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Birds Sing. A-Ding-A-Ding.
Even more recent news from Animation World Network: Now we hear about a new musical animated TV series for preschoolers called Do, Re & Mi, currently starting production. “Created by Jackie Tohn (Glow, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, American Idol) and Michael Scharf (Moon and The Son: An Imagined Conversation), every episode of Do, Re & Mi starts with an adventure and ends in a song, featuring original tracks performed by Kristen Bell (Princess Anna in Disney’s Frozen), Tohn, and other surprise guests… Do, Re & Mi is about three birdy best friends named Do, Re & Mi who live in a world filled with rhythm, beats and melodies. Along with their day-to-day adventures, the characters model ways for parents and young kids to talk about music and connect these ideas to their social-emotional development.” [ Fun fact: Ms. Bell actually had one line in Zootopia, as Priscilla the sloth. ] No word yet on a planned release date.
image c. 2018 Gaumont
Issue 0
Welcome to the launch of Zooscape!
Animals are among the most precious and fascinating resources in our world. Their variety extends from bizarre deep sea creatures to cuddly friends who sit on our couches hoping for a bite of your sandwich. They are the most extreme aliens we’ve truly encountered and also the archetypes we tell fairy tales about. When we tell stories about animals, we’re telling stories about ourselves, both as we are and as we could become. Furry fiction includes all varieties of stories featuring anthropomorphic animals — from talking dragons to witches’ familiars, from animal-like aliens to Aesop’s fables, and everything in between.
Furry fiction is an exciting frontier. Explore it with us.
For our zeroth issue, we have a single story for you, to whet your appetite.
* * *
Dragon Toast by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
* * *
We’ll be back every few months with more animal tales. If you’re a writer who specializes or dabbles in stories about anthropomorphic animals of any variety, please consider submitting to us, and your story could be one of them.
Dragon Toast
by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
“Clovialla guarded a hoard of gold and gems in a cave behind the Falls of Forgetfulness.”
The dragon wanted to raise a toast at her first meeting with our coven, and what the dragon wanted, the dragon got. She held up a golden goblet in her claw and glared at the rest of us until we held up our mugs, teacups, and glasses.
I glanced at the other eleven members of the coven. We had gathered in the biggest room of my house’s basement, since that was a room that could accommodate a dragon. It was lit only by candlelight, so it was full of shadows. Everyone had brought stumps of candles, though, so there were lots of flickering flames, and a strong smell of earth, burning plants, and buried secrets.
Amardi, the coven leader, was an elder who had been witching since her twelfth birthday seventy years earlier. She sat at the table’s head, near the flat-topped column where our ritual objects lay — the ceremonial dagger; the small brass cauldron that hosted a fire in which herbs burned, sending up fragrant smoke of rosemary and sage; the glass bowl that held waters of the world; the cupped clay hand with a mound of earth on its palm. The other witches ranged in age from mid-sixties to late teen (that would be me). We dressed however we thought witches should dress — cone-shaped hats? Black tulle tutus? Steampunk vests and skirts? Striped stockings? Or just jeans and a T-shirt? A little of everything. (I went with all black, a ninja minus the headgear.) Everyone else was alike, though, in their expressions of fear. This was the first meeting the dragon had attended, and they weren’t sure what to expect.
Clovialla used the pointed tip of her tail to nudge me in the back. I was the only one in our coven who understood dragon, and I’d recruited her, so I was her translator, which made me happy. Words were my gift, and I loved crafting dragon speech into standard. I liked knowing things none of the others knew. I was the youngest witch in the group. The others were all spell-deep in magical theory and practice.
I was a legacy recruit. When my mother died, her spot came open, and they invited me in, not realizing that my mother had passed on none of her knowledge to me.
I had one inborn skill. I had been able to understand every kind of language from my cradle. Mother hinted she had done some dangerous spells while she was pregnant with me. Father blamed her for everything he didn’t like about me. By the time I was twelve, he had left.
Mother died when I was sixteen, long before she could tell me everything I needed to know about her and myself.
* * *
I met Clovialla the dragon on one of the many qualifying quests Amardi, the head of the coven, gave me, even though I was already a member. Once she found out about my lack of magical knowledge, Amardi said I was a probationary member. I went on the quests she gave me hoping I’d pick up knowledge and magical ingredients, and often I did.
Clovialla guarded a hoard of gold and gems in a cave behind the Falls of Forgetfulness. Amardi had sent me to get some water from the Falls. Most of the time, people who went on this quest drank from the Falls and forgot what they were supposed to do. I figured this out ahead of time and brought my own water supply.
And I found Clovialla. She flamed. I saw the fire through the water of the Falls, and I found there was a narrow path that led behind the curtain of water and into the cave. I followed it, and there I found the dragon, a vision of gold and smoke perched on a pile of treasure.
There were a lot of bones littering her cave, some of them human skulls, so I knew she ate people. But she spoke, and I understood her. “Come closer, Morsel,” she said.
“I don’t know if I should,” I said.
“What? What?” she cried, and lifted her head on her long golden neck and bugled. I had to cover my ears, even though it was a beautiful sound, a trumpet solo that ranged up and down the scale. It filled the cave to overflowing.
“I apologize if I offended you,” I told her when the sound finally died out.
