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Title

<i>Strange Dogs</i> by <i>James S.A. Corey</i> (2017) (read in 2021)

Description

<n>Standard disclaimer<fn></n> A girl named Cara lives on a planet named Laconia with her parents, who are part of a research team. Laconia is one of the 1300 ring worlds discovered by humanity in The Expanse novels. Cara enjoys visiting a local pond, where she watches the strange and alien local fauna, in particular the sunbirds. At twilight, "strange dogs" show up, but seem to pose no risk. One day, Cara feeds a bit of her own food to a sunbird. She saw someone do something similar with a duck in a book about Paris on Earth---all of which is completely alien to her. The sunbird chokes on the alien chemistry and dies. Its two children are left alone and cannot reach the nest. Distressed, Cara runs home to get her mother's research drone, which she hopes to use to airlift the babies back to their nest. She fails, breaking the drone in the process. The dogs return and leave with the sunbird mother's corpse. The next day, the mama sunbird is back, but slightly altered. It's alive, but no longer quite the same. The baby sunbirds interact with her just fine, though. Cara asks the dogs to repair the drone and they leave with it. The next day, the drone has been repaired as well. Commandante Duarte has taken over the planet with his marines. One of the marines runs over Cara's brother Xan. Duarte visits her family's home to apologize and promise retribution. Cara sneaks Xan's body away from the funeral and brings it to the dogs. The next morning, Xan is alive but, like the mama sunbird, a little off. Cara's parents are repulsed by the reincarnation of Xan, with her father knifing him and barring him from the house. Cara sneaks out, finds Xan, and they head into the forest together, to seek refuge with the dogs. <hr> <ft>Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I've pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me of what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I've failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an interest in this book, then I'm happy for you.</ft> <h>Citations</h> <bq caption="Page 14">But if all the things in her books were about other places with other rules, then none of them could ever really be about her. It was like going to school one morning and finding out that math worked differently for you, so even if you got the same answer as everyone else, yours was wrong.</bq> <bq caption="Page 45">She parked the cart in the soft ground at the water’s edge and stepped toward the trees. The already black night grew darker. There wasn’t even starlight here. Only an absence, like looking straight into the pupil of an eye as big as the world. She put her arms out, fingertips waving for the fronds and scrub that she knew was there but couldn’t see. Her eyes ached from trying to see anything. Her ears rang with the silence.</bq> <bq caption="Page 45">Uncertainty came over her in a wave. It was too big and too strange. Like she’d waved at the sun and it had waved back. Maybe this had been a bad idea, but it was too late now. She steeled herself to face whatever came from the black. The tramping drew nearer, louder. It multiplied and spread. They were coming.</bq>