An Oath of Dogs: A Science Fiction Mystery on a Corporate Moon

I'd never heard of either An Oath of Dogs or its author, Wendy N. Wagner, and would probably never have encountered them if the book hadn't been nominated as a BOM (Book of the Month) on a Goodreads science fiction group.  It didn't win, but it sounded interesting.   I thought I'd check out availability.  The Kindle price was a bit steep for an author I'd never tried.   I checked libraries.  Since libraries are closed, I expected to put it on a list of potential library reads for the future.  To my great surprise, there was an e-book available.   So I went to Overdrive and downloaded it.  This meant I needed to prioritize it because I had a due date.

                         

First, I need to sound a note of caution.  Terrible things happen to dogs in this novel.   If you really love dogs, you might want to skip it.  I don't want anyone to be blindsided and get exposed to things that may be tremendously upsetting to them.

Why should you read it?  I was hooked by the suspenseful mystery element.  The book starts out with a murder. The protagonist, Kate Standish, was also mysterious.  Why did she need a therapy dog?  What had happened to her?  Mysteries pile upon mysteries.  Why had an anti-technological Christian sect, known as the Believers, left Earth?   Is Songheuser, the corporation that the protagonist works for, as benevolent as it seems?  Will we ever find out who killed the widely liked Duncan Chambers?  The suspense gets ramped up and never stops until it's resolved.

There were problems.  Some characters were stereotypical --most notably the loggers who work for Songheuser.  For me, they brought to mind Monty Python's satiric Lumberjack Song which demolishes the stereotype.  There was also a paranormal phenomenon described using a theological term that I thought was inappropriate.  Christians may find that offensive.

Speaking of Christian portrayal, the Believers are referred to as neo-Mennonites.    Yet they have at least one saint which isn't a feature of Mennonite tradition. Saints and images of saints are associated with Catholicism, Episcopalianism (AKA Church of England)  and the Orthodox Churches. Yet I do have to say that Saint Hepzibah was my favorite aspect of Believer practice.

One Goodreads reviewer had a problem that wasn't one for me.  That GR member's issue was with the profitability of logging on a distant planet and shipping it back to Earth over interstellar distances.  If there were a logging industry on Earth, I can see how this wouldn't make sense.  Yet it seemed heavily implied in An Oath of Dogs that environmentalists had won on the home planet.  I can easily imagine that items made of wood had become a luxury on Earth for which there was a high demand among the wealthy.

 I thought that from a mystery perspective, this was a well plotted novel with unexpected developments.   I also found some of the characters engaging.  Unfortunately, it was also a very dark book with some horrific elements that I didn't enjoy.   My response to An Oath of Dogs was ambivalent. I do think that Wendy N. Wagner writes well. I might be willing to read another book by this author.