“Offended me?” she said, and laughed. She crawled across her pile of treasure, crushing the more fragile items and popping gems from some of the others. I would have backed out of the cave, only the Water of Forgetfulness was at my back, and I wasn’t sure what would happen if I immersed myself in it. She was between me and the path.
Clovialla’s whiskers were long, mobile, and muscular. Their fringed ends reached out and touched my cheeks. “How is it you have the gift of tongues?” she asked.
“It’s a mystery,” I said.
“You haven’t offended me, little appetizer, but you have made it unlikely I’ll eat you. I enjoy conversation, and there has been no one in an age I could speak with.”
* * *
I brought home the Water of Forgetfulness for Amardi, who looked disappointed when I handed her the sealed jug — confirming my suspicion that she sent me on these quests hoping I wouldn’t return — and I brought home Clovialla, with her hoard on her back. The house I inherited from my mother had a deep and extensive system of basements, and Clovialla made her nest there.
She knew much of magic, and accepted me as a student. Amardi stopped sending me on quests when I demonstrated my first mastery of the element of fire by lighting our summer bonfire with a snap of my fingers.
When the coven’s oldest member died, I invited Clovialla to join the coven, and the others couldn’t say no.
“Say this for me, Snackling,” Clovialla said now as the others waited nervously. “I salute all creatures of power who work together, and I promise not to eat those in this room, who are now my sisters.”
I held up my wooden cup and repeated Clovialla’s words in standard.
Everyone else blinked and smiled.
“I’ll drink to that,” said Amardi, and we all did.
* * *
About the Author
Over the past thirty-odd years, Nina Kiriki Hoffman has sold adult and YA novels and more than 300 short stories. Her works have been finalists for many major awards, and she has won a Stoker and a Nebula Award.
Nina’s novels have been published by Avon, Atheneum, Ace, Scholastic, Tachyon, and Viking. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies.
Nina does production work for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and teaches writing. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.
For a list of Nina’s publications: http://ofearna.us/books/hoffman.html.
Once Again, We Have A Clue!
There’s more big news from Animation World Network. Looks as if a kids’ TV favorite from the 90’s has a new “leash” on life! (Sorry, sorry…) “Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues has found a new pal for Blue in TV newcomer and Broadway actor Joshua Dela Cruz, and a brand-new title: Blue’s Clues & You. Dela Cruz will have a new generation of preschoolers searching for clues with the beloved energetic girl puppy Blue. Production on 20 new episodes of Blue’s Clues & You will commence this month in Toronto… In Blue’s Clues & You, beloved puppy Blue invites viewers to join her and the live-action host on a clue-led adventure and solve a daily puzzle. With each signature paw print, Blue identifies clues in her animated world that propel the story and inspires viewers to interact with the action.” Original series host Steve Burns is in on this new revival too, which is a good thing.
image c. 2018 Nickelodeon
Trailer: Hilda
Bonus video for today! Looks like a Gravity Falls-esque semi furry series coming to Netflix this month.
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Small World, by Gre7g Luterman
When forced to volunteer for a daring new mission, Kanti and his friends discover the hardships they left behind might just be the least of their troubles...Small World is the sequel to Skeleton Crew, and picks up where book one left off. Kanti and his mate have settled into their new life, and everything looks peachy for our rascally hero until the Krakun commissioner shows up with vengeance on his mind. Suddenly, Kanti, Tish, and forty-eight other unlucky souls are volunteered for a new mission, as part of the commissioner's cleaning crew back on his home world of Krakuntec. The job is a one-way trip, and before they know it, the mission crew is thrust into a toxic environment, cramped conditions, and deplorable circumstances.The primary conflict in book two is more a series of unfortunate events and emergencies. It's a book about survival and a community that has to come together and solve their most basic problems, not the least of which is how to get along with one another. There is plenty of tension and action, but I missed having a solid rising arc and central protagonist a little. Because Kanti is no longer our only POV character, I found myself less embedded in his story, and on a few occasions, siding with other characters against him. Neither of these facts made the book less enjoyable, but it did make the final conflict at the end of the book seem a bit abrupt to me. And though I don't mind a cliffhanger, I felt like the end of the book was a bit unsatisfying, being more a lead-in to the next book, and a whole new problem, than any resolution to the issues in the plot at hand.The way the world uses scale is unique and fun, though I did wish, particularly in book two's setting, that the size differences had been played up even more. It does affect the plot, but with tiny characters living in a giant's apartment, it felt a little bit like a missed opportunity to really have fun with scale. That being said, Luterman's writing is smooth and engaging and his characters are delightfully individual. I became quickly caught in the story and read straight to the end rather than put it down. It's at the same time light and horrific, whimsical and tragic, and I am very much looking forward to the next installment. If you enjoy endearing characters, mischief, survival situations, and space opera, and you don't mind a bit of a cliffhanger, Small World is definitely a must-read. Mature: Alleycats
What do they say: An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind. "Nail, the last surviving warrior of the Siamese clan, breaks into enemy territory with only one goal on his mind: avenge his father’s death."
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Atlas & Axis [Volume 1], by Pau – Book Review by Fred Patten
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Atlas & Axis [volume 1], by Pau. Illustrated.
London, Titan Comics, July 2018, trade paperback, $19.99 (unpaged [160 pages]).
