Six top dogs in post-apocalyptic books

Lorna Wallace has a PhD in English Literature and is a lover of all things science fiction and horror. She lives in Scotland with her rescue greyhound, Misty.

At Tor.com Wallace tagged eleven of the best dogs in post-apocalyptic books and films, including:

Kojak — The Stand (1978) by Stephen King

Kojak is literary proof that humans don’t deserve dogs. Captain Trips, the superflu that kills off the majority of humanity in The Stand, is also deadly for dogs. Glen Bateman comes across a rare doggy survivor, an Irish Setter formally known as Big Steve, and renames him Kojak, after the ’70s TV detective. After initially establishing himself as a great guy by looking after Kojak, Glen then becomes a villain in my eyes by leaving him behind (!) to travel across the United States with Stu Redman, instead of figuring out a way to bring him with them. Even Randall Flagg, the real villain of the story, wouldn’t sink that low.

But Kojak is a loyal hound (not that Glen deserves it) and makes the difficult trip on his own. We even get an amazing, but deeply harrowing, section recounting the journey from Kojak’s point of view. Kojak isn’t just a good boy…by the end of the story he’s an absolute hero.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Stand is among David Koepp's seven top contagion novels, Claudia Gray's five top books about plagues and pandemics, and Michelle Tea's top ten books about the apocalypse.

--Marshal Zeringue