Ellison began the cycle with the 1969 short story of the same title, published in New Worlds, and expanded and revised the tale to novella length for his story collection The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World the same year. The cycle begins chronologically with Eggsucker, which chronicles the early years of the association between the young loner Vic and his brilliant, telepathic dog, Blood. Ellison's expanded novella of A Boy and His Dog was the basis of a film adaptation in 1974, the science fiction film of the same name, directed by L. Q. Jones, which was controversial for alleged sexism; the movie script included lines which were not in Ellison's original stories and which authors such as Joanna Russ found to be objectionable. Ellison disavows the film's misogynistic conclusion.
Ellison bookended the original story with two others in the same world, in Vic and Blood: The Chronicles of a Boy and His Dog (St. Martin's Press, 1988), a three-story graphic novel collection illustrated by Richard Corben, who also illustrated for this collection two other short stories featuring Vic and Blood: Eggsucker (a prequel to A Boy and His Dog, first published in Thomas Durward, ed, The Ariel Book of Fantasy Volume Two,1977) and an entirely new story Run, Spot, Run. The latter story appears in its text version for the first time in Vic and Blood, along with its graphic novel adaptation. Ellison's introduction to the collection explains that 1969′s A Boy and His Dog is part of a larger novel that he has been writing for over 30 years and that story is finished, but the last, longest part is written as a screenplay with no current plans for production.
Ellison considered as late as 2003 that he would combine the three stories (possibly with additional material) to create a novel with the proposed title of Blood's a Rover (not to be confused with the Chad Oliver story or the James Ellroy novel Blood's a Rover). While Blood's a Rover has not appeared as of 2012, the graphic novel's Ellison/Corben edition has been reprinted as Vic and Blood: The Continuing Adventures of a Boy and His Dog.
Setting
The novella and the film adaptation have the same alternate timeline setting, which started after President John F. Kennedy survived the assassination attempt in 1963. During his terms of office and that of the other Kennedys, society concentrated on the advancement of technology instead of on the space race. Technological progress took place far faster than in our timeline, as androids became common household servants in the United States before the end of the decade. Extensive research was done in the fields of extra sensory perception, telepathy, and animal intelligence, which are all proved possible. This new form of technological race only intensified the Cold War, which had begun in June 1950 with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, eventually becoming an arms race, as the world became divided along the lines of the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. Eventually, World War III broke out and was fought by conventional means very similar to World War II, yet lasting decades, with both sides suffering heavy losses and neither gaining the upper hand. World War III ended in an uneasy truce—the "Vatican Armistice"—in March 1983. Tensions continued for the next 25 years and the world economy never recovered. In 2007, global negotiations finally broke down and World War IV broke out. This time, the war was fought with nuclear weapons and lasted only five days, just long enough for the last nuclear missiles to be launched on both sides. Civilization was almost entirely obliterated, leaving the surface of the Earth reduced to a desolate, irradiated, desert wasteland.
The year in which A Boy and His Dog takes place is 2024. The few survivors who remain above ground must forage and fight for the remaining food, clean water, clothes, weapons, ammunition and women. Of these necessities, women are the rarest; most survivors are male because while the males were off fighting in the wars, their enemies bombed and destroyed their homes. Among these survivors it has become a rule of "dog eat dog". In the novella, nuclear fallout had created horrific genetic mutations. One type of mutants is referred to as "burnpit screamers" because of the noise they make. The screamers are widely feared by the survivors of the nuclear holocaust, and references are occasionally made to them in the novella. Screamers feature in the film, although only in one scene, and are not actually seen, but only their screams are heard, and their green bio-luminescence seen through a wall.
