History Literature / TheDogsBeforeTimeAfter

* '''Hath A Familiar Spirit''', set against [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877 the Great Railroad Strike of 1877]], details the slow descent into insanity and [[TheAlcoholic drunkenness]] [[spoiler:and beastlyness]] of Bligh's ancestor, [[NamesTheSame also named Bligh]], who Wolkee had also been watching over. But this Bligh feels there's something deeply wrong with him -- like he belongs somewhere else...

* TheLostWoods: A consistent theme, near-best summed up this way from "Ask Now the Beasts":
--->The entrance to the woods was a doorway to somewhere else, one false step across the creek and into another realm, you'd stumble.

* OminousOwl: Taken UpToEleven in "Ask Now the Beasts." The persistent motif of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fppKGJD3Y6c barred owl call ("Who cooks for you? Who cooks for all!")]] makes it all the more effective.

* '''The Cold of Snow In the Time of Harvest''' is a small, intimate ChristmasEpisode of sorts starring Andrew's parents, Archie and Maggie, and Bligh's father, Junior, as they reflect sadly on friends they've lost, mistakes they've made, and hope for a better future. The story is, in fact, a LampshadeHanging on how both of their families [[WeirdnessMagnet seem to attract bizarre goings-on]], and how normal people would really [[RealityEnsues have to deal with that]].

* RapeAndRevenge: The ShockingSwerve to how "Her Judges Are Evening Wolves" plays out.

* '''Her Judges Are Evening Wolves''', which starts things off in the [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenColonies Colonial Period]] of Virginia, tracing the sordid, tragic -- and supernatural -- events that led to the Lightfoot dynasty's founding.

* '''Be Not Conformed To This World''' takes place -- using a FramingDevice -- in the same period as "Upriver" from ''What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse'', but recounting a time a decade before, narrated by (the second) Bligh's mother: how she emerged from poverty to attend Marshall University and then met her future husband, Bligh's father, Junior Lynch. But along the way, she remembers her best friend back home who passed away...and the strange eye-like orange lights that seemed to watch her, everywhere she went...

* '''Ask Now the Beasts''' takes place in 2007 [[spoiler:back when Bligh was still human]] and describes Bligh on a routine squirrel-hunting trip that gets interrupted in an abrupt and traumatic way. Bligh trying to deal with this is the first hint for him that [[TheMasquerade not is all as it appears to be in the world.]]
* '''Thy Foot Shall Not Stumble''' gives ADayInTheLimelight to a character only mentioned peripherally in ''Not Exactly Night'', the first novel: Betsy Barnes, Andrew's ex. Similar to "The Cold of Snow," this story is a {{Deconstruction}} of sorts, this one on the romantic and sexual politics behind the OneTrueLove trope -- Betsy had long since figured out she wasn't going to be with Andrew because he was so [[EveryoneCanSeeIt obviously into Bligh without ever saying so]].
* '''Born For Adversity''' introduces Stephen, Andrew's brother, and gives us some good hints as to how his cruel, sadistic behavior [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold is mostly all an act]]. We also discover that the plot of ''Not Exactly Night'' -- and Bligh's harebrained scheme -- was already known to Stephen because Bligh swore him to secrecy [[spoiler:after Pappy died]]. Finally, there are two huge reveals which will have major consequences, later on: [[spoiler:Stephen can [[SpeaksFluentAnimal communicate with dogs]]...and [[GoodThingYouCanHeal he can't die from even the most traumatic of wounds]], being functionally immortal.]]

Unlike the stories in ''What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse'', there is more emphasis on dread, gloom, and tragedy, only occasionally lightened up by Veidt's [[AuthorAppeal predilection for weird, animalistic sexual stuff]], although this does end up happening toward the end of the collection...in small doses. Owing to the stories' setting -- Appalachia -- [[ThemeNaming each of the stories has a title]] taken from the [[AsTheGoodBookSays King James Version]] of Literature/TheBible.

Presently, the stories are being posted piecemeal to Veidt's Tumblr.