I reviewed the original French editions of Jean-Marc Pau’s four hardcover albums of 80 pages each, La Saga d’Atlas & Axis, on Flayrah and here, from 2013 to 2017. Now here is a trade paperback graphic novel in English of the first two albums combined. (There’s no translation credit. Did Pau translate it himself? See his blog Escápula News. It’s mostly in Spanish, but there’s enough in English to show that he speaks fluent English.) This was published by Titan’s Statix Press as four comic-book issues from February through May 2018. This trade paperback graphic album has followed promptly.
Atlas & Axis is described as a funny-animal Astérix & Obelix, or in the vein of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo or Jeff Smith’s Bone. I can add Carl Barks’ and Don Rosa’s best Uncle Scrooge/Donald Duck stories, and some Japanese graphic novels by Osamu Tezuka or Shotaro Ishinomori. It’s both funny and adventurous/dramatic, with rich, lush art brightly printed on glossy paper.
Atlas and Axis are two dog adventurers, an Afghan hound (Atlas) and a terrier mix (Axis), in the talking-animal world of Pangea, apparently around 1000 A.D. (But events in volume 4, not yet published in English, completely disprove this.) They live near the village of Kanina, somewhere on the coast in what might be northern France. Atlas returns from a mission for their friend Canuto (translating a parchment with a clue to a bone leading to endless food), and he & Axis go to Kanina for a festival. They find it destroyed by Viking raiders, and all their friends killed or kidnapped. Their first adventure together is for revenge against the Vikings and to find Atlas’ kidnapped sister Erika. After that, as Atlas says, “Without our FRIENDS, there’s nothing to keep us here anymore. This is no longer our HOME.”, and later, “What do we do NOW?” They still have Canuto’s parchment with the clue for Chimera’s bone. Axis says, “Oh, yeah? Well, let’s go FIND it then. We’ve got nothing better to do.” And that’s their justification for one quest after another. This volume ends with them taking part (against their wills) in a war against the pirate nation of Escapula (an ingroup reference to Pau’s blog).
One of the quests is started by two academics debating in Mrs. Honey’s Tower Bar over the origin of dogs. One argues that dogs have evolved from wolves, while the other argues for a divine creation by Toby, the dog god. Atlas and Axis go on a quest to far northeastern Sabakistan to look for a tribe of nomads who are rumored to be half dogs and half wolves; “the MISSING LINK in the evolutionary chain between wolf and dog.” They do it because they’re bored. “We’re going on another ADVENTURE!”
The translation is excellent, but there are gags about the dogs sniffing butts throughout the volume that are not in the French. One example: on page 7, panel 2 of the French edition, Axis says only, “Erika!” In the English edition, he says, “Ah, ERIKA! I’d sniff her butt anyday.” These are added about as tastefully as possible, and they do enhance the ambience that this is a canine world. There are plenty of scatological jokes in Pau’s art about Atlas and Axis marking their territory.
This is an animal world, not just a dog world. There are bears, rabbits, goats, and sheep. All can talk to each other, but the predators – including the dogs – casually kill and eat the prey animals. The sheep organize their own response to being eaten: exploding ewes.
There are anachronisms and “errors” throughout the book that look like just gags or liberties taken for dramatic license, but that turn out in the surprise conclusion to the final album (not in English yet) to show emphatically that this is not 1000 A.D. with funny animals. The name Pangea. Atlas and Axis see dinosaurs. There is a dog pastiche of Genghis Khan, who lived a couple of centuries after 1000, and his death in 1227 was nothing like the murder shown here. The exploding ewes.
If you are interested in excellent comic-book funny-animal comedy-drama in the tradition of Barks, Sakai, and Tezuka (and the recently-lamented Vicky Wyman), Atlas & Axis by Pau is a must-have. Get it while it’s available.
Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon. You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward. They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.
Hemp Collars Are In This Year…
So we were talking about new games. Also at Long Beach Comic Con we came across the creators of Dogtag, “the attention-grabbing card game for dog-people”. Here’s how they describe it on their web site: “The inspiration for Dogtag came from Los Angeles, where finding people who have tens of thousands of followers on Instagram is a casual occurrence. Anywhere you go you’ll see people posing in front of walls, taking pictures of food, and sneaking selfies. Showing off the highlights of our lives is a trend we all can relate to, and it only makes sense that we decided to create a card game following these themes. DUH. A splash of pop culture here, and a bucket-load of dog puns there, and this is what we get: A fun satire on social media packaged into a heckin’ cute card game.” Which is available now. The web site has video previews too.
image c. 2018 Dogtag Media
Wilds: Slice & Dice
First off, never screw with a raccoon. Second, video game universes are kinda screwed up. So this short seems to be for appears to be for an unreleased phone game that is probably coming out soon: http://trilobitesoft.com/games/wilds.html [1] [1] http://trilobitesoft.com/games/wilds.html
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Ragged; or, The Loveliest Lies of All, by Christopher Irvin – Book Review by Fred Patten
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Ragged; or, The Loveliest Lies of All, by Christopher Irvin. Illustrations by Conor Nolan.
Boston, MA, Cutlass Press, October 2017, trade paperback, $16.00 (250 [+1] pages).