Plot
The main character, Vic (played by Don Johnson in the film), is an 18-year-old boy (15-years-old in the novella) born in the ruins of Phoenix, Arizona. In the novella and the film, Vic concentrates on stealing food and fulfilling his sexual desires. He is quite blasé, because he lost both of his parents in the nuclear war, has no formal education and does not understand ethics or morality. Satisfying his carnal desires remains Vic's main motivation throughout the story. He is accompanied by a well-read and wise-cracking telepathic dog named Blood, an "experienced female provider" by his advanced senses of smell and hearing. Blood's main motivation is food, notably popcorn (his favorite) which Vic is able to provide by theft or by purchasing from various vendors in the wastelands. Blood needs Vic because, as a side-effect of the genetic engineering which gave him telepathic abilities, Blood does not have the instincts to forage for food. Vic and Blood scavenge the deserts of the Southwestern United States, stealing for a living and evading bands of marauders, berserk androids and mutants. Vic looks up to Blood as a teacher and a father figure, while Blood views Vic with equal fondness as a protégé, even though at times Blood is frustrated by Vic's rebellious nature and unwillingness to learn. Although they argue over trivial matters and threaten each other, nothing ever comes of it, and in the end both agree (reluctantly) that they need each other to survive. They have also been together since Vic was born and Blood a puppy. In addition to locating women for Vic to rape, Blood has the unenviable task of trying to educate Vic and keep him safe from harm. Blood is the result of genetic experimentation, which resulted in an intelligent canine mutation with telepathic abilities. The only human Blood can communicate with is Vic, whom Blood calls "Albert" as a "term of endearment." In the later graphic novel Vic and Blood, Blood explains: "I get such a kick out of calling him Albert — after Albert Payson Terhune, who wrote all those stupid dog books in which we noble creatures were pets, always being saved by some sappy human - it is my best gambit to make him scream." It is said in the novella that Albert is Vic's real name but Vic does not like it. In the novella, Blood is a mixed-breed dog, half German Shepherd and half Puli, genetically altered with enhanced dolphin spinal fluid injected in him. In the film, this was not mentioned, except for a brief bit of dialogue explaining that Blood was the "result of an experiment". In the film, Blood was portrayed by Tiger, also a mongrel, but who was a cross between a Bearded Collie and West Highland White Terrier. Blood is a misanthrope - perhaps because he may be the most intelligent and learned being left in the world. Blood has a positive outlook on life in general and believes in a place untouched by nuclear radiation that he heard about from a police dog. Blood refers to this place at various times as "Over the Hill" and the "Promised Land", where "deer and the antelope play and it's warm and clean and we can relax and have fun and grow food right out of the ground." Blood wants to look for "Over the Hill" with Vic, but Vic states that this is as good as it gets and there is no "Over the Hill."
The film begins with Vic sneaking through foothills in search of a bunker. An unseen voice is heard advising Vic, which is soon revealed to be his telepathic dog, Blood. When he reaches the bunker, he finds his quarry, a woman, severely mutilated and raped. He is angry and disappointed, because he is unwilling to have sex with a dead body that is so disheveled. In his sexual frustration, Blood and Vic get into several arguments, and the quirks of their relationship are revealed. Blood and Vic continue their travels and stumble upon slavers excavating into another bunker, and Vic steals several cans from them. With their newfound wealth, Blood and Vic travel to a makeshift settlement with a working movie projector and permanent residents - a rarity in the wasteland. While there, Blood claims to smell a woman, which excites Vic. The pair track her to a large underground warehouse. The girl turns out to be Quilla June Holmes (portrayed by Susanne Benton in the film) the scheming and seductive daughter of the head of a large underground vault. Her father, Lou Craddock (portrayed by Jason Robards in the film), had sent her to the surface to bait Vic into much needed "service", Blood takes an immediate disliking to Quilla, sensing something wrong. He warns Vic, who ignores him. After saving Quilla's life from a band of raiders and then some mutants called "screamers," Vic spends an amorous night with her. In the morning she knocks Vic unconscious and flees. She had told Vic about where she lives and also deliberately left an access card to the vault door so that he could follow her. Vic, taken by the idea of women and sex, leaves Blood despite his pleading and pursues the young lady into "downunder".
Downunder has artificial sunlight, hydroponic bays, biospheres (with similarities to the Eden Project) and forests. One underground city, named 'Topeka' after the ruins of the city it lies beneath, is fashioned in a mockery of 1950s rural innocence and brave-new-worldian madness, with all the inhabitants wearing dungarees and mime makeup. Topeka meets its need for exogamous reproduction by electroejaculation (forcibly extracting sperm from men with machines) and artificial insemination, yet the city with its limited population needs donors. Anybody who refuses to comply or otherwise defies the committee is sent off to "the farm" and never seen again. "Heart attacks" and "farming accidents" are given as reasons for disappearances. Vic soon learns the reality of the authoritarian committee and of its need for his semen. He is initially elated at the prospect of being used for procreative services, because he assumes that the process will involve him having sex with numerous women, but this initial enthusiasm turns to horror when he is strapped to a table and a machine is used to extract his semen. Vic is told that when his sperm has impregnated 35 women, he will be sent to "the farm." In the novella, the boy character (Vic) is indeed expected to impregnate the female population of the underground community in the normal way, not through artificial insemination. Vic uses the fact that Quilla June's father secretly desires sex with her as a distraction; instead of impregnating her, Vic lets Ira Holmes in to see Quilla lying naked from the waist down, legs akimbo; thus stunned at seeing his "secret desire", Vic is able to incapacitate or kill the father to enable the start of Vic's and Quilla's escape attempt.
