The night was so dark, and I was so tired. Nine years ago I drove back from Colorado Springs following an exhausting three days of interviews about the visionary and troubled climber and soloist Earl Wiggins. I had met Earl once, corresponded with him a little, always respected him and been heartsick when he took his life.

Over three days I had talked to Earl’s brother, his widow (who had found his body and whom he loved), and half a dozen friends for a 2018 feature in Rock and Ice magazine. Now I was fading, near Vail with 75 miles to go, listening to The Dog Stars by Peter Heller on audio. 

The novel, published in 2012, is about a post-apocalyptic future when most of humanity has been wiped out by — get this — a pandemic. The likable, soulful Hig is living at an airport in Erie, outside of Denver, holed up with an irascible but smart and well-armed survivalist, Bangley, who in his gruff way cares about Hig. The two must guard against marauders.

I reached the scene where Hig, out hunting, is pulling a sled with two quartered deer, when the radio slung across his chest emits an urgent four words.

Bangley, watching from a control tower two miles away, says,

“Hig, you got company.”

Then:

“Hig, they are stalking you.” 

Nine men. 

Well, that got me going, and the ensuing scene full of clipped, effective radio dialogue and responses, also blasting and pyrotechnics, took me all the way home. Electrified.

1. It’s riveting.

There is my number-one reason for wanting to see the film version. Sympathetic characters and situation, taut and resonant dynamics — and that’s before we even get to the love story. I highly recommended the book to friends and family.

It was also the first book that my sister, a stroke survivor, read (or experienced) when I got her on the Libby app. Always a reader but unable now to turn pages, she listened to that audiobook and stayed up until 2am to see what happened. She is into another book now.

Of course we both have to watch the movie. And I can do that here. 

2. It’s local. 

Regional, but also specifically local. In an opposite scenario to that of the classic “Mad Max,” this hellscape still has fuel, with not enough people to use it. At the airport sit many private airplanes. Hig, a pilot, chooses a clunker to seat his beloved old dog Jasper beside him.

A few years after moving to this valley, I saw the movie “Aspen Extreme” (of 1993) at a rowdy showing in Aspen. Earlier came “Tequila Sunrise” (1988), and everyone cheered when Mel Gibson (a drug dealer, sorry) said, “I was just up in Aspen.”

Hig — in the book, at least — flies over Carbondale, as he wings around from the airport to Gore Canyon and State Bridge, then along the Eagle River. He passes over forests and water, ducks and herons. The text, in its clipped way, reads: “Cross high over the Roaring Fork, right over Carbondale, unburned, surrounded by rivers and green ranches.” 

Incredulous, he spots now-wild cattle, which have escaped the … yes … wolves. Next he flies over Huntsman Ridge, off the top of McClure Pass, and beyond to Paonia, where he will find the love interest. 

The movie was actually filmed in the Dolomites, but if it ever says the word Carbondale, I want to be at the Crystal. 

“The Dog Stars” opens August 28, and will take a few weeks to make it here, but that’s OK. Do see it now on the big screen, for which it is made.

3. The actors.

Jacob Elordi, as Hig, has his earnestness, or trailers and previews indicate it. I can’t say I liked the recent “Wuthering Heights” (found it jarring) in which he starred, but clocked a comment by Monica Hesse of The Washington Post that “the fact that he is not hideous to look at certainly helps.” 

Two beautiful and brave characters will fall in love. Sweet!

Who is Margaret Qualley, playing Cima? Why, the daughter of Andie MacDowell, who rose to prominence with her delicate presence in the indie hit “sex, lies, and videotape” (1989) and lit up some big hits I loved: “Groundhog Day” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

Young Margaret wears a baseball cap comfortably, a good sign in this movie.

Also: Josh Brolin (perfect for Bangley), Guy Pearce, Allison Janney, Benedict Wong.

4. Ridley Scott, for crying out loud!

Scott is one of cinema’s great directors and visual artists. I saw his brilliant dystopian tech-noir “Blade Runner” in New York in the ‘80s. The film was full of rain and shadow, weird neon, smoke and mist. It was bleak, bleak, bleak, though I chose to interpret the final scene, in which an origami unicorn could possibly mean that the replicant woman whom the lead character played by Harrison Ford loves is different from other androids, maybe longer-lived. Another conclusion, unfortunately, is that Ford’s detective is unknowingly a replicant, too. 

5. Trent Reznor! 

Some of the film’s trailers have a haunting and incredibly apt track: a remix of “The Day the World Went Away” by Nine Inch Nails, from 1999. I hope that song is in the film: it is uncanny how well it suits the shot of dogs scavenging in front of the ruined Denver City Hall, for one.

Reznor has composed various scores with his NIN bandmate Atticus Ross. The one for “The Social Network” gave tension and urgency to a movie about … computer programming.  

“The world that was doesn’t exist,” Bangley says. Yet Hig seeks more.

The lyrics intone, “There is a place that still remains:” interior, accessible humanity, amid decay.

 The novel is about survival, grief and hope. Scott may have made it into an action film — we’ll find out — but the book has hope, and Scott has said he wants the movie to deliver that. Maybe, 44 years after “Blade Runner,” it is his gift. We’ll take it.

The film is due at the Crystal Theatre sometime in September. There will be a particularly interesting opportunity to see the film on Sept. 20 at 5pm followed by a discussion of the book, provided in partnership with White River Books.