Four things I loved about An Oath of Dogs that every novel should do

I have an arbitrary rule for an arbitrary thing. At the end of the year I do a wrap up of my favorite and most memorable senses of the year including a book (or author) of the year.

I have two rules for my Book of the Year:

1. I read the book that year.
2. I took the time to review it on my blog. 

So, to that end, I wanted to make sure to speak my piece about Wendy Wagner's An Oath of Dogs here (as well as on Goodreads and Amazon), because I have a feeling it will stick with me this year. I don't have a lot to say about this enjoyable eco-thriller set on another planet, but there were some things I really, really liked about it. Also, this year I began spending a lot of time with dogs.

An Oath of Dogs did a few things that I think are fabulous and really all good novels should do. If I were going to make arbitrary rules for great novels (Gah, what a terrible idea!), these would be my rules.

Four things I loved about An Oath of Dogs that every wonderful novel should always do*:

I read this on Kindle, but recommend getting
the print version of this one. Look at this cover!

• Include animals. As Yann Martel's protagonist asks in The Life of Pi, "...which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?" I think the better story includes animals, especially a story which takes place on Earth where there are 8.7 million species. It's just weird if there are no animals in a story. I've challenged myself to try to do this in my own writing (and notably have not always done it!). An Oath of Dogs takes this a couple of steps further. It has a dog, Hattie, as a key character and the book is set on another planet. Hattie travels with her companion from Earth. Just brilliant! Of course, there would be therapy dogs (and companion animals) in space and on other planets. I loved Hattie as a character.
• Give a shout out to other novels.  I love books that reference other books. If I haven't read the book, it's a guidepost (hey, if you like this you may also like...). If I have read the book, it makes me feel smart. It's also excellent shorthand for character. In An Oath of Dogs when a character is seen reading The Monkey Wrench Gang (an eco-lit classic) it speaks volumes about her character and motivation and adds dimension to the story overall. Mentioning other books and authors also just seems like such a nice writerly thing to do.
• Be quotable. Now that I have gotten over my reverence for the pristine printed page and decided that it is OK for me as a reader to engage with the book by highlighting passages, dog-earing pages and even tearing them out and mailing them to a friend — I'm disappointed in a book which doesn't inspire me to highlight something. I want to find great quotes. I want lines to sing. I want something to remember. I appreciate a novel that makes me look up a few words, too. I wasn't highlighting a lot in An Oath of Dogs, but I really, really loved:

"There is no truer animal in all creation than a dog. A dog’s heart beats so steadfastly you could set the clock of the universe to it."  

Did I mention I've been spending a lot of time with dogs? 

• Include an incidentally vegan character. Especially in sci-fi and especially in space. After all, the future is vegan! OK, I know not everyone is on board — yet — but I really, really loved the few mentions of vegan cheese, vegan sandwiches and vegan halvah in this book.

* Should always. Gah!