Quilla June, along with a few other rebellious teenagers, have other plans for Vic. They free him and beg him to kill the committee members and their android enforcer Michael (performed by former Californian boxing champion Hal Baylor in the film), thus leaving Quilla June in power. Vic has no interest in politics or in remaining underground. Nevertheless, before Vic can shoot Lou Craddock, the other rebellious teenagers are captured by Michael and have their skulls crushed by Michael's bare hands. Vic manages to disable Michael after shooting him many times. Knowing that her plan is foiled, her co-conspirators dead and after overhearing her father order her death, Quilla decides Vic is her only chance and decides to escape to the surface with him. She tells Vic that she loves him. (She was also apparently romantically involved with one of her late co-conspirators, although this, too, may have been self-serving.) Once on the surface, Vic and Quilla discover that Blood is starving and near death. Knowing he will never survive without Blood's guidance, Vic faces a difficult situation, and in a twist ending, it is implied he kills his new love and cooks her to save Blood. The novella ends with Vic remembering her question as Blood eats: "Do you know what love is?" and he concludes, "Sure I know. A boy loves his dog." In the film, the following dialog suggests her fate: Blood states "Well, I'd certainly say she had marvelous judgment, Albert, if not particularly good taste." And then they both start laughing at the intended pun.
Film
Harlan Ellison started the screenplay but encountered writers block, so producer Alvy Moore and director L.Q. Jones wrote the script, with Wayne Cruseturner, who was uncredited. Jones' own company, LQJaf Productions (L. Q. Jones & Friends), produced the film. They filmed the movie near Coyote Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. The Firesign Theater was also involved with writing of the script. The film was also distributed after its initial run under several other titles, including Psycho Boy and His Killer Dog and Apocalypse: 2024. The film is in the public domain at archive.org.
In the film, Blood is portrayed by Tiger. James Cagney's voice was considered as the voice of Blood, but was dropped because it would have been too recognizable and proved a distraction. Eventually, after going through approximately six hundred auditions, they settled on Tim McIntire, a veteran voice actor who also did most of the music for the film. McIntire was assisted with this by Ray Manzarek (misspelled in the film credits as Manzarec), formerly of The Doors. McIntire sang the main theme. Latin American composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava provided the music for the underground segment.
On the film's DVD audio commentary, L.Q. Jones states that Harlan Ellison was generally pleased with the movie, with the exception of the final line of dialog. In the introduction of the Vic and Blood anthology, Ellison criticized the film's "moronic, hateful chauvinist last line, which I despise."[1][2] The final line occurs after Vic had to choose between saving the life of his faithful guide or running off with Quilla June. A shot of cooking meat followed by the line from Blood, "Well, I'd say she certainly had marvelous judgment, Albert, if not particularly good taste", ends the movie. The movie and short story are widely attacked for being misogynistic. Ellison has been quoted as saying he did not intend it this way.
Rumors have abounded over the years regarding a movie sequel, but it has never materialized. On the film's DVD audio commentary, L.Q. Jones states that he had started to write a script sequel to the film that would have picked up right where the first film ended and featured a female warrior named Spike, and we would have seen this world through the eyes of a female instead of a male. Jones and Ellison collaborated on this short-lived effort. Ellison, however, has denied that development went beyond a short "what if?" conversation, and that any efforts were solely that of Jones. According to Cult Movies 2, Jones had a sequel planned called A Girl And Her Dog, but the plan was scrapped when Tiger died. In a December 2003 interview,[3] Jones claimed that he is approached by a different group wanting to make a sequel approximately every 30 days, but funding is always an issue.
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