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Hello, mammals! Let’s talk about talking animals. They’re always a big hit, but they seem to be having a big moment in popular culture right now. There’s a new film adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a Netflix film adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and the talking sheep detective vehicle based on Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann.
We recently also received the very exciting news that Scott Hawkins has a new novel coming in the fall, called Blacktail, about a wolf. (I read it, it’s amazing, you’ll hear more about it soon. And I made a countdown clock.) So let’s take a look at five more excellent speculative novels in which animals run the show, or at least, have a lot to say.
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis
In this Giller Prize-winning novel, the gods Hermes and Apollo make a bet concerning human consciousness. They bestow it upon a group of dogs in a Toronto veterinary clinic to see what happens when dogs can suddenly think and speak like people. It’s a great read for fans of The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams and Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
No talking animal list is complete without this hilarious and heart-squeezing post-apocalyptic tale! ST, the profane talking crow, sets out with the lovable (but very unsmart) dog Dennis to find a way to save the humans after a plague appears to have wiped out all of humanity. Because who will make his favorite snack, Cheetos, if the humans are gone?
Shady Hollow by Juneau Black
This is like Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town but for grown-ups. The lovely town of Shady Hollow, where all the woodland creatures live in harmony, is shaken to the core when someone murders Otto Sumpf, a grumpy toad. And reporter Vera Vixen, a fox, is hoping to get her big break by solving the case!
And, for Busy, Busy Town for grown-ups, but with gruesome murders, check out the excellent comic Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath.
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Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
This is such an excellent middle grade fantasy series! It’s about a young girl named Aru who touches a lamp at a museum, even though she shouldn’t, just to try and impress some mean girls. Welp. It awakens the God of Destruction and freezes everyone around her, and now she must go on a quest to fix the problem. One of the things that makes this book great is Boo, a sassy, Oreo-loving, thousand-year-old pigeon who must guide Aru on her journey.
Mort(e) by Robert Repino
And last, but not least, a wildly underrated series (in my humble opinion). In the near future, animals have gained sentience and start to grow after being changed by technology developed by a tactical ant colony. The ants’ goal is to wipe out humanity from the face of the planet. And we totally deserve it. Mort(e)is a former house cat and a war hero, but as the fighting drags on, his objectives change, and he seeks out his old doggy friend, Sheba, from the days before the battles.
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the Book Riot podcastAll the Books!and onInstagram.
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