Diamondback Dog

by George Bowering

In her quest to return a stray diamondback dog to the future, Coriander, a.k.a. Feet, leads the zany Parents from Space foursome into an exploration of time's dimensions. Along the way, George Bowering slips in a tour of B.C. history and a hilarious spoof on the role of the muse in poetry and science.

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

George Bowering was born and brought up in the Okanagan Valley, amid sand dunes and sagebrush, but he has lived in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta — great sources of hockey stars. Along the way he has stopped to write several books on baseball. He has also picked up Governor General’s Awards for his poetry and fiction, and otherwise been rewarded with prizes for his books, except in his home province of British Columbia. His earlier ECW book, His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for 2000. He lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

[Karyn Huenemann · Rating 1 out of 5]

While this novel has an interesting premise, Bowering’s own personality (ego…) shines through too fully to ignore. He claims that he wrote the book because he had not “seen any YAs that did ‘my kind of writing. I think that those young folks would like to feel smart when they are reading, and adults who think that young folks just want a lot of plot with lots of action are selling the kids and maybe themselves short’” (backmatter). His novel, however, is mostly a lot of plot with lots of action… the characters are not very well developed, nor particularly interesting, nor particularly real… And the relationship between adult and child seems artificial and (not surprisingly) contrived by an adult with (as far as I can tell) no children himself.