Alarmingly Plausible

King of Dogs, by Andrew Edwards, book review by Lynn Lockhart

Fate has been much on my mind lately, as the schemes of our ruling class are carried through with cruel ineptness.  I feel instinctually, as I felt in 2016, that the prognosis of the American empire is not good and that we are all playing our roles, wittingly or not, and no one who states their intentions, for good or ill, has much chance of meeting their purpose.

Just as in a Greek tragedy, the hardships and inhuman punishment faced by the novel's hero Grayson lead inexorably to more hardships and punishments, adding to his glory but showing that any one man, even a most capable and extraordinary man, can only do so much against the eternal evil.  The author cruelly leads Grayson on a circuitous quest, introducing fell enemies as well as wormlike cowards, and sprinkles in a few normal folks who navigate this alarmingly plausible near-future dystopian doomsday novel much as I would likely do, forming neighborhood associations, sharing sandwiches, sitting tight and hoping it all blows over.  

Mister Edwards' loving descriptions of the Moab, Utah setting have planted in me the seeds of a road trip or maybe a train trip in some far off future.  

Underlying everything is the author's appreciation for the privilege of life itself, including all of the injuries we suffer from fate, the mistakes we make and the marks we leave on the world in the short time we have.

King of Dogs is a highly relevant book to these unprecedented times but there is much more to it, it is written with great care to reveal eternal truths as only great fiction can.