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Post by dem bones on Sept 17, 2017 16:48:12 GMT
Robert Calder (Jerrold Mundis) - The Dogs (Coronet, 1977) Blurb: The story of one man and his dog... In the small town of Covington, a divorced college professor named Alex Bauer finds an abandoned puppy, takes if home, and grows to love it - unaware that at an experimental canine development installation a hundred miles away a very specially bred pup is missing. Then one day a sudden, savage incident drives the dog into the woods, where among outcasts and strays he reverts to the primal instincts of his species, to kill. So begins Covington’s ordeal and Alex Bauer's private hell. The pack of killer dogs sets off a cataclysm of horror which sweeps a countryside - the chilling vortex will grip the reader with a shock of recognition that reverberates long past the final page... not because it could happen, but because it is happening. Now!
‘This is a more overt horror story... far better-written and more tightly programmed than JAWS.
KIRKUS REVIEWSCame out top of the pile in the recent Pulp horror #6 'Killer Dogs' survey (not to be confused with the same issues 'Rabid Dogs' round-up), so figured it was time to give Mr. Calder's novel a go. Prior to tutoring at Wintergreen, Professor Alex Bauer was involved in a controversy that cost him his marriage and newspaper career. The college is a halfway house for problem pupils from affluent backgrounds, few of whom stick around to finish their studies. Bauer recommends one of the brighter kids, Leslie Borrows, for an honours course, but is blocked - this purely out of spite - by his arch enemy, Farrell, an embittered specimen who will never forgive everybody in the world for denying him the chair at Harvard that is rightfully his. Bauer tells him what he thinks of him - i.e. "you're an asshole" - and I'm inclined to agree 100%. "Hung on the walls were framed pages from the Wintergreen Poetry Review, of which Farrell was editor, inscribed to him by the authors" tells me everything I need to know. Bauer's day picks up. Much to his astonishment, a hip and very attractive young student slips him a joint, and, walking off campus, he chances upon the cutest stray puppy. Guy from the dog-pound tells him he can keep it. Bauer names his new pal Orph, as in Orphan. Cut to the New England's Behavioural Development Institute earlier that day, where Panzer, a genetically modified superdog, has just made a mess of two volunteer target men. Only Panzer's grudging obedience to his armed trainer's command saves both from being torn to pieces. They shrug it off as an occupational hazard. You suspect BDI salaries are upscale of generous. Toby, a BDI dog handler, who has long decided he wants to keep one of his canine buddies for a pet, finally summons up the guts to smuggle one from the premises. Toby makes it clear of the compound only for his car to be stolen by teenage runaways while he's doing the shopping. The girls dump the doggie in the middle of nowhere. Bauer fast grows to love his faithful friend and the feeling's mutual. Life is suddenly so less lonely. But; Bauer's frosty relations with his ex-wife Ursula are tested to the limit when he has the kids, Homer and Jeff, stay over for the weekend. The boys love Orph, but the younger of the two makes the mistake of tormenting him with a stick. The dog retaliates and it's goodbye half of Jeff 's face. Bauer drags the kids inside but Orph has completely lost it and attacks the house. There's no way back from this one and he knows it. Then again, his owner apart, he never did like humans, and having been offered a glimpse of what goes on at BDI, can't say as I blame him. Orph does a runner. TBC
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Post by helrunar on Sept 18, 2017 14:50:04 GMT
You know, I get such a kick out of your narratives of these books. In this case, I'd never actually bother to read the book itself. I bet your version is a lot more fun.
cheers, H.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 18, 2017 14:54:33 GMT
I bet your version is a lot more fun. This is frequently my suspicion. Not just in this case.
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Post by johnnymains on Sept 18, 2017 19:12:24 GMT
When I interviewed Ramsey C it popped up that this is the tie-in that Robert Aickman was supposed to write. He was offered it by Herbert van Thal and he turned it down. By the time he got home he had a change of heart, only to be told that it had gone.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 20, 2017 8:15:19 GMT
Fair warning. The Dogs contains scenes of appalling animal abuse, one of which is touched upon below. If such material causes you distress, read no further.
An Aickman interpretation would have been interesting for sure, though perhaps 'Calder'/ Mundis is better suited to the subject matter. As revealed in the aforementioned Pulp Horror #6 article, away from the typewriter, he "bred his own German Shepherds and trained attack dogs" and it shows. Mundis brings disgusting authenticity to the novel's most read-between-your-fingers episode, a graphic account of an organised dog-fight in a dilapidated barn far from prying eyes. The marathon "contest" between Buddy Stokes' Staff-terrier and Gene Murphy's Brindle-Staff leaves both participants torn to pieces ("I never saw a skinning like that"), and Stokes $15,000 the richer on account of his dog is still just about breathing. Good ol' Buddy - chainsaw operater, brawler, patron of the Granite Bar & Grill (he's A SEAGRAMS man) - weeps hot tears for his mutilated champ, but there ain't no room for lasting sentiment in this game, and next thing he and his new pit-fighter are heading for Texas where the real money is.
I reckon anyone who survives chapter six deserves a bad sex interlude, if only to distract us from what we've just read. Evidently the author agrees and tosses off a double-feature; Bauer versus Kathy (the student who slipped him a joint) and Orph versus a "blood-bitch," both in traditional too-much-info detail.
