Dog Soldiers Audiobook By Robert Stone cover art

Dog Soldiers

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Dog Soldiers

By: Robert Stone
Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $23.36

Buy for $23.36

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.©1973, 1974, 1994 Robert Stone (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

  • National Book Award, Fiction, 1975

"A dark descendant of Conrad's and Hemingway's adventure stories...Goes hell-for-leather across the landscape." (The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about Dog Soldiers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    39
  • 4 Stars
    34
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    10
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    46
  • 4 Stars
    25
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    31
  • 4 Stars
    27
  • 3 Stars
    15
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Very strange book.

The entire book feels like a fever dream.

Audible requires at least 15 words for a review.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

intense narrative of a dark and complex time

Would you consider the audio edition of Dog Soldiers to be better than the print version?

I have not read the print version.

What did you like best about this story?

the subtleties of the characterizations

Which scene was your favorite?

inside the mountain

If you could rename Dog Soldiers, what would you call it?

I would not rename it. This is a silly request in my opinion.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Very good suspense novel about a Vietnam-era drug

John Converse was once a successful playwright. But his ideas dried up and he found himself working as a correspondent during the Vietnam War. But, even at this job, inspiration escaped him. So, he decided to smuggle heroin into the United States, enlisting his old friend Ray Hicks to transport the drugs to his wife Marge in California.

Things go terribly wrong. The bad guys learn about the drugs and try to steal them. They threaten Hicks and Marge; then, kidnap Converse. Hicks and Marge go on the run, trying to find a way to sell their product and escape their pursuers.

"Dog Soldiers" by Robert Stone is a thriller with a suspenseful buildup and an exciting climax. But it is also a commentary on the cynicism that swept America after the idealism of the 1960s counterculture. American soldiers are selling narcotics, cops are corrupt, and young people are bored with LSD and trying more dangerous drugs.

Stone intersperses the action with philosophical musings via the inner dialogue of each character. There are moments of humor, of reflection, and of fear.

The thoughts of one character as he slowly dies while trying to escape through the desert is particularly poignant.

"Dog Soldiers" won the 1975 National Book Award. It is not a classic, but it is an exciting and well-written novel, with enough ideas to exercise your brain.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

oy gevalt

An hour and a half into this, I give up. No Mas. Maybe it is me, but I just can't follos it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

dull and painful and depressing

This book is well read and has a superficially plausible plot. It was good enough that I managed to listen through to the bitter end, but that's the best I can say for it. A tale of a not-very-bright journalist's foray into the drug business, the story never becomes believable or engaging. We have deep exploration into the human psyche. We have page after page of slow, unredeeming death. The book is dull and painful and depressing - Conrad without the magic.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful