When I read a great story like this one, I often wonder.....where does the story come from? GUNDOG is a unique story line set after "the end of the world as we know it". It has been long enough since the human world was conquered and it's habitants imprisoned, that the current generation has never known a life other than this. When evidence is found that gives hope of freedom, there is no question, action will be taken, no matter the consequences. The story takes some very different twists to land at a point where the rebels have a chance. What happens after that? You'll have to read the book for yourself.

I love this book. It was a fast paced book I couldn't put it down. I love the concepts it has a post apocalyptic feel to it. I can't wait to see what happens next. I hope it continues on. It leaves me wanting more.

2/5 Stars rounded up from a 1.5

In my opinion... this is not a finished book. This is the cleaned up treatment for what could be an great book but instead reads like a freshmen's first feature-length script in film school. Had so much potential. Great cover.

I think I would have liked this more if it was a novel, instead of a movie script pretending to be a novel. The focus was on the visuals, or at least felt that way. Would be a great movie, in all fairness. Characters weren't bad, but I felt they weren't the focus of the story.

I'm really starting to think that not many people can write books involving mechs. This is one of them. This felt so stunted and like one person was just explaining a mech uprising to me. I would have rather watched a transformer movie.

Many science fiction books now utilize dystopian futures and awful circumstances for planets and their people. Gundog by Gary Whitta uses this situation on our earth in the United States as a setup but quickly goes upbeat to a flicker of hope that could be possible if the right action is taken. In this version, earth has been taken over by alien robots and society has been broken down to the point that humans are in labor camps being killed if they act rebellious. The story centers around Dakota, a survivor based on her skills and her willingness to follow the rules. However Dakota receives a chance to escape which turns into a fight for her life and a possibility to learn more of her past and find a future. This novel is adventurous and moves quite quickly as we learn that Dakota can be tenacious and her knowledge is useful for survival. We follow her across the prairies of the United States, while hiding from the aliens which they call Meks. The pacing of the book is similar to a young adult title, and the characters have relationships that go with that genre as well. I enjoyed running with Dakota, her transportation and the other characters that she picks up along the way. Whitta did well to never have her in one place for too long. The novel includes a bit of found family and seems to be setting up for a sequel since even though it technically comes to a conclusion, some strings are left untied. Because of the simplicity of the set up and the primary subject of adventure, Gundog would be a great novel for someone just starting science fiction. Thank you to Netgalley for this ecopy in return for an honest review.

Gundog was the perfect summer sci-fi read! This book contains some of my favorite storytelling tropes: post-apocalyptic USA setting, escapes, and finding out everything you were told about your world is a lie. I'd recommend this book to anyone fairly new to sci-fi or dystopian genres, someone looking for a page-turner, and of course, the audio version of this book is incredible, so I'll definitely be recommending it for a good road-trip read!

Gundog very much reads like a movie script, I could envision scenes playing out on a big screen...but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

I personally found the story to be quite flat, with a real lacking in depth to its characters. However, despite this, I think deep down there is an interesting plot there - but, in the wider world of the sci fi genre, there are many better quality books out there and MANY that do the exact same tropes that are found within Gundog, so, it sadly really doesn't stand out much in the genre.

I would still read another book by the author, as I do think there is still some good quality plot and writing there, this just wasn't the best example of this I believe.

A fast paced sci-fi action novel that kept me hooked until the end.

This feels like the story of what the world might have been like if the aliens from War of the Worlds had succeeded with their invasion. The human race subjugated and is at the mercy of aliens who remain faceless and brutal throughout.

Ultimately this is a book about courage and beating the odds, it felt like I was able to see the action play out in my head like a really cool action movie.

This left me wanting more stories from this universe and the ending left plenty of potential for more stories to be told.

Ho boy. If I had looked into the author at all before I picked this one up I may have avoided it - Whitta wrote Star Wars: Rogue One which is not only my least favourite of the Disney Star Wars films, but I think just a poor film overall. Nowhere near enough time is dedicated to the characters we're expected to like and it is far too preoccupied with being an epic action film to even flirt with spending the time needed.

As it turns out, his original fiction has almost the identical problem.