“Cal sat along the riverbank atop a wind-swept pile of dry, dead leaves. Bare feet at the water’s edge, pea coat buttoned to his chin. The ancestry of his mixed breed had been lost to time, but if you’d been fortunate to be in the company of a variety of the Canis lupus familiaris, you might think his facial features resembled that of a beagle: dusty white from nose to top of skull blending with a reddish-brown along the sides of his face and lower jaw, eyes sharp with a tinge of sadness, and long ears that dangled near his shoulders, that at first glance might cause one to mistake his nature for more playful than it was. Cal would deem himself a proud mutt, but when you’re head of the sole family of dogs to make their home in the Woods, you become the dog; the definition your face, your actions. All in all, it was a mixed bag – especially considering his past. When you grow up with an exiled raccoon with a penchant for poaching for a mentor, life in the Woods is an uphill battle. Cal clutched a makeshift fishing rod loosely in his paws – a slightly gnarled branch with a bit of moss-dyed twine […]” (p. 11)
Well, this paragraph goes on for another half-page. Author Irvin describes Ragged as like “Fargo meets Wind in the Willows”. The back-cover blurb begins, “In a feral twist on crime fiction, Cal, a mutt with a criminal past, must avenge the death of his wife and protect his pups from the inherent darkness of nature and the cold cruelness of the looming winter.”
As you can tell, Irvin has a laid-back, wordy writing style. Considering the rural backwoods setting, and the animal cast – Duchess, the old hedgehog who runs the General Store, Roderick rabbit with his 26 children (he’s almost immediately killed), Gil the argumentative catfish, Maurice the sly raccoon, head of the Rubbish Heap gang, Billiam Badger the officious town bureaucrat (“I’m the elected official of the Woods […]”), Nutbrown Squirrel the matronly schoolteacher, Ted and Helen Pig, Hugo and Mol Otter, Hank and Myrtle Tortoise, and many more, Ragged at times seems more like Walt Kelly’s swamp community in Pogo. But then:
“Old Brown [a bear] burst from the river, paws outstretched for Cal, who was tense and ready this time, yet Old Brown’s reach was too long and he snatched Cal by his coat as he tried to back away, popping a button loose, wrenching him to the river’s edge, face-to-face. As Old Brown pulled him in, Cal ripped the pistol from his pocket, pulled back the hammer and pressed it into the side of the bear’s skull. The rivals snarled, bared their sharp teeth with clenched jaws.” (p. 21)
Calvin’s wife Winifred has gone away from the Woods. Cal pretends that she’s just on a trip, but he knows that she has been bitten and given an incurable and horrific disease (rabies is hinted at). She has left in secrecy to die before she can give it to anyone else, especially to Franklin and Gus, her and Cal’s rambunctious young pups. Cal is faced with having to raise them as a single father while finding out who or what bit Winifred and avenging her. Plenty of ominous things happen:
“Something round hurtled toward Cal’s left. It rebounded off the side of the house and landed on the porch with a wet thunk. He crouched down to examine the object. It appeared roughly round at first, like an under-inflated leather ball, but when he poked at it with a paw he knew otherwise, and he took a step back from the threat. A small severed head lay on its side. It had been expertly skinned, leaving it devoid of features except for the vacant eyes, which thankfully stared away from Cal at the porch floor, for he almost instantly recognized them.” (p. 56)
There is suspense:
“Cal heard a cry overhead and opened his eyes, startled to catch a glimpse of a broad-winged hawk circling nearby, its head cocked to the side, one eye on the ground. Cal quickly glanced at his surroundings – all naked trees and decaying leaves. Nothing thick enough to hide behind, or layered to burrow under. Then, up ahead he spotted a squat cluster of evergreens, improbably punching out from the base of a short cliff. Beside them, a large oak had fallen, uprooting its base of dirt and roots and creating a narrow tunnel between it, the evergreens, and the cliff face. Cal ducked to stay low and ran forward, hoping his timing was good as he slid over a floor of pine needles and took cover underneath the evergreens. He looked up through the branches and tried to get a bead on the hawk, but the view was obscured. He’d have to expose himself to the sky to see. His mouth ran dry. Trapped.” (p. 103)
And violence:
“At some point, a well-intentioned animal had cut a burlap sack into a sheet and laid it over the body. Unfortunately, gore had soaked through the makeshift cover in several spots, forming a thick glue-like adhesive, and forcing Cal to place a paw on [spoiler’s] shoulder to hold the body down and peel it off. Immediately he understood why others felt ill at the sight of her. [spoiler] was a mess – her throat ravaged, small bites had torn chunks from her arms, her apron ripped away, the contents of her insides splayed about, as if something had rooted around, unable to find what they were looking for despite having full access. Whoever – whatever – had attacked her had been out of control. Or had wanted to appear that way…” (pgs. 179-180)
Ragged (cover by Matthew Revert) is compared here to the movie Fargo, to The Wind in the Willows, to Watership Down, to Pogo, to Roald Dahl/Wes Anderson, and more. It’s its own thing. Read it for a grisly murder mystery. With cute funny animals.
Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon. You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward. They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.
The Bears Who Stare — Now Everywhere
Thanks to Animation World Network we’ve learned that the ever-popular Care Bears are back again — this time exploring more of their world and its inhabitants. “Premium subscription streaming service Boomerang is set to unlock the imagination of the next generation of Care Bears fans as the official domestic home and world premiere destination for Care Bears: Unlock the Magic, a brand new 2D animated series from Cloudco Entertainment… A current take on The Care Bears that also plays homage to iconic brand elements like “The Care Bear Stare,” Care Bears: Unlock the Magic sends the Care Bears on the road for the first time, exploring wonderful, never-before-seen areas surrounding Care-a-lot called The Silver Lining. And as a result, the bears will get to meet new creatures and employ their powers and wits like never before.” Only thing we don’t know yet is a launch date. We’ll find out!
