An interesting and engaging science fiction novel.
AN OATH OF DOGS is a mystery set on a distant forest planet/moon. It's a story about corporate malfeasance - because, of course, they exported their worst and most exploitative practices off-planet.
At its heart, it is both a mystery and also an examination of a society in a difficult situation. Well-written, populated by engaging characters. An interesting read, and an interesting introduction to Wagner's work.

Now this is an interesting book that is just a little bit hard to categorize. Part sci-fi, part mystery, a little YA, and part environmental fiction.

Kate Standish is a communications engineer with a service dog (Hattie). They have arrived on the moon colony of Huginn in the Yggdrasil system and will be working in a forest community on the outskirts of anything resembling a central city. It doesn't take long for Kate to realize that a number of things aren't quite 'right' in this settlement. She arrived on Huginn to work for Duncan Chambers, but Chambers is dead and she's now doing his job. In addition to her work, she sets out to uncover the details of Duncan's suspicious death.

In addition to the strange new surroundings of this world, there is a pack of wild dogs terrorizing the settlement, and descendants of the moon's first settlers have formed a pseudo-religious commune called Word Made Flesh and they are acting quite strange. And then there's something strange with the world itself, which is just being discovered by a local biologist (who happens to be Duncan's male lover).

There's a lot going on here and yet none of it feels excessive. Wagner does a nice job of integrating all the story-lines into one interesting and absorbing story.

I was particularly caught up in the environmental aspects of the story - although admittedly this didn't really shine through until much later in the story. Environmental science is not explored often enough in science fiction (in my opinion) despite its being a foremost concern on our planet today. Addressing it here gets major kudos from me.

The sci-fi aspects are pretty obvious, given that this takes place on the moon out in a system that I'm not aware is actually a named system yet. However, I also greatly appreciate the nod to the Nordic mythologies that Wagner includes here (I hope we'll hear about another moon, Muginn, in future volumes).

The mystery is pretty clear - who killed Duncan? But why do I think there's an aspect of YA about this book? Mostly because of Kate Standish. While Standish is not a teen, or even a very young adult, there's an amiable, gentle, even innocent wide-eyed quality about her that at once makes her charming and a little boring. There are moments when she pushes hard and seems to stretch herself and these times she's more interesting.

This wasn't my favorite sci-fi book of the year, but there's a lot here that appeals and it's strong enough that I feel good about recommending it and I look forward to the next adventure with Standish.

Looking for a good book? An Oath of Dogs by Wendy N. Wagner is an adventurous sci-fi mystery with an environmental bent that is an enjoyable read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A mix of murder mystery, political intrigue, and magical realism. Interesting story and characters, an overall solid read.

This was a good science fiction thriller with a fantastic first chapter that really hooks you in. I have to admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of the two main characters but they definitely grew on me. The characters are well written though. I thought the plot was generally engaging, although there were a few sections that dragged a little bit. I will say I kind of guessed where things were going but it didn't affect my overall reading experience. I will say that I wanted more clarity and in one particular way I felt it was a little anticlimactic. Quite a few things were left without explanation and so I wanted to more understanding - if you like books with neat endings than this one probably isn't for you. Overall this was a great sci-fi thriller that I would recommend reading, especially if you are a fan of the genre.

An Oath of Dogs is one of those books I like to call ‘sci-fi lite’. This would be a great book to give to a reader wanting to try adult science fiction. This has just enough to feel like it fits in the SF category but so closely follows it’s characters that it’s a relatable. It follows two characters, a woman and man who get embroiled in a murder investigation that quickly spirals into something much bigger, with very intelligent dogs. Kate Standish, who goes by Standish, as she arrives on the moon Huginn a forest rich world being logged by large corporation called Songheusser. She is accompanied by her support dog Hattie, who helps Kate with her agoraphobia. Peter Bajowski is a biologist already working on Huginn for Songheusser. He’s also grieving the death of an ex-lover who worked on Huginn, and who conveniently enough was going to be Kate’s supervisor.

      The book opens with a hell of a chapter, I’d be impressed if someone wasn’t hooked by that brutal opening. From there we move to Standish as she wakes from cyro, and we’re shown immediately how important Hattie, and dogs, are important to the story. Interspersed between the chapters of Peter and Standish’s shenanigans we’re given quotes from a mysterious man and journal entries from the earliest days of Huginn. These entries and thoughts may not seem important to the plot at first but if you pay attention it can give you HUGE hints at where the story goes. Standish lands to find out her now former boss, Duncan, was reported ‘lost’ and believed to be dead and now she has his job, as well as his house. The reader knows, thanks to that brutal opening chapter, the truth about the man. We get to watch as Standish begins to step into the community, earn friends, and discover that maybe everything isn’t all right with Canaan Lake, her new little town. Not only is Duncan presumed dead but the townspeople are being plagued by a pack of rabid dogs. Dogs that seem intelligent and intent on digging up the dead around the town. They’ve been know to nose around houses and as you see later in the book, go after people.

      Initially I didn’t care for Standish or Peter, but they grew on me. Standish is prickly and Peter is a bit of a wet rag. Throughout the story though they grew on me. Standish’s character seemed at times inconsistent but you could see what she was as prickly as she was. She was by no means a perfect woman or character. Peter was the same for me though I thought his character was more consistent through the novel. Once you figure out why he is the way he is, you can understand him. Past our two main characters, we see some great attempts at character depth on others but I’m not sure if I was fully convinced on some of them. I wanted more depth in some of those people, but I do like what we got.