GUNDOG is set in a undetermined future where Earth has been invaded and occupied by the Mek, who we are told tried to peacefully make contact with humanity before being betrayed and provoked by our warlike nature into enslaving the human race.

Our protagonist, Dakota, is a mechanic in a Mek-run 'township' until one day a mysterious newcomer tells her that she's destined for great things and that - gasp - the Mek didn't come in peace after all!

Yada yada yada, mech combat, the end.

I really, really wish I liked this - I don't hate the setting and the concept, it seems like pretty inoffensive YA fare, but god - Whitta has no patience. In the space of 300 pages he introduces the world and all its problems, shows us the solution, and implements it.

Dakota knows the mysterious stranger - Falk - for all of a week and shes talking about how he's 'earned her respect... and more' (oooOOOOoooOOooo!!!). Humans don't move this quickly, I don't care how traumatised they are.

It also feels like he couldn't make up his mind if he wanted the Mek to be an all-seeing, all-knowing unstoppable machinemind or a fallible enemy. A lot is mentioned (early - it seems to drop off over time, how interesting) about the Mek's 'algorithm', the thing that determines how the Mek handles anything, all geared towards brutal efficiency - however as the story goes on, things like 'Oh the Mek have grown complacent' begin cropping up, 'Wow how strange that the super-organised Mek have buggered this up'. The Mek don't act in a rational, efficient manner a lot of the time - a lot of unnecessary wanton cruelty for an uber-efficient machine race.

"For an alien race that had conquered all of humanity, the Mek were sometimes surprisingly sloppy when it came to detail."

In the same vein, it didn't seem like he could make his mind up whether it was doing a hard SF Battletech-inspired mech fiction, or a Macross-inspired 'Singing lullabyes to the memory chip with my mum's consciousness on it will bring her back to life' fiction.

Just on the whole trying far too hard. The tone is immature, but it doesn't feel like it's even aimed at a YA audience. A section towards the end really stuck out as being particularly hamfisted.

"And that pointed to the biggest change of all: her. She was returning to the township not as the frightened young woman who had left it, but as someone entirely new. Strong. Empowered."

This isn't something you tell us, Whitta - this is something you allow the audience to see, except we don't get a chance to because you're speedrunning Character Arcs 101 as fast as you humanly can to get to the ending.

Finally, the action - in theory the thing that this book is clearly trying the hardest to get you invested in - is clunky and uninteresting. I'm a fan of BattleTech fiction (or at least I was 15 years ago) and I remember enjoying the nitty gritty of the battles - however in GUNDOG my eyes glazed over.

A no from me, and a big avoid to everybody who's read this far.

Thanks to NetGalley and Inkshares for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

DNF at 30%.

Gary Whitta's Gundog offered a lot of promise, but failed to deliver. It revolves around an alien invasion, and in the book's opener we get a two page infodump that catches us up on future history, which - in the 85 pages I read - is about as interesting as this book gets. A machine race known as the Mek (get it? Mek because they're mechanical beings? I'm not sure if they named themselves that or if it was meant as a derogatory hardy har har name invented by the humans they subjugated.) came to Earth in peace, seeking to trade their advanced technology for our natural resources, which their dying home world was in desperate need of. But, since humanity is the shitshow that it is, we decided we could just take their technology in lieu of nothing at all, and declared war, because we're a cynical, barbaric species and such is our way. Of course, the Mek's peaceful ways hid a hugely advanced military might that they used to wipe the Earth's ass with us and claim our planet for themselves. Humanity was rounded up into labor camps, which is where Gundog actually begins and any excitement that may have existed in this story goes to die.

Mechs are a hugely important part of this book. The alien race is wholly mechanical and Gundog arrives in timely fashion given current events regarding the threats posed by artificial intelligence to humanity, employment, and the arts (see the Writer's Guild of America's strike, for instance, and their demands to regulate AI in Hollywood productions). There are giant mechanized war machines the humans piloted in the war called Gundogs, and one long lost, fabled Gundog left standing as a monument by the Meks to humanity's utter failure supposedly still standing outside Bismark, ND, or so rumor has it. Whitta's writing is mechanical, too -- stiff, dull, and completely lifeless, there's no joy, urgency, or amusement to be found in these words. The book itself may as well have been outlined by AI with the prompt "The Hunger Games meets Robot Jox" it's so trope-ridden.

