This was SO GOOD!!! Admittedly, I had to straighten out in my mind---who was who ---and what "tribe" they belonged to! But what a story! Who couldn't end up loving "Dog," the wonderful wolf? Of course who knows how the real history evolved to produce a "dog"---was it possibly the taming of a wolf originally? I'm very late reading this---not sure how I missed a W.Bruce Cameron book!! Very special. (OH....and wbcthree is just before my review....wonderful! Well, extra special!! Congratulations, "your" book deserves a terrific review....by you!!!) ( )

I suppose it is a bit ridiculous for me to review a novel that I wrote, but I did, in the process, read the thing, and I have a few thoughts.

First, the author seems to be losing his hair. In compensation, he's growing it longer and sort of swirling it around on his head, which looks ridiculous.

Second, while I would hand A Dog's Purpose to any child, even newborns, I wouldn't do that with The Dog Master. This is an epic, sweeping tale of a pivotal point in human history: the first domesticated wolf. In other words, the first dog. As such it takes place during a brutal time, even worse than middle school: the paleolithic. This is a time before written language, so instead of forcing a child to write "I will not talk in class" on the whiteboard 100 times, the teacher probably just hit the kid with a rock.

There is lust, violence, hunting, betrayal, murder, privation, and infection in The Dog Master, because these were things the people had to deal with every day. I could not write a "child safe" novel and address such topics. Though oddly the language is pretty PG: using modern four letter words would have seemed pretty ridiculous.

I spent many months doing research and losing hair as I prepared to write The Dog Master, and the result is, I think, my best effort yet. If you loved A Dog's Purpose, I don't think I will be spoiling the plot for you if I tell you that some of my new novel is written from the perspective of the wolves who eventually threw their lot in with humans. If you felt as if I got into the canine brain with A Dog's Purpose, in other words, you will not be disappointed with The Dog Master. ( )

I finished it because I was somewhat invested in the outcomes of the tribes' drama - it was compelling enough that I didn't put it down.

I think I like the author, based on his afterword. But, I really really didn't like the style of writing he chose to go with. It seemed really unnecessarily formal. During hunt/council meetings or important ceremonies, yeah, it would make sense for the characters to be speaking formally, but when they're just chatting, or arguing with each other, I didn't really get it. But also outside of dialogue, the writing style's just not for me. It was a little...much. A lot of other reviews have mentioned the genre of book as being Paleolithic Soap Opera, and I think that's what I'm not entirely sold on with the style. There are lines like "'Frightened Ones are bigger and they look different in ways for which I lack descriptive words.'" There are a bunch of other lines and scenes like this that add information that is completely unnecessary and just waste space. It is never ever relevant that one character couldn't find the words to describe something's appearance, so just have him describe them like normal or don't talk about it at all! It is totally irrelevant that Jean-Claude, the research assistant, loves pastries. Actually, pretty much everything in the present day with the professor was completely irrelevant. The very first scene of the book describes in great detail how the prof takes such pleasure in torturing the first-years in his class and it's such an irrelevant scene that while I was reading it I thought about putting the book down and after I was done reading it I immediately forgot about it and it didn't affect my understanding of the rest of the story.

Also there's bullshit like the paleolothic people using the phrases "man's side" and "woman's side" instead of right and left. Despite the fact that the word "left" is still used in the book, so just SAY LEFT. It's not like it's some new idea to portray paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies as disdainful of female bodies. It is a tired trope because people think it MUST BE TRUE so thanks history written by men from patriarchal societies who couldn't interpret their archaeological findings from any perspective other than their own. ( )

A frustrating read for me. I found it fascinating in parts, terribly cloying and trite and tedious in many others. I nearly gave up on it at several points, but ground it out, to be rewarded by a rousing ending. I don't know, this book has solid reviews and passionate fans, so maybe it's just not my type of book. Overall, for me, it was just "OK". ( )

What a pleasure to read. This seems a well researched historical context of early man - I like the tribal life representations, contrasting different styles of survival. And within both Wolfen and Kindred tribes, there were people who were good & tried to do the right thing and people who were manipulative and destructive. Trying to imagine what language might have been like then, the complexity of the dialog is probably a bit of a stretch, but I didn't find it distracting.

Cameron creates an environment that's rich with detail and using familiar landmarks, helps us visualize the wilderness these people & wolves inhabit. I was drawn right in.

As for the wolf/dog portion of the story - I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought his premise was sound and believable. However, I found the jumping from 2 different timelines hard to follow and confusing. I would have preferred a more linear time frame.

I also felt the "present day" portion of the story was unnecessary. It didn't add anything to the story at all. Wasted pages there.

Overall: well written, moves right along, plenty of storyline for animal lovers to enjoy and plenty of story for character-driven lovers to enjoy, set in a time period few books tackle, definitely worth reading! ( )