Sunset of Furmankind, by Ted R. Blasingame – Book Review by Fred Patten.
by Patch O'Furr
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Sunset of Furmankind, by Ted R. Blasingame. (Revised & Expanded Edition.)
Raleigh, NC, Lulu.com, February 2015, trade paperback $32.99 (727 pages), Kindle $2.99.
When I reviewed the first edition (Lulu Press, September 2011) on Flayrah, it was “only” 510 pages. I said, “Ted Blasingame writes long Furry novels.” Little did I know …
Since I can’t tell just where Blasingame has expanded this novel, I have to read it all over again. That’s no chore. After over three years, I don’t remember it in detail, and Blasingame is a fine furry author. Sunset of Furmankind is worth a reread.
The setting is sometime in the 22nd century. Humanity has almost simultaneously discovered faster-than-light travel and extrasolar planets that are barely fit for human colonization, and the means of genetically mutating humans into semi-animal forms. Due to the high mortality of humans on these harsh extrasolar planets, the Terran Colonization Coalition takes over the genetic mutation process to create four tougher new “races” of humans: the Canis (wolf- and dog-men), the Felis (big cats like lions and tigers), the Ursis (bears), and the Vulps (foxes). Predators and omnivores are deliberately chosen since it is felt that they are hardier than the herbivores. They are made the primary explorers who prepare the planets for human settlers. The Fur-men and –women who are converted by the Anthro Human Colonization Program are mostly volunteers to be sent out to the hostile new worlds to create starter colonies. However, criminals who face life imprisonment or the death penalty are given the chance to start a new life as a non-human in permanent exile on a new world if they will help to tame it for regular humans.