Unlike many of the other anthologies produced primarily for the furry fandom, Already Among Us draws on works by authors in the larger arena of science fiction, from the 1940s through the 2000s. The only "furry" author represented is Michael Payne--and with a story of his that appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction. While Already Among Us may have a little trouble getting beyond the furry audience, this isn't a problem with the story selection.

Already Among Us: An Anthropomorphic Anthology
Edited by Fred Patten. Cover art by Roz Gibson.
Legion Publishing, June 2012. Hardback $18.99+$5 s&h, trade paperback $9.99+$5 s&h (389 pages); Kindle $8.99.

Compare: dronon's review of Already Among Us.

Isiah offers his own thoughts and analysis on Roar as a part of a twelve-part review series.

See also: Reviews of Roar 4 by Roz Gibson and Fred Patten.

If this was a commercially published novel, it would probably be age-rated 8 and up. That’s all right; Brian Jacques’ Redwall books are age-rated 8 and up, too. Picayune is a similar rousing and fast-moving talking animal adventure that all ages can enjoy.

Chapter One is misleading. Picayune (Sir Picayune?) is a knight in the service of the king. When a black dragon destroys the capital city and lays the kingdom to waste, the king charges Picayune to, “Defeat that hideous monster at any cost.” Picayune and his noble horse slog through a dismal mire and undergo numerous hardships to find the dragon’s lair. Picayune and the dragon battle to their apparent mutual death …

Belleview, FL, self-published/CreateSpace, September 2011, trade paperback $7.99 (202 pages), Kindle 99¢.

The NPR-affiliated Colin McEnroe Show has posted a 50-minute segment on furry fandom.

Guests and callers included fandom members Chiaroscuro, TabbieWolf, Ian, Camo Husky, and Grubbs Grizzly, along with law/psychiatry lecturer Dr. Leslie Lothstein. [tip: Fenris Lorsrai]

Colin writes for the Hartford Courant, which recently reported on fursuit-related library rules. Much of the conversation focused on the appeal and transformative power of fursuits, but ponies, FurFright, antipathy against furries and the Ursa Major Awards were also brought up.

An "ex-furry" caller, Reuben, raised the risks to minors from sexual predators at conventions, but the host and guests noted that non-furry events also had a degree of 'hooking-up', while Chiaroscuro brought up the age distribution and security presence at furry events.

Bound to Play is set in Bernard Doove’s Chakat Universe. It features those hermaphroditic centauroid felines, along with their national game of Chakker. Chakker is explained in Doove’s “The Great Game of Chakker”, in his Tales from the Chakat Universe or on his website.

Chakats Grill and Midsun are cubhood friends living in Melbourne on Earth in the 24th century, where there is a large Chakat community. They are also Chakker enthusiasts who are now in their late adolescence and on the same junior league team, the Blind Bight Cubs. Although they are hermaphrodites, Grill is more masculine and Sun is more feminine; something that they have always been aware of intellectually but now feel emotionally since they are going into heat. Being Chakats, they are less embarrassed about mating in public than being caught mating together since they are known to their families as just Best Pals.

CreateSpace, May 2012, trade paperback $12.99 (xv + 142 pages), Kindle $8.00. Illustrated.

Usagi Yojimbo, the comic-book series about a samurai rabbit, is to get an iOS game adaptation.

Created by six-time Ursa Major Award winner Stan Sakai, Usagi Yojimbo is set during Japan's Edo period, and tells the story of ronin Miyamoto Usagi.

The game adaptation, a classic-style beat-em-up side-scroller, is being created by Happy Giant Media. Their CEO Michael Levine has said that the game will feature over 80 different enemy types, and 15 unique bosses. Usagi will fight solo, or with companions he picks up along his journey.

In order to preserve the graphic-novel feel of Usagi's original media, the game will also feature interactive comic book-style cutscenes.

Happy Giant is aiming to release Usagi Yojimbo (for iPhone and iPad) around Christmas. The game is expected to be "probably a dollar or free", with in-app purchases for special power-ups and costumes.

Isiah had the chance to interview most of the contributors to annual adult anthology Heat 9, published by Sofawolf; some could not be reached. Related interviews: Whyte Yote & Alastair Wildfire – Camron & Vantid – Alopex – Huskyteer – Kyell Gold & Nimrais – Tempe O'kun

Isiah Jacobs: Good evening, Kandrel, Scappo. Thank you both so much for coming on to the show. I really appreciate this! Kandrel, I understand you submitted a story to this year’s volume of Heat and Scappo, you provided the illustrations. Have you two heard of each before you were brought on to do Heat?

Kandrel: Yeah, I had definitely heard of Scappo before. I tend to try to keep my eye on good artists. Mainly because I like collecting art. Usually I recognize most of the artists that are up and coming by name, if not by their style.

Scappo: Well, I’m glad you like my art! Heh. I had never heard of Kandrel before, but that’s usually because I’ve got my head buried in commissions. So I don’t really have a whole lot of time to read. But I did read and enjoy “Better”. I think it’s one of the better stories that I’ve read.

This year’s 12th Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, on November 15–18, 2012 at The Crysalids Theatre, 137 Ontario Street North, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, will include Mamoru Hosoda’s The Wolf Children, along with more than eleven other animated features unreleased in North America.