Image c. 2018 Boomerang
What The Flix?: Next Gen Review - it's a new podcast we will be doing! Xander the …
it's a new podcast we will be doing! Xander the Blue & Chris the Comedy Bunny talk about and review the new release 3D Child+Robot movie, Next Gen! We really loved doing it and we hope you like it too. Patreon: www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow www.draggetshow.com Be sure to check our website for all Things Dragget Show! Podcasts, videos, merch and more! Also, don't forget we stream the D&D sessions Sunday at 7pm Central on YouTube! YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/DraggetShow What The Flix?: Next Gen Review - it's a new podcast we will be doing! Xander the …
The world’s first domesticated foxes
PSA: Furry Balls
This is seems very mongrels inspired PSA, it's good idea to go get those cats fixed before you have too many cats to take care of. https://cattherapyandrescue.com/ [1] [1] https://cattherapyandrescue.com/
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Episode 43 - Shark editorials
Episode 42 - Shark Daddy
Dissident Signals, Edited by NightEyes DaySpring and Slip Wolf – Book Review by Fred Patten
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Dissident Signals, edited by NightEyes DaySpring and Slip Wolf.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, July 2018, trade paperback, $19.95 (349 pages), Kindle $9.95.
“Everyone wants to create a perfect world.
Whether crafted by benevolent computers or drafted in the boardrooms of corporations that own all we ever know, shining cities and indomitable Empires have risen to reveal the very best of us. The leaders we choose, and those forced upon us, can create hell or paradise. Sometimes they create both at the same time.” (blurb)
Of course, things don’t go as intended. This anthology contains “sixteen dystopian stories about greed, power, and control from worlds like ours but not ours. Stories about hope, despair, and those willing to stand up to their oppressors to resist.” (blurb)
The frame, created by the editors and illustrated on the cover by Teagan Gavet, is of a nameless individual holed up in a ruined building, broadcasting sixteen accounts of what went wrong all over the world.
In “0.02%” by Faora Meridian, 0.02% is the amount of the world population that is immune to Core’s brainwashing additive to the air, called Whimsy, making everyone happy and peaceful and docile. Since Core can’t Whimsy-fy the entire atmosphere of Earth, people are brought inside enclosed Colonies all around the world. The 0.02% of the population who are unaffected by Whimsy are considered unmanageable and warlike, and are regretfully euthanized. Jordan Mulley and her brother Blake are freedom fighters among the 0.02%, trying to infiltrate Core Colony Sixty-Two to rescue a youth about to be tested for his susceptibility or resistance to Whimsy. The characters debate whether a world where 99.9998% of people are happy and peaceful in a idyllic setting is bad, if the other 0.02% are killed.
“Chasing the Feeling” by Mog Moogle is like the previous story, but much bleaker. Mirra is also inside an enclosed dome, but the entire world outside is uninhabitable:
“The reddened sky dissipated over the wall. Behind the emitters, the deadly cloud was repulsed and the original shades of night stretched on in its place. With a hiss, the access hatch opened and the vixen crawled in.” (p. 39)
Again, everyone is brainwashed, but the regimentation is much harsher. Mirra also fights against the system, but subconsciously rather than deliberately, and it is implied that it is too late to oppose the system if any life is to survive. “Chasing the Feeling” is better-written than “0.002%”, but more depressing. Both “0.02%” and “Chasing the Feeling” are funny-animal stories. Their characters are described as anthropomorphic animals, but they might as well be humans.
“Losing Yourself” by George Squares does feature humans, in a society where wearing fursuits is mandatory. Okay, they’re enclosed costumes including helmets with a holographic overlay. Macie Owens looks like a “graceful looking orange tabby cat with a dainty pink nose made from holographic light” (p. 57). Inside, she’s sweating to death:
“‘It’s not the fucking animal that’s the problem. I just don’t want to spend the majority of my time in a glorified football mascot.’
Jonas’ costume pupils [he’s a coyote] slit in that angry, predatory way to show that he was about to say something serious, but Macie was so used to it by now that the feature didn’t even phase her. ‘Three centuries of peace and prosperity is nothing to balk at. Especially,’ he hissed, ‘considering the era we woke you up from.’” (p. 58)
Macie has spent 400 years in medical dormant sleep, and the society into which she emerges is what she considers needlessly flamboyant:
“At the entrance of the room was a podium near a red belt fence, and Macie couldn’t help but gawk at the security guard. He stared at her and Jonas as they entered and Macie stared right back. He looked to be at least eight feet tall, and he was… mostly a zebra. He had the arms and legs and tail of a crocodile, and leathery bat-like wings that hung to his sides. They seemed stiff, so they probably weren’t functional. But most distracting were his muscles. He had so many sinews that his body reminded her of a lobster, but probably not as delicious. She looked back and forth from him to Jonas in disbelief. Jonas was ignoring her, and apparently, the security guard was too.” (p. 60)
Macie finds an uninhibited old woman who explains to her what the rules of the new society are, instead of just talking at her like Jonas did. Macie decides what she has to do.
