When somebody says that a book is "a product of its time," it's not usually meant as a compliment. The great achievement of Robert Stone's novel, on the other hand, is to capture the sense of cultural malaise that followed the end of sixties idealism. Another reviewer here has pointed out some philosophical overtones in this work, but I tend to think that he reads too deeply – this book's characters, most of whom are self-serving hustlers or wannabe hustlers, have perverted sixties-era ideas and language for their own selfish ends. These characters have chosen to sustain themselves on pretty but hollow rhetoric and a pharmacy full of controlled substances, and the overall effect is unsettling in the extreme. Stone's writing is also perfectly suited to his material, capturing both his subjects desperation and a bit of their desperate humor. As the book draws to a close and things start to go off the rails, the entire thing starts to feel like a particularly heavy, particularly bad trip. "Dog Soldiers" is built like a noir – I wasn't surprised to learn that it'd been adapted for the screen – but a seductive junkie haze hangs over the entire thing, too, giving the book a softer, more beautiful edge. Don't try any of this at home. Highly recommended. ( )

I began this book thinking it would be about the Vietnam War told from the perspective of an in-country reporter named John Converse. I came to find that, while a few early scenes were set in Vietnam and Converse did occasionally reflect on his time spent there, the focus of the book is a drug deal that goes wrong--horribly, horribly wrong. However, I still loved the book. It has a bit of a Pulp Fiction or Guy Ritchie film feel to it. None of the characters are likable people and they have the moral sensibilities of a gnat, but they're entertaining and a reflection of the shifting values embodied by the time period (when asked why he tried to move heroin from Vietnam to the U.S., Converse replies, "You hear stories over there. They say everybody does it. Being there f***s up your perspective.") Like most Vietnam novels, the novel is liberally sprinkled with black humor (for those who can find and appreciate it). I would read the novel all over again just for Converse's remembrance of being fragmentation-bombed in Cambodia--a particularly harrowing and well-written scene of self-realization. ( )

Powerful Vietnam War book. Combination thriller and existential meditation, Camus and Hemingway. "Form is not different from nothingness. Nothingness is not different from form. They are the same. Try a little nothingness." (318) Hemingway could have said that. "Well, they just kept coming, he thought, one of them after another. Pieces and bayonets, lies and cunning and deviousness but none of them were worth a shit." (314) "In the end there were not many things worth wanting -- for the serious man, the samurai. But there were some. In the end if the serious man is till bound to illusion, he selects the worthiest illusion and takes a stand....Thinking it made him smile. Good Zen. Zen was for old men." (168)
Great stuff. Worth rereading and pondering. ( )

3515. Dog Soldiers: A Novel, by Robert Stone (read 28 Dec 2001) This was a co-winner of the 1975 National Book Award for fiction. Reading it means I have read all those winners except 12. I did not expect to like the book and I was not wrong. The dialogue is laced with obnoxious four-letter words and the characters are all without exception despicable and unlikeable. I found this a thoroughly bad and repulsive book, with no redeeming feature that I could detect. ( )