A Boy And His Dog

♦ SETTING ♦

The story is set in Arizona, in an unspecified post-apocalyptic time, after what appears to have been a thoroughly devastating nuclear war and environmental disaster. A reasonable guess at the calendar date could be around the turn of the twenty-first century, more than ten years but less than thirty years after the disaster. Vic and Blood wander through a landscape that is desolate, where little approximating food grows. The few people they meet are all trying desperately to survive on scavenged canned goods, and are willing to fight and kill for less than a meal.

It would be hard for either the dog or boy to survive for very long alone in the small town they enter. Far from being a helpful community, the people are preying on each other, Vic and Blood are no better: when they find a woman with her throat cut by rapists and thieves, Vic is upset that they have killed her already. She could have been raped a few more times. Hers is not an uncommon fate, and Vic is not unusual for a young rover.

The community where Quilla June lives seems much better at first glance. In this town, the genteel culture of the American Midwest has been re-created. Security is better in the underground bunker, and the people seem to be leading more civilized, cooperative lives. It is not apparent at first that Vic has been manipulated into entering the bunker, and for what reasons. Though this community may seem Utopian in contrast to the outside world, it is no ideal place for Vic.

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