In “The Melting Pot Has Frozen Over” by T. D. Coltraine, enthusiastic but naïve Diana Mondeline, a new Washington, D.C. bureaucrat (human) in the future, decides to visit her district and survey her constituents. She finds that the slum reality is nothing like the reports she has been getting:
“‘It was my idea. I thought it would benefit everyone if I came to Independence District personally and spoke directly with the citizens. It’s something that hasn’t happened in far too long.’
[…]
‘But there’s polling data and election results!’ She picked up her tablet again and pointed at a page of numbers, dozens of them, in tightly packed rows almost too dense to read. ‘This is from just last month. The residents approved a six percent tax on luxury items to fund air quality improvements.’” (pgs. 80-81)
Low-class rabbit factory worker Rue Nikolades shows her the reality:
‘But it ain’t what you expected, is it.’
Diana nodded with an uncharacteristic sigh. ‘Everything I’ve heard and seen today is exactly the opposite of my expectations. Worse, it’s the opposite of everything the party says.’ She ran her fingers through her hair then turned her screen towards Rue. ‘Like this. Just last calendar year, we put a full 170 million credits into transit programs. I can’t even find any sign you have the systems the money was meant to upgrade, let along the upgrades.’” (p. 91)
The factory workers are all anthro animals, the descendants of bioengineered soldiers in a war several hundred years earlier, so there is a purpose for their being furry.
“A Road of Dust and Honey” by Searska GreyRaven is set on an Earth turned into a wasteland studded with infrequent Farms under sealed domes. The remainder of this world runs on both machines and magic; a repairman of a cobbled-together rig is a magi-canic. There are a few humans left, but most of the survivors are combinations of human and an animal, called “splices” derogatorily. The stars of the story are Vex, an adult bearkin, and Kine, a juvenile foxkin; the villains are a human and assorted canidkin:
“She rolled up to the next Farm just after dawn, dust settling on her long coat and boots as she hopped from the cab and shouldered Wilson, her rifle. Frick and Frack, her pistols, hung from holsters on her wide hips, polished metal gleaming in the sun. Tucked into her belt was a Y-shaped slingshot, and next to it dangled a small leather pouch cinched shut with a drawstring. Her rig shuddered as it shut down, letting out a wheeze and a belch of blue smoke. Vex grumbled back, entirely unsurprised by her rig’s outburst. She plopped a wide-brim hat atop her head and swept the gauzy veil back out of her eyes.” (p. 105)
Vex is part trucker, part cowboy (that’s sexist, but cowwoman is misleading), and telling what her magic talent is would be a spoiler. The villains are particularly nasty and deserve what happens to them. A well-told story.
“Protecting the Code” by TJ Minde is unusual in that all the characters are a single species, pine martens, rather than the usual variety of funny-animal species. Dixion is a minor bureaucrat in a completely regimented society where doing practically anything without permission is forbidden grounds for being “disappeared”. When Dixion’s kid sister gets pregnant without being married, he helps her to escape into the next country where the people are all wildcats, even though propaganda says the wildcats eat pine martens. The story is smoothly written, but how many stories (usually not furry) are there about characters in repressive totalitarian societies who try to escape to freedom?
“Gilded Cage” by Jelliqal Belle is narrated by Meg Airedale gens, a harem breeder in a militaristic expanding canine Empire at war with the Catkin nations:
“Mother Xaviera was an upright Poodle gens who wobbled on two legs. There was no pleasing her. You were too loud, too soft, too brusque, too uninteresting, or too know-it-all. We mocked her funny walk behind her back.
Xaviera taught us the right way to howl the patriotic songs that we only half-knew from hearing the soldiers march by to fight the Catkin Celts, or the Tigris Tigers, or whomever we were battling at the time. The Empire had many enemies. That was the price of being the greatest empire in the world: everyone else was jealous of our greatness and wanted to tear us down. In those lessons, we learned my sister Tabs had a powerful voice. Who knew? Xaviera suggested that she could train for musician as her second vocation.” (p. 160)
Matriarch, a “grey-muzzled Labrador gens”, explains further:
“‘I encourage you to listen to the nurse; follow her advice on what to eat. Do the exercises you learned in training, even when you don’t feel like it. You’ll stay healthy longer.’
‘You mean have more babies,’ barked a cynic in the back.
Matriarch rose from the cushion, helped up by a nearby lute player, and leaned into her cane. ‘No, I mean it might help prevent your bones from shattering from the frequent pregnancies, or help you not bleed to death in labor. Having litter after litter takes a high toll on your body. I don’t know what your life was before you came here, but you will be dreaming of it as paradise before year’s end.’” (pgs. 164-165)
The bitches, or “chew toys”, are baby factories for the Empire, ordered to have as many litters as possible, as quickly as possible. The males are bred for cruelty and viciousness, which makes them more effective soldiers but brutal lovers in the harems on their furloughs. Meg and her twin sister Tabitha learn that Mother Xaviera walks funny because her hip was broken and her leg dislocated by Alpha Pilus Spike, a powerful Bulldog gens who likes to play rough. The females of the Empire, whether they are in harems or factories or labor farms, do not enjoy themselves.
In “The Tower” by Gullwolf, Thistle, a jackrabbit, is a messenger because he is so fast:
“Thistle’s ears shot up, knocking his hat off his head as they swiveled, straining behind him.