If you've read virtually any post-apocalyptic dystopian book with a YA woman destined for greatness thanks to her unknown especially to her legacy on a Joseph Campbell hero's journey, aided by a boy she knowns nothing about but who knows more than her about basically everything including her familial legacy, you've read far less robotic versions of Gundog already.

Set in the future of Earth, Gundog is a science fiction book that felt more dystopian in nature without the relevant world building that previous dystopian novels have. The only reason why this is would be considered a sci-fi book is because of aliens.

Throughout the entirety of Gundog, I never once got the feeling that I was in a science fiction time. Nothing in here was particularly described to give any sense of what the world felt like. If we are in a future where humanity has been conquered by an alien race, you need to describe how this Earth looks, how worn the survivors are. While book readers do have good imaginations, you need to give us something to work with.

My biggest gripe with Gundog is that we never seem to get to the meat of anything. The plot seems to jump along whenever it gets bored with whatever is currently happening. The characters are never given solid motives, if they are even given motives at all. At no point in the entirety of this novel were the alien Men described in any level of detail. A floating hunk of metal is the only image that I had of them in my mind for the duration of the read. Now that I think of it, none of the character were really described in anyway.

Gundog was an extreme easy read. I cannot remember the last time that I read a book of this length so quickly (it was probably when I was in high school in my devour a book in a day phase). I would classify this book to be aimed more towards the young adult reading group because of the nature of both its ease of reading as well as everything moving along so quick. No scene felt like it ended up explaining everything, like we were reading through with partially blinkered view of what was occurring. This got so frustrating since things never ended up feeling fulfilling.

While a gripping read, the more I think about the more I am annoyed with how much potential was wasted.

A by-the-numbers sci-fi story set in a dystopian United States after Earth is conquered by alien machines.

To echo another reviewer of Gary Whitta’s forthcoming sci-fi novel Gundog, I wanted to like it more than I did. The premise – a young woman finds a hidden weapon and starts a rebellion after Earth is conquered by aliens – is intriguing, and I remember fondly the author’s stint as editor of PC Gamer magazine. But the story just never grabbed me and pulled me in.

This review is based on an advance copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley for that purpose. The book will be available on August 1, 2023.

After the alien machine race known as the Mek conquered the planet, they killed off (‘recycled’) older humans and imprisoned the rest in work camps producing the raw materials the invaders need. Dakota, 23, and her older brother Sam toil in one such camp in the former United States. They are the children of Lieutenant Colonel Rosie Bregman, who was killed along with her entire unit when their armored mechs called Gundogs were destroyed at humanity’s last stand against the Mek.

Dakota’s chief concern is keeping Sam alive until a mysterious stranger arrives in a transport of new prisoners, setting her on a course that could be humanity’s salvation. Much of her journey is similar enough to any number of sci-fi movies, TV shows and books that I often felt a bit of déjà vu. The conclusion is unsurprising and while not a cliffhanger it leaves ample room for follow-on books should the author choose.

To be clear, Gundog isn’t a bad story, or poorly-written. It may just be what you’re looking for. I’m glad to have had the chance to read it, and I’ll certainly give Mr. Whitta’s work another look in the future.

I really really really wanted to love this book! The premise and most aspects of the story appealed to me; overlord aliens, long lost mech, a strong female lead, etc.

It felt like the bones for a movie script though. There was the potential for so much depth, description and world building and I feel the surface was barely scratched. There were also a lot of filler characters and parts of the story that had no real meaning or relevance.

Unfortunately the idea of this book was better than the reality. It would probably make a decent movie though.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Inkshares for a copy.

This early review copy was provided by NetGallery and Inkshares Publishing. Many thanks to them for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review! Let's get into it...

The Premise...
The setting of the story is as follows...
In the aftermath of an alien invasion by a race called 'The Mek', most of Earth's population has either been terminated or enslaved into work camps called 'townships'. The protagonist of the novel is a girl called Dakota (Yes named after the state!) who works in a township with her disabled brother Sam. It is revealed early into the story that Dakota and Sam's parents were generals in Earth's last battalion and piloted Earth's greatest weapon - The Gundog.

