An Oath of Dogs | Wendy N. Wagner

*Book received from NetGalley for an Honest Review

Summary:

Standish has been hired to help out the Communications at Canaan Lake on the moon (not planet, moon) Huginn. When she wakes up from the cryo sleep she was in to make the trip from Earth, she is told that Duncan, the man who hired her, has died. Went missing the forests of Huginn and hasn't been found since. So, she's now head of Communications. When she gets to Canaan Lake with her service dog, Hattie, she finds out the hard way that there are wild dogs in Canaan Lake that dig up corpses and kill those that try to stop them. When she starts asking questions about Duncan's disappearance, however, she finds there's another layer to this small town that she may not like.

Review:

I'm not generally one for mystery novels. All the ones I read just don't surprise me anymore. They're kinda predictable. The overall mystery of this book wasn't too mysterious after a bit, I'll admit. That being said, I didn't put the book down. I happily kept reading more because I found the characters and, more importantly, the world of Huginn to be incredibly interesting. I really think there's a lot more that Wagner can do with this world and I'll be happy to see it.

I greatly enjoyed reading and trying to picture the various flora of Huginn. Seriously, if you are at all interested in botany or ecology, this is a great Sci-Fi book for you. One of the main characters is a botanist who knows what he's talking about. But there are so many parts of the descriptions of the forests and the insects that made me really wish this book had come with illustrations. The naturally multi-colored wood of the coveted, but literally explosive, horsetail trees are something that I really want to see! And Bajowski's (the botanist) observations about the terran insects' adaptations to and with Huginn's insects were fascinating to me.

And I haven't even talked about the religious sect The Believers yet! Think Amish, but way in the future. They were the first colonists in Canaan Lake and we get to find out that their journey was far from easy when Songhauser, the company that practically rules all of space travel, misplaced their main food supply boxes. Yeah, Huginn is not friendly to outsiders and no one knows that better than the Believers. 

Overall, this was an entertaining book. The mysterious parts weren't too difficult to figure out after a while, but it was still a good read. There is certainly plenty room for more stories from Huginn and I do look forward to them! 3.5 hoots!

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Animal Planet Strange, Unusual, Gross & Cool Animals | Animal Planet & Charles Gingha

*Image and book provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Summary:

Animal Planet explores a plethora of animals that we humans would consider strange, unusual, gross or cool. There are snippets of information about various species and full pictures of some of the stranger ones.

Review:

Yes, this is a kids' book. No, I don't care. The format reminded me of the magazines I used to read in waiting rooms, but with much better pictures. This book would be a delight to read with your kids or to give to a kid who wonders what's so great about science. Gross animals are so interesting and easily capture the imagination. The funniest part, for me, was looking at some animals and thinking "so that's where Pokemon got the idea" and I've never been a Pokemon fan. 

If you're looking for a book to entertain your kids and you're okay with kinda large pictures of kinda large arachnids, bugs, creatures from the depths of the oceans, etc. I think you'll enjoy this book. It's a great way to introduce young readers to creatures than excite imaginations. To show them that strangeness, grossness, and coolness and be completely natural occurrences, and completely subjective to human standards. It's also a good book to introduce kids to the concepts of conservation. Many animals in this book are on, or close to being on, the endangered species list. 

Overall, I give this book 3.5 hoots. Not a book really for me, but definitely one I'd give to some young readers that I know or that I would pick up for my kids. 

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What Should A Clever Moose Eat? | John Pastor

*Image and ebook provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Summary:

Prof. John Pastor has studies the ecology of the North Woods for many years. In What Should a Clever Moose Eat? he presents a collection of essays that address the ecology of the North Words from the creation of its landscape by glaciers in the Ice Age to the current relations between species of plants and animals. There is also a section at the end dedicated to how fragile everything is and how we cannot fully know how Climate Change is going to affect everything. 

Review:

At the very beginning of this book, Pastor says that he has attempted to write this book so that it is approachable and understandable to a wide audience of people, not just those who have degrees in natural sciences. As a humanities major, I greatly appreciated this and kept it in mind when I was reading. There were still a few essays where I did more skimming than reading, but overall, I do believe that Pastor achieved his goal of making this book a good read for even the uninitiated. Just as Pastor says about nature, "Nature is always more interesting than the hypotheses we first propose", so to is this book more interesting than a non-scientist would think.

The book is still pretty academic, but if you've spent any time in a forest, a lot of the essays are feel less so. Pastor talks a lot about little things that we've always noticed and maybe never thought much about (i.e. why some trees form smooth leaves and others jagged). Most importantly, Pastor talks about how everything in the North Woods is connected, though this may be more a consequence of nature being a web of connections than a purposeful way of writing. 

In all, not all of the essays were able to keep my interest and there were times that the book felt like a chore to read, but I know I will not be able to look at trees the same way again. I will be filled with even more of a sense of wonder about them. Goodness knows, while reading this book, I started looking at the weeping willows on my way to work and wondering about how their long scraggly leaves had evolved. I also thought that I'd like to use this book for parents to help answer a lot of natural sciences questions their children may ask. 

I happily give this book 4 hoots because it has changed the way I look at the world, in a good way. 

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