Orph has taken to the mountains where he leads a five strong pack of five fellow outcasts. An audacious raid on Homer McPhee's farm over Marbleville way instigates a media outcry - WILD KILLER DOGS BIGGEST THREAT IN U.S. (National Enquirer). Dog owners come in for abuse. Several strays are rounded up and "put to sleep." Others are blown apart by trigger-happy residents if they so much as glance at a garbage can. The Mayor forms an emergency committee. A 'copter scans the mountains for the outlaw pack. "Christ, it's only a dog, not a science fiction monster."
Dr. Mandelberg of the Institute realises the infamous German Shepherd and their escapee are one and same creature. Mindful that yet more damaging publicity could prove fatal to future funding, he decides against informing the authorities. It's hardly as if any of this is BDI's fault. No-one asked the dog to escape. "We have no moral responsible here."
Bauer confides in Elizabeth Collier, a pro-dog lobbyist appointed to the mayor's task force, that he believes it was Orph damn near killed Homer and ate his livestock. She finds his guilt over it all so admirable that she invites him back to her place for a grapple.
Buddy Stokes has been roaming the mountains in search of the next killer dawgie he can prepare for the pit ....
Sixty pages to go. Been really impressed with The Dogs this far, but God, is it grim.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 20, 2017 9:26:02 GMT
An Aickman interpretation would have been interesting for sure, though perhaps 'Calder'/ Mundis is better suited to the subject matter. Aickman was no stranger to dog stories! I might mention "The Same Dog."
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Post by dem bones on Sept 21, 2017 9:48:32 GMT
I wasn't suggesting Aickman would be incapable of developing The Dogs' working script-synopsis-whatever into something extraordinary, just that I doubt his version would have had anything in common with the novel at hand. Makes it all the more of a shame we don't have both to compare. Did he do much hackwork? Back with the Mundis, not much left to tell without blowing the whole thing. Buddy snares one of the pack in a steel trap, but thats as good as it gets. Let's just say you'll not be bumping into him at a pit-fight any time soon. A hippy family ill-advisedly adopt one of the blood-bitch's litter against his wishes until the canine equivalent of The Wild Bunch come snarling to the rescue. By now the authorities have had it up to here with the Killer Dogs of Queensbridge County. It's open season. Send in the troopers. Orph presses on through the mountains. All he ever wanted was to lead his pack to a happy hunting ground far removed from human habitation but stupid people always ruin it. Prof. Bauer, who, for reasons which escape me, has now turned rapist, joins the hunt. Orph was his pet, after all. Packaging to the contrary, The Dogs is pretty deep for a 'When animals attack.' I'd even got so far as to suggest that it's a highly personal work. Of the human characters, Mundis seems most in sympathy with Kathy and her hippy commune - they have a deep understanding and respect for nature - but ultimately there's no question he sides with the pack. As do a surprising number of the main characters. Agreeing to Mandelberg's proposal that the BDI keep a low profile, his right-hand man admits "You know what I feel worst about? The dog itself. He didn't ask for any of this." Even Mandelberg himself, coldhearted SOB though he is, sees fit to pronounce; "Maybe he [Orph] has the best of it .... If he can get free. Men are the only real problem dogs ever had." An Aickman interpretation would have been interesting for sure, though perhaps 'Calder'/ Mundis is better suited to the subject matter. Aickman was no stranger to dog stories! I might mention "The Same Dog." I think Cold Hand In Mine is one of only two Aickman collections I've completed, and that some time ago. Have relatively clear memories of several of the stories but couldn't for the life of me place The Same Dog, so reread it last night. Would be easy to provide a synopsis - Aickman good as does the job for us ("So, for the first time, Hilary imparted much of the story to another," etc), but as to any analysis ... as you maybe noticed by now, that stuff is beyond me. The old dog = animal instinct = sex = the destroyer of pure, natural love? Adulthood = conformity = living death in some soulless, identikit desirable residence? Twenty years on from the incident at the crumbling wall and her "Death", does Mary even recognise Hilary? Does it qualify as werewolf fiction? Oh, and I thought it was great!
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 21, 2017 13:01:34 GMT
None at all, as far as I know.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 21, 2017 18:44:43 GMT
None at all, as far as I know. Me neither. Makes it all the more surprising that he should even consider taking the 'Dogs' gig ....
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Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 23, 2017 10:10:18 GMT
My memory may be at fault, but I seem to recall Robert saying van Thal quoted a six-figure advance. Given that Robert's advance for a Gollancz book of his tales was £500, I certainly don't blame him for being tempted. I think the nearest he came to hack work were the untypically short tales he wrote late in his career - I believe they were produced more to order than he usually wrote.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 23, 2017 14:32:17 GMT
My memory may be at fault, but I seem to recall Robert saying van Thal quoted a six-figure advance. Given that Robert's advance for a Gollancz book of his tales was £500, I certainly don't blame him for being tempted. I think the nearest he came to hack work were the untypically short tales he wrote late in his career - I believe they were produced more to order than he usually wrote. Thanks Ramsey. Don't blame Aickman for being tempted, either, I'd have loved if he'd taken the job. Am just amazed van Thal even considered him for the project - The Dogs seems about as far from his territory as a Dirty Harry novelisation.
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