Kindle editions of 2023 Ursa Major Award runner-up Furry Planet are on sale, this Saturday only, for 99¢ or the same in Canada - alas, no deal in the UK or EU.

Want a hardback? That's available too, for $23.99 (or £16.50 / €24.95 / CA$31.99). Released last August,

Furry Planet reveals how anthropomorphism—the desire to imagine non-human animals on an equal footing with the human world—is an instinct hard-wired into our minds since the dawn of civilization. It expresses itself in indigenous traditions and among local cultures who adopt animal identities […] especially in the furry community whose members feel the same visceral connection with the non-human animal world as did their ancient counterparts.

The book is the successor to the 2017 UMA-winning Furry Nation (review), both by Joe Strike. An audiobook version read by Kevin T. Collins is available for $2.66.

Joe Strike is back with his second book exploring the world of Furry Fandom — after the award-winning Furry Nation, this one is appropriately called Furry Planet. “Furs are the creative subculture of people who identify with animals. You can find them at furry conventions, furfests, around the world—tens of thousands of people donning their most elaborate fursuit. In costume, at conventions, with friends or alone, furries unleash the animal within, letting their inner beasts roar and their inner cats purr, aware of the power—and joy—to be found in bringing forward one’s animal side and encouraging others to do the same. In Furry Planet, long-time furry Joe Strike dives deep into this compelling subculture to share its appeal and rewards. Strike and a wealth of interviewees trace the history of the subculture and its various iterations today, in the process covering conventions, media, art, storytelling, community resources, costume creation, and advice for newcomers, and addressing stigmas and misconceptions head on.” Look for it coming soon from Apollo Publishers.

image c. 2023 Apollo Publishers

The results of the 2017 Ursa Major Awards were presented at an awards ceremony at FurDU 2018 in Surfer’s Paradise, Queensland on Saturday May 5 at 6 PM AEST [UTC+10].

Winners were selected by the public from nominations made earlier in the year. Each voter could choose three items in each category, providing three, two and one votes.

The winners and runners-up (in descending preference) are…

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.
—Terry Pratchett

I am probably not wrong in my belief that many furs have little idea of how the fandom got started. The furry fandom is based around the appreciation of, and I'll simplify here, anthropomorphic characters. Furs find their way here through that appreciation and are able to join in immediately. This is not a bad thing but it is sad that many of us are unaware of our shared history. As we learned above, if we don't know where we come from then we are lost.

It's not that there has been no attempt to describe the origins of the furry fandom; aside from the crowdsourced wikis (e.g. WikiFur), we had Fred Patten's Retrospective: An Illustrated Chronology of Furry Fandom, 1966–1996 and Perri Rhoades' The Furry History Project. The first is not necessarily in the most easy to use form and both of the latter entries are chronological lists of major influences. Joe Strike's book departs from this format, employing a mix of personal anecdotes, extensive research and several interviews with prominent furs to build a far more flowing, narrative history of the furry fandom.