''The Stone Dogs'' is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer

S. M. Stirling Stephen Michael Stirling (born September 30, 1953) is a Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author who was born in France. Stirling is well known for his The Domination, Draka series of alternate history (fiction), alternate history no ...

, the third book in the

alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...

series, The Domination. It was first published in paperback by Baen Books in August 1990. It was a preliminary nominee for the 1996 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. The novel details the life of Eric von Shrakenberg's niece, Yolande Ingolfsson, and Chantal Lefarge's children, Frederick and Marya. Eric later becomes the Archon during the "Final War".

Plot summary

During the

cold war The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

between the Alliance and the Domination, Frederic and Marya work for the OSS as spies and assassins. During the Draka conquest of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, Marya Lefarge is taken prisoner. She becomes a serf to Yolande Ingolfsson, who after torturing her repeatedly with a neural weapon, forces her to become a "brooder" (i.e. a surrogate mother) for her offspring, Gwendolyn. Yolande also swears vengeance on Fred Lefarge after he kills her lover, Myfanwy Venders, during the Indian Incident. As both superpowers expand into space, they prepare different doomsday weapons. The Alliance's weapon is a

computer virus A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...

("comp plague") secretly planted in Draka military computers by spies; the Draka's is a biological virus called the Stone Dogs that causes infected personnel to go insane. Yolande discovers Marya, who has contacted the OSS, planting the comp-plague and allows her to escape with knowledge of the Stone Dogs. This forces her uncle, Archon Eric von Shrakenberg, to use the weapon prematurely. The Draka win the resulting conflict; however, their incomplete victory leads to Eric negotiating an arrangement whereupon the Alliance is allowed to launch its

generation ship A generation ship, or generation starship, is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels at sub-light speed. Since such a ship might require hundreds to thousands of years to reach nearby stars, the original occupants of a gene ...

"The New America" and the remaining Alliance survivors in space are granted limited Draka citizenship.

References

External links

* 1990 American novels Alternate history novels Baen Books books Biological weapons in popular culture The Domination series Dystopian novels Fiction about asteroid mining Generation ships in fiction Malware in fiction Novels by S. M. Stirling {{Canada-novel-stub