The year is 2009, and Cleo Pira has an interesting job - as a free-lance journalist she is able to investigate unusual stories. She comes across a tale most bizare-if it is true-that the 150 self-proclaimed "monster dogs" who have appeared in N.Y.C. are not a hoax.

Cleo is invited to be their biographer and recount the history of their creation, through the efforts of mad Prussian scientist, Augustus Rank. The dogs have been surgically altered to walk upright, speak, use prosthetic limbs and have an intelligence similar to humans. Their own historian, Ludwig Von Sacher, has fallen prey to a malady that seems to be spreading throughout their colony-a type of insanity which has no cure. Ludwig comes to love Cleo, though his mental deterioration causes him to confuse her with Augustus Rank's mother, Maria, whose ghost seems to occasionally enter both of their lives.

The dogs reveal their emigration from Canada to America was precipitated by their destruction of the human scientists/masters who held them captive. The rebellion in "Rankstadt" (the city) occurred after Augustus Rank's death and was lead by a dog Mops Hacker, who had been ill-used. The beautiful Samoyed, Lydia, was the only dog who did not participate; instead, she killed Mops Hacker when the opportunity presented itself, despite the fact she loved him. Lydia is an interesting character, but throughout the book keeps her secrets from being revealed, which is frustrating.

The story is moved forward through three diaries; Cleo's, Ludwig's and the deceased Augustus Rank. Rank was the true monster, rather than the dogs. His diary is revolting as he recounts the horrible and twisted acts of vivisection he performed on numerous small animals- and the enjoyment he received from this. His uncle finds some of his surgical "experiments" and instead of having him locked up (and hopefully throwing away the key) lauds Rank as a child prodigy and promptly enrolls him in medical school as a surgeon.

Rank manages to murder his half-brother and gloat about it in his diary; he also dreams of creating "monster dogs" who would be absolutely obedient to him: "Their minds will be my mind, their hearts will be mine, their teeth will by my teeth, their hands will be my hands." He achieves this bizarre goal, and enlists followers to help him carry on with the so-called glorious work. For some reason, the dogs who learn of Rank (who is long gone by the time of their creation) obsess and long for him as "their father" but hate their actual creators (Rank's scientists.) Part of this stems from the fact that somehow they have lost their love of humankind through the changing process. This is clearly demonstrated in the opera they write and perform, which is quite unusual. Lydia and Ludwig are the only dogs that demonstrate they still retain love for human beings through their behaviour towards Cleo.

This is NOT a "Watership Down" type of novel; it really is closer to an Anne Rice story in style, which at times is both lyrical and haunting. The depths of the dogs' true natures and the obvious loss of love for men (with the exceptions I have noted) is never fully plumbed. Parts of the story are disjointed, and I suspect an over-zealous editor was a factor. The ending is rushed and unsatisfying. However, the writing style is compelling; the plot is unique; the characters leave you wanting to find out more about them.

In the same vein, one may compare "The Monster Dogs" to "Sirius" by Olaf Stapledon, a rather hard-to-find book which has at its core the same theme and issues. The difference is that in "Sirius" the intelligence-enhanced dog is raised by a loving family who strive to understand and accomodate the terrible loneliness which such a genetically-altered being is subject to. In Stapledon's book, the best of the dog's traits,unconditional love and loyalty, are more pronounced. Bakis' dogs have lost this; an irony, since this was the one thing Rank wanted more than anything from his creations, feeling himself an outcast from society.

The question of how dogs would relate to people if they themselves were manipulated into being a semblence of humans is an intriguing one; the theme of psychosis following the dispensation of accelerated intelligence without proper grounding a recurrent one. Compare "Flowers for Algernon" which also has the short and heady rise to genius followed by an abrupt descent into inevitable madness.

I hope to see more from Bakis in the future; she assuredly seems a rising star among writers.

This is another book review from Wolfie and Kansas, the boonie dogs from Toto, Guam. This book is about a group of "monster" dogs, who walk upright, have prosthetic hands, and speak like humans. In reviewing this book, a miscaninthropic reviewer from the New York Times Book Review stated, "I look at dogs differently these days. Where once I saw slavering lumps of fur, I now see intelligence, grace, the hint of personality." Grrrr . . . .

Well, we do not look at humans differently after reading this book. Where once we saw chattering lumps of relatively hairless flesh, that's what we still see (excluding those humans who feed and pet us.) The human characters in this book, just like humans in real life, have less intelligence, grace, and personality than either real dogs or the fictitious monster dogs. Even the lead human character, Clio Pira, who narrates much of the book, is rather dense. In the preface she asserts that her daughter is the first child in the world to have a Samoyed for a godmother. Just who, pray tell, does this noncanine animal of primate derivation think has been watching over, protecting, befriending, playing with, and guiding human puppies for the past million years or so? Samoyeds, German shephards, beagles, boonie dogs, and other dogs, of course. We dogs have been the godparents of humanity almost since you lost your tails and fell out of the trees.

The monster dogs in this book are more interesting than the human characters, but we still found them less doggish than their counterparts in such books as Clifford Simak's "City" and Dean Koontz's "Watchers". The author seems less interested in keeping the monster dogs in canine character than in using them as symbols of alienation. We haven't figured out yet if that alienation is supposed to be that of mixed-race humans, of immigrants from different cultures, or of persons suffering from incurable diseases, or all three.

Despite all of the above whining, we still liked this book. Most of it is a good read. The dogs often were sufficiently doggish. The use of an opera libretta written by a dog was a nice touch, reflecting our natural, often sing-song and rhythmic, way of communicating. The picture on the book jacket is strikingly attractive. Finally, the book is a convenient, compact size, for easy carrying even by those of us who do not have prosthetic hands.

This book is the intriguing story of an artificially created race of super-intelligent, slow-maturing dogs with prosthetic hands and voice boxes who descend upon a bemused New York City in the early 21st century. Created by the disciples and descendents of a disturbed and driven 19th century Prussian scientist, the dogs revolt against their human masters in 1999, leave their Canadian wilderness encampment and eventually arrive in the Big Apple. As a group, the dogs are both recluses and publicity hounds (pun intended), lovers of life yet driven by a sense of impending doom. They befriend and are befriended by a young female writer, and they change each others' lives. The work is filled with dazzling juxtapositions: the diary of a 19th century Prussian madman and of a 21st century journalist; the notes of a "monster dog" and the libretto of an opera about their history written by another dog. There are occasional lapses in style and pace, but they can scarcely mar this driven and impressive work. I must admit that my personal interest both in dogs and in the New York neighborhood described so perfectly by Bakis - where my daughter lives - enhanced but did not determine the book's impact on me. Taking a dog to the dog run in Washington Square Park will never seem the same again! The sense of impending tragedy that pervades the book should not dissuade anyone from reading it. It left me shaken but inspired. -Richard H. Rosichan