SciFi--con man w/fluffy white dog that can count
CharlasName that Book
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1jaymar
I hope I'm remembering this SF book accurately:
SETTING: Set in our own solar system, but in a future when aliens have invaded and occupied the balmier parts of the system (Earth, Moon, Mars, etc.), forcing humans to scrape out a precarious existence around the outer planets and moons. (We never meet any aliens; this is just a very clever way to set up the story in a way that doesn’t involve faster-than-light travel but puts humans in an alien environment.)
CHARACTERS: The protagonist is an entertainer (I believe he is performing in a Shakespeare play in the first scene) who is also something of a con man. He has occasional flashbacks to his childhood with an abusive father, which becomes important later. He more or less lives out of his large wardrobe chest. His constant companion is a small fluffy white dog with enhanced intelligence: he can understand English pretty well and can also count to five--or maybe it was ten (which becomes an important plot point later).
PLOT: Most of the book simply involves this guy eking out a living through fair means and foul (he steals from a rich old lady at one point). He’s on the lam because of this and various other petty crimes but also, we learn, from a murder charge. During the course of the book, a particularly tenacious bounty hunter gets on his trail. At one point, he pays someone to help him stow away in a cargo ship but finds the suspended animation drug he was given is fake so has to figure out how not to starve on the long trip.
SPOILER ALERTS: The bounty hunter catches up to him and the dog saves his life by biting the guy's hand on the count of five (or ten) but is killed in the act. (He's successfully revived later.) The book is very interesting up to the last part, which gets pretty stupid. The guy gets caught and put on trial, as it turns out, for murdering his father years earlier. However, we learn that he is actually his father's clone, so his lawyer’s defense is that he and his father were the same person so it couldn’t be murder, more like suicide. (Exceedingly dumb, because even today you could convict someone if they killed their identical twin.)
I got rid of the book ages ago because of the dumb ending, but I really enjoyed most of the story and now I wish I could reread it.
SETTING: Set in our own solar system, but in a future when aliens have invaded and occupied the balmier parts of the system (Earth, Moon, Mars, etc.), forcing humans to scrape out a precarious existence around the outer planets and moons. (We never meet any aliens; this is just a very clever way to set up the story in a way that doesn’t involve faster-than-light travel but puts humans in an alien environment.)
CHARACTERS: The protagonist is an entertainer (I believe he is performing in a Shakespeare play in the first scene) who is also something of a con man. He has occasional flashbacks to his childhood with an abusive father, which becomes important later. He more or less lives out of his large wardrobe chest. His constant companion is a small fluffy white dog with enhanced intelligence: he can understand English pretty well and can also count to five--or maybe it was ten (which becomes an important plot point later).
PLOT: Most of the book simply involves this guy eking out a living through fair means and foul (he steals from a rich old lady at one point). He’s on the lam because of this and various other petty crimes but also, we learn, from a murder charge. During the course of the book, a particularly tenacious bounty hunter gets on his trail. At one point, he pays someone to help him stow away in a cargo ship but finds the suspended animation drug he was given is fake so has to figure out how not to starve on the long trip.
SPOILER ALERTS: The bounty hunter catches up to him and the dog saves his life by biting the guy's hand on the count of five (or ten) but is killed in the act. (He's successfully revived later.) The book is very interesting up to the last part, which gets pretty stupid. The guy gets caught and put on trial, as it turns out, for murdering his father years earlier. However, we learn that he is actually his father's clone, so his lawyer’s defense is that he and his father were the same person so it couldn’t be murder, more like suicide. (Exceedingly dumb, because even today you could convict someone if they killed their identical twin.)
I got rid of the book ages ago because of the dumb ending, but I really enjoyed most of the story and now I wish I could reread it.
2MyriadBooks
Maybe look into Walter Jon Williams' Drake Majistral trilogy (The Crown Jewels, 1987)? I think it matches on the alien overlords who don't really appear and the charming thief/con-man protagonist, but I only read one of the books circa 1995 and don't remember enough to comment on the other details.
3dukedom_enough
The setting is very close to that of John Varley's Eight Worlds stories, so I think the novel may be The Golden Globe. Can't say definitely because that's the one book in the series I haven't read. See the LT reviews. Also, here's a plot summary at Wikipedia.
4justifiedsinner
I would second The Golden Globe, the main character is an itinerant actor/con man with a canine companion.
