"The Dog Said Bow-Wow" is a science fiction short story by American writer Michael Swanwick, published in 2001. It won the 2002 Hugo Award for Best Short Story and was nominated for the 2002 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. The Dog Said Bow-Wow is the title story of his 2007 short story collection, published by Tachyon Publications, and was reprinted in the same year in Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology.

Plot summary

"The Dog Said Bow-Wow" follows the story of Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux (better known as "Surplus"), a genetically engineered talking dog of human intelligence, and Aubrey Darger, his partner in crime. Together they create a plan to con several high officials of Buckingham Palace out of their wealth. The story is set in a not-very-distant future after a war between humankind and its artificial intelligence creations in which humans won, but civilization as we know it was forced to revert to an early Victorian era level of communications technology.

The collection

The collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow contains the following stories:

Related stories

Swanwick has since written several more Darger and Surplus stories. As of 2020, the complete list is as follows: Chronologically, "The Little Cat" is followed by Dancing with Bears, then Chasing the Phoenix, and then "Tawny Petticoats". "Smoke and Mirrors" was published in the collection Live Without a Net edited by Lou Anders; the stories also had very limited availability in handmade chapbooks sold by Swanwick's wife. "The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport" is available online, published to promote the release of "Dancing with Bears". "Tawny Petticoats" was published in the collection Rogues edited by George R.R. Martin.