REVIEW: The Council of Animals

 The Council of Animals
Author: Nick McDonell

Human kind has been mostly decimated by The Calamity (climate change, poor decisions, plague/pandemic). Only a few struggling humans are left. Six animals gather at a meeting place. A well-rounded sampling of animal kind -- dog, cat, baboon, bear, crow, and horse -- gather to decide the fate of surviving humans. Will animal kind help them? Or eat them?

Each animal makes its case in this short satire. And (of course) the council meeting devolves into chaos, factions splitting off, self-interests served, etc. This story is packed with allegory, humor, and truths about how today's world and society work (any society). 

I received a review copy of this audio book before it was released. With everything going on in the world right now and my job being increasingly set to chaos mode, I missed the deadline. My review copy popped over to the dreaded "Archived, not downloaded'' section. Yikes! I'm picky about requesting review copies. I only request what I can actually review....so I went on a quest and purchased the audio book. I'm glad I did -- this little story (audio book is under 4 hours long) packs a punch. Hiding below the surface in this tale about animals (like a classic book we all have read), is a lot of very thoughtful, truthful, hard to hear things about human behavior (or intelligent/sentient/self-aware behavior as I'm hopeful human beings are not the only such society in the universe).  

Loved this book! It will definitely be one I listen to again and again. What did the animals decide? Or....was there a decision made (you know how councils/committees work most of the time)??  Not going to tell -- read/listen to the book! 

The audiobook is narrated by the author and runs a bit over 3 hours. While I applaud the author for narrating his own work, the sound quality could have been a bit better. A bit of echo and hiss.  But, still a very entertaining listening experience, and one I highly recommend. It definitely inspires thought and contemplation! 

*I voluntarily requested a review copy of this audio book from Macmillan Audio -- and missed my deadline due to working way too much overtime in a pandemic situation -- so ultimately listened to a purchased copy after the fact. The entire situation just made this satire in this story much more thought provoking and interesting. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. No animals were asked to give opinions, although my chihuahua states she liked the story very much and would vote to eat the humans and all cats (she's a chihuahua after all) *