The Gundog is a large, mechanised weapon that operates with a pilot and a gunner. The Gundog is Earth's best chance at taking back it's planet and you can bet your bottom dollar that Dakota is going to find a Gundog...

The Good...
For the first 1/3 of this book, I was absolutely hooked! The opening sequence to this story is fantastic, with a great premise and introductory segment. I immediately liked the character of Dakota, a strong female lead who takes on her brother's role as lead sibling once he becomes unable to work due to an injury sustained during his enslavement.

Another great aspect to this story is the characters of Runyon and Rosie. These two characters really add some substance to the novel and their relationships to Dakota are the most believable part of the story. Runyon in particular has a great character arc and really develops into a protagonist that you can cheer for as he becomes a far stronger and determined person.

What wasn't so good...
Where the first 1/3 of the book flourished, the rest of the book I feel unfortunately lost it's way. This, I feel in particular, is related heavily to the character of Falk. Falk is a character that Dakota meets in the township and develops a 'strong bond' with over the duration of a few weeks in the story. However the development of this relationship is never fully explored - it happens over the space of a few pages, therefore it's extremely hard to believe that Dakota could possibly see Falk as someone she is equally as close to as her brother Sam.

Even more frustrating when reading, is that Falk is essentially a pointless character. After finishing, my first thought was "Why did Whitta write this character? What purpose does he actually serve?". I honestly feel that if this is leading up to a sequel, then Falk's character might serve some purpose. However in this book, it feels very out of place and that a lot of his part was filler. I desperately wanted him to serve some more purpose than he did - but unfortunately it just wasn't explored.

Lastly, I feel that Whitta relied on the use of 'Deus Ex Machina' too many times to just resolve hopeless situations that just do not make sense. This was maybe trying too hard, but it definitely felt a bit disappointing to be presented with a tough situation and somehow the characters escape these time and time again.

Final Verdict...
Overall, Gundog is a very fast-paced text that has lots of enjoyable moments - particularly in the beginning and ending sections of the book. It hosts a cast of interesting characters, but ultimately fails to develop meaningful character arcs and feels that it sometimes loses it's way plot-wise. It would definitely be interesting to see, if Whitta writes a sequel, how he develops the story and the characters within the story.

Rating out of 5: 3

Once again, many thanks to NetGallery and Inkshares Publishing for allowing me to read this text early! Gundog publishes in July 2023.

Gundog features a world where humanity is enslaved by an alien techno-species but with some The Last Starfighter-style fate, a massive dual-piloted mecha, and a bit of luck, a fire can be lit to fight back.

Gary Whitta begins a new, original sci-fi franchise with Gundog, and let me stress the "begins" and "franchise" in that sentence. He captures the structure of classic Cameron action films on the page and while things that come with that formatting could turn off bookish traditionalists it all works well when you read through that lens, (which shouldn't be surprising with Whitta's other works in film and comics.)

Certain aspects of descriptions can feel a little vague if you're looking for a hyper-realized picture of, say, how the antagonist species looks. Personally, this kind of writing doesn't bother me much as I like when books afford me just enough detail that I can complete an image myself. Would the finite and completed imagery be nice to have? Sure, but I think this format allows the reader to be part of the creation that way so I'm fine with it.

Conversely, the way moments are described should certainly clear the bench-mark for most folks. The world is mostly gritty and the action is exhilarating which allows for some quiet moments to shine, particularly later in the story. I do think some cynics will find these moments clichéd but the flip side of the cliché coin is otherwise described as universally relatable, again Cameron-esque that way.

Gundog is a really solid start to something bigger, the book itself nods toward the future, and I'd be happy to see more of this world. I'd recommend for a casual read, especially if you appreciate '80s and '90s action cinema.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Inkshares for my advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

A frankly terrible book, it reads like a movie treatment reworked into the dullest, most passionless prose I've come across in a long while.

This feels like it's written to then be sold off to some movie company (not out of the realm of possibility, knowing mr. Whitta's screenwriting resume). Look, I can't look into mr. Whitta's head, but the book reads as if he himself barely can be bothered with telling this story.