[…]
Thistle ducked to snatch the hat, sweeping the cap over his ears as he tucked his head underneath the door frame and dashed out, breaking one of his cardinal rules of never traveling faster than the surrounding citizens. Using the full length of his stride was always bound to cause undue attention, and as he sprinted along the edge of the sidewalk, several canines and felines were glaring at him in his wake for interrupting their meandering stroll. He didn’t stop until the shadow of the skyscraper crossed over him, and the temperature dropped several degrees. The eye was unblinking now, the slit pupil sliding to and fro to keep a watchful eye over its citizens. Thistle shifted the package under his arm and folded his ears back as he shook his identification bracelet on his wrist, reviewing the message once more.” (p. 189)
Thistle lives in a regimented city of mammals watched over by the eye of SECURNET atop the tallest skyscraper in the city. It is enclosed by a fence that everyone is forbidden to go outside, although why anyone would want to is unexplained:
“Thistle’s breath caught as he stepped back. The fence was a good thing. It kept those others away. It kept away those whose diets had razed the land to the barren wasteland it was now, it kept those away those whose needs had swallowed the precious resources for the collected whole, it kept those away who had gutted his ancestors over differences in blood and claw. It kept everyone inside safe. If he didn’t look, the others wouldn’t be there because they knew about the fence. The skyscraper watched and if anything approached from beyond, it would let the citizens know. They were safe under the skyscraper and its ever-watchful gaze.” (pgs. 190-191)
Those outside are the avians and the reptiles. “The Tower” has an eerie ambiance, and the characters are certainly more than funny-animals.
“The Preacherman” by Stephen M. Coghlan is set in Australia. The narrator, Joshua Ezekiel Thompson, is a badger imprisoned for the murder of his stoat best friend. The Preacherman is a hellfire-spouting Tasmanian Devil as the prosecutor, forcing the accused to march in chains through the desert to the next town to be tried before God and the townspeople, with his two announcers (revolvers) as the judge to deliver God’s verdict. But the Preacherman loads the announcers, one chamber to six. The cast may be funny-animals, but this is a powerful fantasy of a bleak, God-fearing frontier community where both all hope in God, and there is no hope.
“Forbidden Fruit” by Detroit follows Turner, a bobcat junk dealer specializing in electronic parts, in a decaying Memphis, TN of the future:
“Turner lived in South Memphis, and he would have to take three separate buses to reach his destination. They were rolling north now along Riverside Drive, headed towards downtown. They’d passed the old exit for the I-55 Bridge into Arkansas, which had collapsed into the Mississippi River a decade ago. The river itself had disappeared from view well before that. The lack of plant life meant hellish erosion of the river’s watershed, rapidly worsening the already notorious flooding o the Big Muddy. Now Riverside Drive traveled alongside a massive dike built of dirt and rubble. Here and there, recognizable pieces of debris poked out from its ugly sides. Memphians had been so desperate to stop the flooding that they had piled whatever could be spared into building the wall: smashed homes, old trailers, cars, and the constantly eroding, infertile dirt. Turner had traveled this way enough times that he instinctively knew where to look for the most recognizable pieces: a hunk of an airplane fuselage, half of a faded beer billboard, the burnt hulk of an old dump truck. The bus shuddered and jarred as it rattled over the long trails of eroded dirt snaking across the crumbling road. Soon the bulldozers would be back out, pushing the dirt up against the dike yet again. Massive walls of compacted earth and rubble surrounded the rest of the city, offering some protection from the hellish dust storms that regularly swept the denuded countryside. The walls allowed Memphians to cling to life, but they kept much of the city shrouded in darkness.” (p. 223)
“Forbidden Fruit” is the scariest story so far, because its leadup to this ruined future America through the consequences of climate change is so plausible — despite the unnecessary nature of its funny-animal cast.
In “Photographs” by Televassi, the protagonist is Val, a former revolutionary in his youth who is a middle-aged establishment history teacher today. Val is also a horse Chimera in the Haven, a domed society in a ruined future Earth society of humans and three Chimera breeds – horses, wolves, and fallow deer – the descendants of bioengineered soldiers:
“‘Right now [Kira says] my research focuses on Chimera’s physical imperfections. We all know wolves lack the hand structure for delicate work thanks to the dewclaws, but it’s not actually a purpose bred trait from their design. We need to stop believing our genetic engineering is so perfect. It’s a neglected interaction between the human and lupine alleles, that causes roughly two-thirds to get them instead of thumbs – in short, they were made to be the unfinished product.’” (p. 250)
Val, a horse, is married to Edna, another horse Chimera whom he does not love. He still loves Kira, who had been a fellow revolutionary in their youth; but she is a deer, and Chimeras are not supposed to marry outside their breeds. Then, after decades, the Underground contacts Val again…
“Gloves” by James L. Steele is set in a modern world of anthro lion prides. The males sit at home, nude, and spend all day fucking their factory-laborer wives (they take turns going to work, and staying home to be fucked) and taking their paychecks:
“‘Males tell us we’re living in modern times. Our factories make computer systems and automobiles. Medicine has saved countless lives. Technology eliminated the need to live in prides, where the females did all the hunting and males merely guarded their territory from intruders. Now we herd the animals we used to hunt and we have leisure time to pursue our interests. But we still live in prides. The lionesses still do all the hunting, and the males do nothing but sit at home and collect wives. They keep us in this role because they benefit from it. We have not advanced beyond our primitive nature, and things are worse than ever because now they know what they are doing. Before, it was instinct. Now it is deliberate.’” (p. 280)
Flora, the lioness narrator, is sullen but she does not know what to do about the status quo. Ant introduces her to the feminine revolution. It can get bloody.
