The Bonobo and the Atheist

Is she a good dog?  Sure she is –  but is she a GOOD dog?

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why doesn’t the idea of a sinful dog make sense?  People can be good, bad or indifferent, but dogs are just…dogs.  When they sit on command we say ‘Good dog!’ but we don’t really mean “Good” dog.  We mean, obedient dog! Well done, dog! Not bad,for a dog!

Are people really the only animals with a moral sense?  Where did it come from, this whole right and wrong thing?  Was it implanted by God or gods, or do you need a certain size cerebellum to manufacture it, kind of like religion and physics?

If you’re interested in this kind of thing – and lots of people aren’t – try The Bonobo and the Atheist.  It’s by Frans de Waal, a celebrated primatologist with an office overlooking the zoo.  As he sits in his office, he sees things, like a group of younger chimpanzee girls helping an old lady chimp with arthritis onto a tree branch to sit with the others.  He sees an ape recognise another’s coming death before the veterinarian does, and grieve for it.  He conducts experiments, and finds that non-human animals have a deep sense of what is fair and unfair.  He finds that they will look after the sick and disabled, and that they don’t like clan members who break the rules.  When I owned a few horses, I noticed this myself.  Horses don’t like bullies and the bad-mannered – they chase them out of the herd until they’ve learned to play nice.

What are morals really but a complicated form of ‘playing nice’?  When you read this book you realise (if you didn’t know already) that we humans aren’t so different from the rest.  On the flip side, the ‘atheist’ part of the book is a complete red herring.

INDIE BOOKS

Recently, being an indie author myself, I’ve been reading other indie authors trying to make it, and have promised to do some indie reviews.  My first review is of Charles Yallowitz‘ Beginnings of a Hero: Legends of Windemere.  It’s a sword and sorcery novel set in Windimere, a strange and dangerous world full of elves, gods, half-elves, dwarves, soul-eating lichs and zombie gangs.  On my first read, I thought, hey, this is like a really good set up novel for a Dungeons and Dragons convention (the third person present tense gives it a ‘playing now’ ambience).  On my second read I got the tongue in cheek humour.  To wit, my favourite line in the book ‘More importantly, I came here to train and I will not get kicked out because I got caught with a naked girl who has the personality of a rampaging dread boar’!  Although I’m not a fan of this genre, I liked it.

Black and Red, by Sarah Jayne Nantais, is also a sword and sorcery novel.  It’s about the magical adventures of Terentya and Kalan, in a world full of beautiful sorceresses and powerful warriors vying for dominance and return to their native worlds.  The novel’s strength is in plot and imagination, while the writing is direct and naive.  If you enjoy the work of Emily Guido and her Lightbearer series, you’d probably enjoy this novel.

Here’s the thing. If you’re publishing as an independent author, it’s very hard to get people to read your work unless you’re REVIEWED. And guess what, it’s very hard to get reviewed if people haven’t read your work. Not all reviews can be good reviews, but at least they can help you become a better writer.  So if you’ve read a book by an indie author on Kindle or Smashwords, leave a review – we need it!