I really enjoyed this dystopian tale which is told from the perspective of both Reg and his dog. Original, moving, quirky and wonderful.

The last dog on earth
Adrian J Walker

4 stars


The first part of book I was totally immersed in, often a little bewildered when I looked up from the story to find myself sitting in my own garden!
However once they were captured I started speed reading and skipping bits (maybe my own preferences…always try not to focus on unpleasant bits…even skipped battle scenes in Lord of the Rings).
Saddened by dystopian vision but even more saddened by human behaviour…some good, some bad but mostly the middle ground just following the easiest path.

As a dog owner I was fascinated by Lineker’s chapters and eventually found his voice to be more compelling than Reginald’s. All in all a fascinating story.

I love this book. A deeply disturbing and terrifyingly realistic vision of our near future. But, at the same time, laugh out loud funny. The characterisation is excellent and you really care about the main characters, human and canine, immediately. It's gripping and dark, fast-paced but dwells enough on the little things. This will be a book that I urge people to read and might be my Christmas bulk-buy.

There are great ideas on this book:

- the main character being an agoraphobic, remembering snipets of his previous life, his inability to be touched... most of them just feed your curiosity and want to keep you reading
- Lineker, the dog: the chapters alternate between Reg's and Lineker's narrative, which offers two sides of a story and also provide feedback on things we won't have otherwise. Also, the chapters narrated by Lineker are more profound, tangling with things like Death, life, human ways to see things and act... while also having some funny parts
- the post- apocaliptic world. Why is London destroyed? What is going on? Why humaity is living in pockets of "civilisation"? What is going on?

As I've said, all these main ideas are great. Then... why the low rating? Because you keep on reading and it seems like most of the time you ain't getting nowhere. Lots of narrative but the story doesn't quite move along, and at some time I completly lost interest in it. Plus, things like Reg keeping the tag on the girl's neck where it says she is a target... is so obvious that even another character points it out at some point. The fact that he keeps leaving his poor dog behind when running for his life. The fact that he seems to thawn a bit to the little girl but he doesn't really evolve in the same way that the story keeps on dragging... He changes locations but doens't seem like the story offers much in way of little snippets of info to keep you hooked... maybe, IMO, with a bit of a make over this would be a great reading.