The book even managed to make me both laugh and cry, which is usually a good indication that the characters got under my skin. The Dog Stars is not a fast-paced apocalypse thriller, and I would not recommend it to someone looking for nonstop action. But if you enjoy thoughtful post-apocalyptic fiction where the real battle is figuring out whether there is still something worth hoping for, this one is worth experiencing.

I can’t wait to see the movie, though I can already tell from the pictures that have been released, that the movie doesn’t exactly follow the book. Though I am excited to see Jacob Elordie as Hig, Margaret Qualley as Cima and especially Josh Brolin as Bangley.

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