* '''Before Thou Camest Forth''', which provides tons of {{Backstory}} and context to how the character Bligh Lynch from ''The Dogs'' became the way he did, narrated by his ever-watchful centuries-old guardian, Wolkee af Wurdan, the last remaining Dogfolk tribesman in his native West Virginia. [[spoiler:Or so it appears -- as the story reveals.]]
* '''Maketh the Day Dark,''' a companion piece to the above, told from Bligh's perspective before he sets off for Florida, setting the events of ''The Dogs'' in motion -- a GrandFinale of sorts.

* BattleAmongstTheFlames: An OffscreenMomentOfAwesome as Wanata is the only one to witness it and live, but "Before Thou Camest Forth" briefly describes the DuelToTheDeath between Wurdan, the last chief of the Dogfolk (Wolkee and Wanata's mother [[spoiler:and therefore Bligh's direct ancestor]]) and Nicholas Lightfoot, the founder of the Lightfoot dynasty [[spoiler:and therefore ''Andrew's'' direct ancestor]]:
--->…he did not see, as Wanata did, unblinking, without fear, expecting her doom to come at any second, the fight to the death the two of them grappled in, their mother's great plumed tail bristling with fury, teeth bared and claws red with the Tyrant-Coward's blood, his bow thrown away in hand-to-hand combat, with the Tyrant-Coward's [[FlamingSword own sword awesomely aflame]] with the strange substance he had doused it with to make him a figure of true devilry.
** As explained below, the term "mother" [[HomosexualReproduction never indicates female]] amongst the Dogfolk.

* GreatOffscreenWar: Although Wolkee does not witness it because his sister Wanata forcibly hides him away, thus saving his life, Nicholas Lightfoot, sometime in the 1660's launched a terrible and devastating campaign against the Dogfolk tribe with his Native American allies [[EnemyMine who, though no friend to the Lightfoot dynasty, hated and feared the Dogfolk even more]].
* HomosexualReproduction: The implications of this are most fully explored in Wolkee's Dogfolk tribe before Nicholas Lightfoot massacred them all. To wit: females seemed near-completely human except [[CuteLittleFangs unusually sharp teeth]], and could theoretically intermarry and interbreed with humans freely, having ninety-nine percent human offspring with latent Dogfolk genes...although in practice this only happened once. Males of the Dogfolk will, on the other hand, marry each other and become pregnant with offspring. These couplings resulted in either another male like them (canine below the waist, furry ears, sharpened eyeteeth), a female, or male dog-like creatures that, to the untrained eye, looked like big Irish Wolfhounds. Females were put in positions of high power and governance, because males were considered to be [[AllMenArePerverts too much into sex]] and violence to be trusted with the delicate task of statecraft.
* InterspeciesRomance: The union of [[spoiler:Patrick Lynch]] and Wanata, Wolkee's twin sister, creates an unbroken line of males that end with [[spoiler:Bligh]]. This is only possible because, as described below, female Dogfolk actually look near-totally human.

* TotallyNotAWerewolf: Descriptions of Wolkee [[spoiler:and Bligh, and their relative Lynch, a.k.a. the Black Beast, and his cousin Ricky Jack]] would point to him a wolf-human hybrid or, even, a straight werewolf -- but he's actually a ''Dogfolk'', closer to Celtic dog breeds like Irish Wolfhounds and Scottish Deerhounds.

* BadassGrandpa: Gustavus Lynch a.k.a. Pappy, the character Bligh's grandfather, was a travelling preacher and decorated Korean War hero.