Mr. Whitta doesn't do descriptions, that's what art designers are for! So you get an alien race, the Mek, that is never physically described. They plod and/or fly around in biped/drone-like form, but I couldn't tell you what they look or sound like. As far as I can remember there is one short description of what an elite Mek unit might look like, and that's yer lot. That feels like a real problem when those same Mek are your main antagonists.

Same basically goes for the titular Gundog - a large mech that is described in half a page, and we should feel lucky we even got that. Characters speak like big budget American movie characters, the dialogue version of pumping fists in the air. There are bits of character development slotted in at regular intervals, and that's how they read - dull and regimentary. I ended up not liking or disliking the main characters, I just felt nothing towards them.

The actual sci-fi stuff we get feels underused and I know, this is a (bad) Spielberg action movie, but did it have to be so safe and predictable? At one point, it turns out that the humans were able to 'upload' human brains to computers, so you get a human consciousness/AI hybrid, which is a fine sci-fi trope. But in this case it is stated that this semi-AI can't be copied, and the uploaded person can't survive the procedure. No reasons are given for this, it just is. That's no fun! Imagine having a semi-AI of a person, and the uploaded person also is still alive. The semi-AI goes out on missions in a Gundog, returns as basically a different battlescarred version of the living person. Oh, the dialogue we could've had! Endless interesting characterisation!

What we do get is an emotional bond between one of these semi-AIs and a main character, and it's solely used to hit a couple of boring, predictable emotional notes.

Anyway, I got so bored with this book I kept thinking how it could be rewritten into something more interesting and fun, while still being full of action and suspense. A review no-no, or a method of survival: you decide.

Avoid this book.

Gary Whitta GUNDOG


(3.75 stars or 7.5/10)

A short novel (under 3200 pages) by a scriptwriter who didn't want to go through the excruciating process of shopping a script and waiting to see it produced (or not). Whitta instead went for novel format and produced a promotional podcast version for it which I haven't checked out yet.

"The Mek came to us in peace. A machine race from some faraway star system." Thus begins the story of Dakota, who lives with her brother Sam in a camp with other humans culled from the devastated Midwestern surroundings where the Mek retaliated against humans who rejected their peaceful overtures. The conquest, acheived with superior weaponry by beings with no need to sleep or rest, was worldwide and effectively total. No armies, air forces, or navies remain to defend humanity.

Mechanically savvy Dakota must fend for both her brother and herself, Sam having lost an arm in an accident that left him changed and unable to serve the Mek as well as the rest of the camp residents do. Somewhat estranged from the rest of the prisoners there, they eke out an existence and can only dream of escape, knowing they would never last outside, where they had spent years hiding from the Meks before capture.

Then one day, among a busload of new arrivals who have also seen their last days of freedom, a strange man named Falk slowly befriends a suspicious and resistant Dakota with knowledge about Sam he shouldn't have. Knowledge he claims could lead to escape and a way to fight the Meks on more even ground, as Dakota's mother had right up until her demise outside a Mek stronghold. Should Dakota trust Falk? Is escape possible, and even if it is can humanity really fight back and win their freedom?

Whitta smartly focuses on just a few characters but still hasn't filled them out as much as he might, hoping lean and mean will keep the book fast paced and readable. It mostly does. Yet ironically - or maybe there's a point to it, not fully erm...fleshed out - the most interesting character in the book is the AI created from a long-decesaed human veteran's mind. More irony: Gundog probably would have been better in film format, even if we had to wait a few years for it. Perhaps we'll see it yet. Still, it's a fun read for Humanity versus Aliens warfare fans.


GUNDOG was provided by NetGalley as an e-arc and is scheduled for publication July 18, 2023 from Inkshares Publishing in Kindle and hardcover formats. It is currently available as an 11-episode podcast through Audibleand other sources. Quotations cited here are subject to change by publication time.

Nicely done. A well executed story with an engaging premise and good writing. I like the author's imagination, and look forward to his future work.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

Gundog is a fast paced underdog story of a brother and sister who are descendants of the last holdouts in an alien invasion. Our main character Dakota leads us through a compound escape, and out into unknown territory in search of a mystery location. The entire novel is delightfully cinematic, and doesn't dwell on anything unnecessarily.

This was a nice, casual read. I look forward to a potential sequel and hopefully a TV or movie adaptation.