SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Left Hand of Dog by SI Clarke: https://t.co/a0IdUCLgvG
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) January 10, 2023
Short Review: 7.5 out of 10 - Part Queer Found Family Space Opera novel, part Douglas Adams-esque humorous novel, this novel succeeds more as the book leans harder into found family...
1/3
Short Review (cont): and less into humor as its non-binary ace protagonist Lem and her dog Spock get abducted by incompetent bunny-like aliens along with an oddball other set of alien beings. Very enjoyable self-published SF in the end.
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) January 10, 2023
2/3
The Left Hand of Dog is another novel that I read as part of the Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), of which I am part of one of the Judging Groups. In this case, it's a book that actually got enough love from my co-judges that it made my group's quarterfinals, so this was a book I had some reason to look forward to - and one which I'd likely have never heard of if not for the SPSFC. It's a self-acknowledged Geeky Book, which bears the subtitle "An Extremely Silly Tale of Alien Abduction", so you can guess pretty well that this book is aiming for a light and somewhat humorous tone right from the start.
What you might not guess is that this is also a found family type novel, featuring one human (and her dog) and a bunch of different types of aliens (and a robot), dealing heavily with accepting who you and others around you are in the end. And while the book takes a bit to really develop its characters to really hit those themes and character moments, particularly with regards to its non-binary ace heroine and the other aliens she encounters, it really works to become a satisfying, cozy and enjoyable found family story in the end, silly or no (think a sillier Becky Chambers novel). I honestly didn't find the humor here to be that funny, or laugh that much, but the novel still really worked for me despite that, so I can see why other reviewers liked this enough to push this forwards.
------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------
Lem took her dog Spock to Canada to get away from boring life, and when that didn't seem to work, she took Spock to camp in Algonquin Park for a week, hoping for some sort of adventure.
What she didn't expect was to go to sleep and then wake up in a weird stasis pod, abducted along with Spock by colorful alien bunny-like creatures ("Bunnyboos") who seem to think Spock was not just sentient but an intergalactic criminal. Or to be given an AI-driven universal translator that tries to explain things in literary references. Or to be accompanied by fellow captives like an alien that looks like a horse, another that looks like Big Bird, and a rude robot with creative but non-profane insults.
Soon Lem finds herself working with the aliens to take back the ship and escape with their lives...but the galaxy is a strange weird place, and the Bunnyboos aren't the only threats out there....although Lem seems surprisingly to feel more comfortable in her own skin among these strange beings than she does on Earth.....
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The Left Hand of Dog is a novel that features a bunch of narrative choices clearly intended to provoke laughs and smiles out of its readers. Our main character Lem is very self-aware of the weirdness around her, which includes aliens thinking her dog is sentient and giving the dog a universal translator, a translator that tries to explain things not literally but by use of figurative references, and well, things like a rude robot and bunny-like moronic aliens. There's a lot of stuff here that is utterly ridiculous and soem readers may find it funny, but I didn't quite laugh that much at it, even as I also didn't find it too distracting from the story at the same time. And the figurative translator makes some of the geek references actually work in story, which I appreciated.
But while the humor didn't fully work for me, the coziness, themes, and character arc of the story really did. Lem for example is a non-binary/trans (she/her) ace individual who it becomes clear struggles with others accepting her non-traditional gender identity on Earth and who finds something in these aliens who don't see that as an issue...or even understand why it could be an issue at all (one notable conversation uses the translator to note that the alien had no frame of reference for the terms "gender" that Lem was trying to explain). The translator doesn't bother trying to teach people others' names, but rather always replaces that name with what the listener calls them, so a person always hears how they want to be called without misunderstanding, and the various aliens all try (antagonists of incompetent nature aside) to get past their own insecurities and hang-ups amidst others who don't have the contexts to even realize what they might be insecure or fearful of prejudice about.
And of course the characters come together as a found family on the starship Teapot, with Lem at one point moving from just trying to save her dog - because that's of course important - to saving her friends as well, with the group all banding together to stay alive and make it out of their predicament. The novel takes a little bit like I said to really get to this point, like the author wasn't sure how to do this at first, but the novel is also really short, so that beginning part gets over with fast, and it's never bad during that part, just didn't really pique my interest. And when it does finally come together and work, it really does, resulting in an ending that is both highly satisfying and open to continuation as a series (there appear to be two sequels to this book).
The Left Hand of Dog appears to be $0.00 (Free!) on e-book sites, and I would definitely recommend you check it out for that price. This isn't a groundbreaking novel by any means, but it's a very enjoyable one, and if you like the humor more than me you might find it even more likable than I did. So worth a try and I'm considering it for a semifinals pick.
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