“The Reclaimers” by Joseph Vandehey takes place in a far future where humanity has concentrated in sybaritic artificial mid-ocean cities, and the land has been abandoned to raising food to feed those cities:
“The Vermin are genetically engineered rats, ferrets, raccoons, and otters, with the occasional badger or other species thrown in. They stand a meter tall, with hunched shoulders, and brains pre-programmed with a certain task and enough intelligence to carry it out. A Vermin farmer waters a cornfield. A Vermin plumber fixes the water pipes when they leak. A Vermin picker harvests the corn. A Vermin loader monitors the corn being packed into crates. A Vermin driver takes the crates to the train. A Vermin stevedore offloads the crates onto boats. They are the new domesticates, the wheels by which humanity lives a life of luxury.
But their minds are limited. The same farmer who happily waters corn would be flummoxed by wheat. They have no inkling of the world beyond their pre-programed task, the most basic of problem solving, and the necessities for survival.” (p. 286)
The nameless narrator is a human “scientist”, really a bureaucratic “assessor” assigned to find out why the manufacturing output in what was Eastern Europe has dropped. So he ventures into the ruined towns and finds …
What he finds is described in a letter to his colleagues. It’s eerily colorful, an “unintended consequence” of the Vermin’s programming. Whether it is encouraging or horrific is up to the reader. It might be better if the letter-writing narrator was less histrionically Lovecraftian in his descriptions.
Dissident Signals by Black Teagen
“Coffee Grounds” by Thurston Howl begins with an unforgettable brief paragraph:
“Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice. They never would have guessed it would end in coffee.” (p. 297)
That’s such a great paragraph that I won’t describe the story any further. Just read it.
“Not All Dogs” by Mary E. Lowd is set in her Otters in Space world, and is specifically a spinoff of the scene in Otters in Space III where Petra Brighton (cat) is arrested on a trumped-up charge by a dog policeman. Here her husband Lucky (terrier), one of the dogs not prejudiced against cats, is persuaded to join the protest march outside the police station. He has to bring their three kitten children (adopted) with him for lack of a babysitter:
“It wasn’t that Lucky didn’t support cats’ rights. Of course, he did. He was married to one, wasn’t he? But there’s a difference between voting for equal wage laws and standing outside [the police station] with a poster board sign. Democracy depended on voting; protests were for when democracy broke down. And as far as Lucky knew, democracy hadn’t broken down in in the Uplifted States since the Dark Times after the humans left Earth. In fact, given that they’d elected their first feline president last year, democracy and cats’ rights seemed better than ever.
‘You’re here early!’ Cassandra meowed, marching out of the crowd to meet Lucky. ‘And you’ve got all three kittens! That’ll look great on camera.’
‘You sound surprised…’ Lucky woofed. ‘Were you not expecting me this early? Or to bring the kittens?’” (p. 314)
Lucky had been naïve before the protest march about the canine establishment’s prejudice against felines. Not afterwards.
“A Better America 501(c)(3)” by NightEyes DaySpring is also about a degenerate, rundown future America. X35670, a.k.a. Hunter, is a manufactured coyote morph working for the charity A Better America in Washington, D.C. It, and the morphs working for it (technically owned by it), are constantly harassed by the authorities because their increasing charity work makes the establishment look bad. What happens can’t be easily summarized because of too many legal twists and turns, but Hunter – who prefers X35670; there are too many Hunters while he is the only X35670 – volunteers for a dangerous scam to take at least one of the corrupt government rulers down.
The sixteen stories are all powerful. They start out with the destruction of the planetary biosphere, or at least of civilization, and end with a positive note. The last two stories just feature a corrupt America which could be redeemed. The best story My favorite story is “Gilded Cage” by Jelliqal Belle, followed by “Losing Yourself” by George Squares, “A Road of Dust and Honey” by Searska GreyRaven, “Forbidden Fruit” by Detroit, and “Not All Dogs” by Mary E. Lowd. You may prefer others; I’m prejudiced against funny-animal stories where the characters could as easily be humans, while if you don’t mind them, there are some fine ones here. A technical quibble is that the front ¾ of the book is admirably proofread, while the last two or three stories don’t seem to have been proofread at all.
Dissident Signals (cover by Teagan Gavet) is overall a very good furry anthology. You’ll enjoy it.
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No It Won’t Put You To Sleep
And then, there were those two guys wandering around Long Beach Comic Con in sheep costumes… Turns out they were busy plugging a new card game called Sheeple, which was developed by Aaron Smith. According to the web site, Aaron ” … needed a way to tweak his game, and found inspiration from the book he was reading at the time, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. While Animal Farm is a sad, dystopian book about an animal-led Communist revolution gone wrong, the idea of animals walking on two feet inspired him. ‘Sheeple’ is normally a non-favorable term for people who act like sheep; who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced, and do not think for themselves. However, spun the other way, ‘Sheeple’ could also mean sheep who are trying to become more civilized and people-like, a positive. It would be a great way to theme a game about thinking like others. Some sheep puns could even be thrown in there for good measure.” Having finished a successful Kickstarter campaign, chances are this will all make more sense when the game comes out in mid-September. Baa!
image c. 2018 Smith Games