The list includes the 2012 Danish Marco Macaco (trailer) by director Jan Rahbek, featuring a tropical island full of anthropomorphic monkeys, a monkey policeman, monkey pirates, and a monkey Giant Robot.

One of the newest furry conventions, Fangcon, opens its doors Oct. 26th to its awaiting audience. Located in Nashville, Tenn., the event's theme is: Musicals: Opening Night! This will really come out when Rhubarb the Bear performs as the con's Musical Guest of Honor. This bear has brought a few musicals to the fandom. He most recently premièred at Wild Nights to a standing ovation crowd performing Fosgate: Ferret Loan Officer. He will be bringing his musical skills in the form of several instruments to his own show and several panels. He's not to be missed!

I watched Hotel Transylvania because I have a weakness for Gothic archetypes, not because I was expecting it to be any good. It is a movie not only starring Adam Sandler, but even produced by him. Well, I can say this is the best thing Adam Sandler has done in years, but that still does not matter much on the good to bad scale.

I did not watch this movie because I intended to review it for Flayrah; about halfway through the climax, in which the movie’s protagonist takes the form of a talking bat and sticks that way until the denouement, I realized furries might want to know that. I mean, yeah, werewolf in the trailers and TV spots and all, but if you decide to see this movie, see it for the cute talking vampire bats.

Not much else reason.

Flash! Phil Geusz abandons writing anthropomorphic fiction; switches to military s-f to dramatically increase sales.

Featuring genengineered rabbit- and dog-morph soldiers.

Phil Geusz and Legion Publishing have chosen an unusual format in which to publish the adventures of David Birkenhead. Instead of publishing them together as three or more novels, they are putting out a set of seven booklets of roughly 150 pages to 200 pages each. Although most are available in trade paperback editions (and there was a 106-page trade paperback booklet edition of Ship’s Boy as a promotional giveaway at Anthrocon), Geusz and Legion expect virtually all sales to be of the Kindle e-books, to Amazon.com readers who cannot pass up the bargain of a “whole book” for only 1¢ or 99¢ or $2.99 in these days when an ordinary paperback is $8.

They are being marketed as military s-f, not Furry fiction. Amazon.com’s advertising targeted to its customers who buy military s-f is, “Are you looking for something in our Science Fiction & Fantasy books department? If so, you might be interested in these items,” with a list that includes the David Birkenhead books among ten or twelve other military s-f titles.

And it’s paying off. Geusz reports that:

[…] earlier today I had two books ranked in Amazon's top 100 for SF. […] Both were in the 90's, but they were there. […] There are almost never any furry books listed in connection with the Birkenhead buyers -- it's all either military SF or straight action-adventure stuff. So it's fair to guess that only a tiny proportion of my buyers are furs.

Will Geusz and the David Birkenhead series bring new readers to Furry fandom?

I recently posted an article on [adjective][species], Furries & HIV, that I think deserves wide attention. The furry community hasn't has a significant outbreak of HIV, but we're being placed at risk by attitudes towards safe sex.

I chatted with a HIV-positive furry (who was happy to be publicly quoted) and a furry porn actor, who both feel that the reluctance of furries to use condoms is a real problem. We also look at ways in which condom usage can be normalized within the community.

The article has generated a fair bit of interest in the couple of days since its publication, and at least one furry convention - Toronto's Furnal Equinox - is looking at adding a safe sex panel to their schedule as a result.

Since August 16, we've been getting the story of what makes Philomena Flask tick. It's a real heartbreaker, full of love and heartache, and maybe betrayal. Ever since we've known her, she has been hell bent on revenge against the Topsiders.

A high ranking Topsider, Flask couldn't stomach the disgusting practices of her fellow citizens. She contemplated suicide, but before acting on that thought, she rescued a non-mutated human from vivisection.

She fell in love, but did he? She certainly thought so. We haven't reached the end of this arc, so there's still time to weigh in on what is going on. Check it all out on Endtown's website.

See also: Review: 'Endtown 1' [and] 'Endtown 2', by Aaron Neathery

OneIndia Entertainment, “India’s #1 Language Portal”, reports that the long-delayed Hindi-language Koochie Koochie Hota Hai feature, supposedly completed in 2009 or 2010 but release-delayed (because of poor box-offices in India for Indian-made animated features) until December 10, 2012, has been postponed again until July 2013.

The feature, a CGI-animated funny-animal remake of the hugely popular 1998 Hindi live-action Bollywood feature Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, is an anthropomorphic sci-fi (time travel) romantic comedy-drama with lots of singing & dancing. See Flayrah's April story for more details, or watch the English-language trailer.

Old-school furry artist Mitch Beiro has been arrested after police found that files depicting the sexual exploitation of minors had been shared online from his home.

Beiro, 47, worked as a guard for a security company in Tucson, Arizona. In the furry fandom, Beiro's artwork has been published in Huzzah, Wild, and several other publications. A frequent attendee of furry conventions, he was a guest of honor at ConFurence 11 (2000), and married Minerva Mink at a joke wedding during ConFurence 12.

Tucson detectives started an investigation on Beiro in December 2011, as part of a wider investigation into the online sharing of child sexual abuse images via peer-to-peer internet networks.

The police served a search warrant on his home on October 3, and found "various computer related items, which contained thousands of files depicting the sexual exploitation of minors". He is being charged with 15 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.

During the investigation, detectives also found that he was part of an unreported child molestation case in California.

Update (19 Feb): Mitch has been sentenced to prison and probation