In a Dog’s World, by Mary E. Lowd – Book Review By Fred Patten.
by Patch O'Furr
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
In a Dog’s World, by Mary E. Lowd.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, July 2015, trade paperback $9.95 (181 pages), Kindle $6.99.
This novella is the third book in Lowd’s “Otters in Space” series following Otters in Space (2010) and Otters in Space II: Jupiter, Deadly (2013), although her short fiction “When a Cat Loves a Dog” in Five Fortunes (edited by Fred Patten) and “A Real Stand-Up Guy” (with Daniel Lowd) in Allasso volume 3 (edited by Brian Lee Cook) are also in the same “world”. Humans have become extinct, and uplifted cats, dogs, otters, and a few others have inherited Earth and its space outposts. The cats and dogs are theoretically equals, but in fact the dogs are socially and politically superior, with strong prejudice in both species against the other. Lowd’s protagonists – Kipper Brighton in the two novels, and Lashonda Brooke in the short fiction – are mature cats who are disinterested in the prejudice (in Kipper’s case) or actively oppose it (in Lashonda’s case; she is married to a dog and they both want to adopt children, but are turned down by prejudiced adoption agencies among both cats and dogs).
The protagonist of In a Dog’s World is Katasha Blake, a studious tabby point Siamese cat in an upper-class cat family; a high school senior planning to go on to college. Preferably prestigious Isleywood College of Science and Technology, but she’ll take the local state college that her littermates intend to attend if she can’t get into Isleywood – a dog college. Tash, whose goal is an engineering degree to qualify for the space program, is sure that she’s got the grades to get into Isleywood, since dogs aren’t known for their studiousness: Read the rest of this entry »