* WolfMan: Played with in the ultimate fate of [[spoiler:Andrew Tucker]], but he is described as being horribly deformed and asymmetrical. His discovery by his brother [[spoiler:leads to a MercyKill]].
* TheLostWoods: A consistent theme, near-best summed up this way from "Ask Now the Beasts":
--->The entrance to the woods was a doorway to somewhere else, one false step across the creek and into another realm, you'd stumble.
* ManlyMenCanHunt: Played with in "Ask Now the Beasts": Bligh has been instructed to hunt squirrels for he and his grandfather's dinner the following night, because Pappy wants Bligh to learn survival skills and be self-sufficient. Although Bligh is a natural at it, it leads to this funny snippet:
--->Pappy was convinced of the rightness of his positions and it was ''really'' hard to argue with him because, incidentally, he was almost never wrong…but goddam, couldn't they just order a pizza?
* MountainMan: Played straight with Bligh's oldest ancestor, Patrick Lynch, but subverted with Patrick's son, also named Bligh, in "Hath A Familiar Spirit." It's part of the angst that builds up inside him [[spoiler:leading to his breakdown and to his transformation into the Black Beast.]]
** Played straight again with Bligh's grandfather, Pappy, and nearly Bligh himself, before he decides to move.
* NothingIsScarier: There are constant hints, but nothing concrete, that all the animals that surround Ohawas' house were once human. Who were they, and how did they get there?
* OminousOwl: Taken UpToEleven in "Ask Now the Beasts." The persistent motif of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fppKGJD3Y6c barred owl call ("Who cooks for you? Who cooks for all!")]] makes it all the more effective.
* ParentalSubstitute: Although this greatly crosses over with ''The Dogs'' novels, the relationship between the orphaned Bligh and his grandfather Pappy is meant to be strongly paternal and loving.
* PornWithPlot: Just about the entire point.
* RapeAndRevenge: The ShockingSwerve to how "Her Judges Are Evening Wolves" plays out.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Dogfolk are known to be extremely long-lived -- several centuries if they are healthy enough.
** There's an implication that Ohawas from "Her Judges Are Evening Wolves" is far, far older than she appears.
* StrongFamilyResemblance
* TotallyNotAWerewolf: Descriptions of Wolkee [[spoiler:and Bligh, and their relative Lynch, a.k.a. the Black Beast, and his cousin Ricky Jack]] would point to him a wolf-human hybrid or, even, a straight werewolf -- but he's actually a ''Dogfolk'', closer to Celtic dog breeds like Irish Wolfhounds and Scottish Deerhounds.
* WasOnceAMan: Used potently in "Her Judges Are Evening Wolves."

* PornWithPlot: Just about the entire point.

* WasOnceAMan: Used potently in "Her Judges Are Evening Wolves."
* WolfMan: Played with in the ultimate fate of [[spoiler:Andrew Tucker]], but he is described as being horribly deformed and asymmetrical. His discovery by his brother [[spoiler:leads to a MercyKill]].

* GreatOffscreenWar: Although Wolkee does not witness it because his sister Wanata forcibly hides him away, thus saving his life, Nicholas Lightfoot, sometime in the 1660's launched a terrible and devastating campaign against the Dogfolk tribe with his Native American allies [[EnemyMine who, though no friend to the Lightfoot dynasty, hated and feared the Dogfolk even more]]. Their combined forces are implied to use fire more than any other weapon to counteract the Dogfolk's HealingFactor -- [[FireKeepsItDead to devastating effect]].

* '''Thy Foot Shall Not Stumble''' gives ADayInTheLimelight to a character only mentioned peripherally in ''Not Exactly Night'', the first novel: Betsy Barnes, Andrew's ex. Similar to ''The Cold of Snow,'' this story is vicious {{Deconstruction}} on the romantic and sexual politics behind the OneTrueLove trope -- Betsy had long since figured out she wasn't going to be with Andrew because he was so [[EveryoneCanSeeIt obviously into Bligh without ever saying so]].
* '''Born For Adversity''' introduces Stephen, Andrew's brother, and gives us some good hints as to how his cruel, sadistic behavior [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold is mostly all an act]]. We also discover that the plot of ''Not Exactly Night'' -- and Bligh's harebrained scheme -- was already known to Stephen because Bligh swore him to secrecy [[spoiler:after Pappy died]]. Finally, there are two huge reveals which will have major consequences, later on: [[spoiler:Stephen can [[SpeaksFluentAnimal speak to, and understand, dogs]]...and [[GoodThingYouCanHeal he can't die from even the most traumatic of wounds]].]]

** As explained below, the term "mother" [[HomosexualReproduction never indicates female]] amongst the Dogfolk [[spoiler:and, incidentally, many of the other creatures in the short story collection]].

* BigFriendlyDog: Typical of this universe, Duke, Bligh's oversized wolfhound-like dog, is adored by everyone[[spoiler:except for the fact that he's not really a dog, he's a sentient and sapient creature, part of the Dogfolk tribe, and he's Wolkee's son, real name Wanral, which makes him technically Bligh's ''cousin.'']]

!!''The Dogs'' novels contains examples of: