Review: 'Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny', by Tempe O'Kun
Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny by Tempe O’Kun. Illustrated by ShinigamiGirl. St. Paul, MN, Sofawolf Press, June 2011 Paperback $15.95 (vii + 147 pages)This slim volume is described on the Sofawolf LiveJournal as "a straight western crossdressing romance." It is more a straight Western, except for steamy interludes where the crossdressing hare gunslinger and the fruit bat sheriff lose their clothes and get into each other’s fur.
Sixes Wild is intended for an adult audience only and contains explicit sexual material of Male/Female nature. It is not for sale to persons under the age of 18.
This stereotypical Frontier drama, set in a small town in Arizona, is an unusual mixture of funny animals and anthropomorphics. Most of the folk of White Rock are typical funny animal characters who could just as easily have been humans: Six (Six Shooter), the hare outlaw; Doc Richards, the fox saloon-keeper; Harding, the bloodhound deputy sheriff; Morgan, the squirrel farrier; the ’yote native Americans; Morris, the villain’s marmot henchman; and so forth.
And then there is Jordan Blake, the fruit bat sheriff.
I buy a sarsaparilla off Doc Richards, and he offers to twist the cap off for me. I politely decline and get it with my hind paw and wing. Most folk never understand why bats don’t take issue with having wings in place of arms. Most folk haven’t flown, either. Dangling from a rafter by one leg, I take a swig. Feels good to drink upside down again. Another joy of being a flying fox. Just have to keep it out of my nose.
It is handy for White Rock to have a sheriff who can quickly fly to the scene of crimes. On the other paw, as is evidenced on several occasions, fruit bats are fragile critters. Six ends up having to rescue or nurse Blake often. (More X-rated interludes.)
The scenes of the great-winged bat who regularly hangs by his feet, riding a pony, are hard to visualize.
Tanner Hayes, the arrogant lion mine-owner villain, is another mixture. For most of the story he is a dapper, well-dressed funny animal character. Then he unexpectedly takes off his clothes, drops to all fours, and goes feral. This blend of funny animals and anthropomorphic characters, including a horse storekeeper, also unconsciously emphasizes the distinction between the talking animals and the traditional dumb horses-for-riding and cattle.
The 147 pages are divided into 26 short chapters (and a prologue and epilogue). The point of view keeps switching back and forth from chapter to chapter between Six, Blake, and Hayes (and one other), which is mildly annoying until the reader figures out who is talking. O’Kun’s dialogue style is also a bit uneven, switching back and forth between standard grammar and a slight Western accent. But in general, the action and the mystery of just what Hayes and his gunmen are taking out of his mine – a mystery that goes back forty years to Hayes’ uncle and Six’s father, which Six is determined to solve – is one which will please ’morph fans.
O’Kun has already started the sequel, "Sixes Wild: The Bluff", illustrated by Sidian – written in comic-book format and serialized on SoFurry.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
Is this a book, or what?
It is a novel with some interior illustrations.
How is the cross-dressing? Is guy or a gal who is the cross-dresser?
If you look closely at the pictures provided with this very review, you should be able to figure it out.
There is a little cross-dressing both ways. If I had wanted to criticize Sixes Wild more nit-pickingly, I could have said something about the townsfolk with their realistic(?) animal senses of smell not being able to tell the true sexes of characters by their scents.
Fred Patten
5 stars for your post.
I remember something in TwoKinds, a character named Natani disguised herself as a male. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but something was involved in order to disguise her scent. It's been a while since I've read it (I'm way behind!) but I remember being pleased a "furry" story got that problem out of the way without ignoring it completely.
She "accidentally" spilt perfume on herself. Natani is probably my favourite character in Twokinds.
To its credit, the comic also takes time to cover of the "inter-species sex morality" question.
Natani is also my favorite! She's got a past similar to another character I enjoy, with some Freud thrown in.
It´s pretty much stated in the book that she mostly smells of leather, whiskey, gun oil and tobacco, and so do most other people in the setting I presume, only if you get really close or got a really good nose, you can pick up scents in the grime and dust of old western towns.
I know this is a reply to a 3.5 year old comment, but I thought I´d mention this regardless.
Well there is always a excessive amounts of perfume or cologne. That would fix that...
Nope, Fred pretty much nailed it.
Shame, writers, shaym!
This review said a lot about the book--except whether the reviewer actually thinks it's worth buying/reading, or specifically what sorts of readers might find it worth their time and money. "'Morph fans" are a pretty diverse group, after all.
It's great to provide description of a book to let the reader decide whether it interests them, but a dash of stronger personal opinion on the part of the reviewer wouldn't hurt either.
I was all ready to buy a copy of this at Mephit Fur Meet this past weekend, but the dealer I had expected to buy it from said they sold out their stock of it at Anthrocon and have been unable to get more copies. It sounds like there may be some issues with the supply chain.
Just finished reading this book a few days ago. It was nice to see a furry novel set as a Western. While it did have a couple of flaws, I did enjoy reading it and am looking forward to a sequel.
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