       Besides some what felt like inconsistent character behavior (which seemed to smooth out as the book went on) my other problem with the book was just the way it seemed to jump over things, again at the beginning. I felt like maybe things were trimmed or cut that would have filled in gaps or explained missing time. Things like jumps between when Standish is at home then at someone else’s house, staying there, then back at her own home. We can safely assume why and it might mention in passing, but it felt like something was missing in the execution of this. Past the half way mark this seemed to even out. I’m not entirely sure if this is due to the copy I had, how I read it, or the way the book actually is, but it did affect my enjoyment.

      Other than that I liked a lot of things about this book. The focus on therapy animals, the neo-Mennonite community and their impact in Canaan Lake, the talk about the biology of the planet and the hints at the way it changed the people. In fact I think the book might be entirely worth a read just for the therapy dog and the unique neo-Mennonite community. Those are things I don't think that I've ever read about in a SF book. They bright a splash of depth and color that I really didn't expect, and honestly why I rated the book so highly. I loved the interplay of that community and the religion with how they settled the moon for Songheusser (not to mention the diary entries) and how that affected the story. I also just got excited everything Hattie was on the page, which was really most the pages.

    I'd definitely read it again and really recommend this one for new readers of SF or for someone interested in some really unique and different elements.

     Cover Thoughts: Initially I was not impressed with the cover, but once you get up on it and see the details, the line work it really pops. The meticulously hidden details are amazing, I love pieces like this. You don't realize what you're looking at unless you look deep. I highly recommend inspecting this cover closely. I'm not surprised either, browsing the artist's site, JOEY HI-FI, I can see this is something he excels at. The symmetry in it just makes me so happy, look at that bottom edge with the branches and smoke. How can that not make you happy?

I received this as an e-Arc from the publisher as I’m a big fan of Angry Robot and as soon as I saw the cover for this, I just had to read it. It’s a sci-fi novel set on the planet Huginn which is earth-like but with very different native flora and fauna. Kate arrives to find her boss dead and so she slowly tries to figure out what happened as she learns more about the society which compromises mill workers and a group of religious people called Believers.

Kate’s story is also interspersed with entries from the diary of one of the Believers back when they first settled on the planet and these are very fascinating as one aspect of Sci-Fi that I love is the early settler period where they are discovering all the differences from earth and trying to figure out how to make a living on the planet.

The characters are all fantastic and I just adore Kate. She has a service dog, Hattie, who is by far one of my favourite characters because I adore dogs. I’m breaking my no-spoilers policy here to mention that Hattie does not die. I spent a lot of the book worrying about that and I would have enjoyed it much more if I’d known that going in, and I also know that some people might not want to read it unless they had that guarantee so don’t worry – the dog lives! The other characters are all very interesting too and the Believers in particular are very interesting to read about – especially as you slowly learn more of their history through the diary.

I really enjoyed this novel, it’s exactly the kind of Sci-Fi that I adore with strange alien biology, stories of settlers trying to make a living and it has an adorable dog in it. I would definitely recommend this novel to those that enjoy Sci-Fi as it’s just excellent and I can’t wait for it to be released to I can make my friends read it.

I plan to review this for Perihelion Science Fiction. The May 2017 issue didn't happen because Sam, the editor, suffered a mini-stroke and was hospitalized and in rehab for some time.

I love so many things about "An Oath of Dogs" - the biology, most of all. Symbiosis. New life forms, and how they might interact with life forms imported from Earth.

The evil corporations, the murders, the religious sect, and the explanation for the title, and the nature of the wild dogs -- all come together, with a dash of magic realism, or an injection of fantasy into a science fiction novel.

The heroine starts out so foul-mouthed, so rude, so anti-social, I hardly care that she's fresh out of cryo and a victim of PTSD; if she doesn't shape up, fast, I'm not staying with her for the course of a novel. Fortunately, she does come around, and does become a more civil person.

All along, I worried about the dog, Hattie. I never did figure out why other people's pet dogs would join the pack, especially after learning how the pack came into existence. But if I bring too many questions, too much logic, to a story, I'll miss out on a good story.

And "An Oath of Dogs" is a riveting story, the kind one might tell around a campfire, if it were a short story instead of a novel. The blue butterflies, the caterpillars, the comparison to Earth's ants, and the theme of what humans do in extreme situations: it may seem a lot of disparate elements are piled into one story, but Wendy Wagner knows exactly what she's doing with each piece. It all comes together, and all in all, it's good. I'd read more from this author.

I really enjoyed this science fiction mystery! I am a sucker for stories set on alien planets, especially when the flora and fauna are part of the story. Add in a questionably ethical mega-corporation, a religious sect that helped colonize the planet, mysterious and scary feral dogs and MURDER - and you've got yourself a good story. I liked that the perspective changed - seeing both out of biologist Peter Bajowski's eyes and that of newly-emigrated communications manager Kate Standish (who has a therapy dog companion, Hattie) made the story more interesting. But maybe the most interesting were the diary excerpts from the Believer woman who was part of the first human convoy to the moon of Huginn. These slowly reveal the creepy story that is in the background of all the action taking place.

If you like Sheri S. Tepper, the later books in the Ender series by Orson Scott Card or even the movie Avatar, you should definitely give this book a try.

I really liked this book it had great characters and a very engaging storyline!!

What a fascinating, engaging read! I absolutely loved Standish and Hattie, and there were tons of great side characters, from Olive to Dewey. The world-building was fantastic. I was thrown off a bit by how magical some of the answers were when I had expected more straightforward sci-fi, but everything worked really well in the end. This book also has a really cool structure-- the diary and book excerpts were such a fascinating way to add color and foreshadowing to the narrative.

Overall, a fascinating, epic sci-fi read with awesome world-building, lots of dogs, and interesting characters.