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Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: fiction

September 15, 2015

French Anthro Comic: L’Epée d’Ardenois T. 4/4, – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.


L’Épée d’Ardenois. T. 4/4, Nuhy, by Étienne Willem.L'Epee d'Ardenois cover
Geneva, Switzerland, Éditions Paquet, June 2015, hardbound €16,00 (64 pages).

This is part of Lex Nakashima’s & my project to bring American furry fans the best of new French-language animalière bandes dessinées. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of this 4-volume series, which were 48 pages each, were previously reviewed. Here is volume 4, the 64-page conclusion.

All that I said about volume 3 is intensified here. Nuhy begins with Oddenburg, the capital of King Tancred the Younger’s realm of Bohan, under fiery siege by the vulture armies of Hellequin of the Cursed Wood (goat), the unseen Nuhy’s general. “The city can’t hold out for more than two days,” a lion knight reports. “Not to mention the starvation and sickness, our walls are crumbling; there are already skirmishes in several districts; and if the vultures take the St. Georges gate… it’ll be the end of the castle…”

King Tancred (lynx), and two remaining Companions of the Dawn (Lord Arthus, bear; and La Fouine, marten) are trapped inside Oddenburg. This final volume begins with Tancred’s royal advisors arguing whether he should lead a final, hopeless defense and die gloriously in the city’s fall, or escape with a handful of knights through the catacombs under the city to continue a guerrilla resistance in Bohan’s countryside. Escape and resistance are chosen, with La Fouine leading the King’s party from Oddenburg while Lord Arthus remains behind to mount a diversionary death-&-glory charge. Meanwhile in the countryside, Garen (young rabbit squire) and Sir Grimbert (fox) of the Companions are with the refugees from the Duchy of Herbeutagne (which has already fallen to Hellequin), who are trying to reach Oddenburg…

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September 11, 2015

The Art of Regular Show – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.


The Art of Regular Show, by Shannon O’Leary. Foreword by J. G. Quintel. Introduction by Paula Spence.
London, Titan Books, September 2015, hardcover $29.95 (160 pages).Regular show Cover

Lavish coffee-table animation art books are usually the prerogative of theatrical features from major animation studios like Disney, DreamWorks Animation, and Pixar; not a TV cartoon series from a studio like Cartoon Network. Yet if any TV cartoon series has earned that accolade, Regular Show has. The prime-time (7:30 p.m.; new episodes on Thursdays, reruns the rest of the Monday-Saturday week) half-hour program of two 11-minute episodes began on September 6, 2010, and is still going strong with 195 episodes (nine seasons) scheduled so far, and a made-for-TV feature, Regular Show: The Movie, due on November 25, 2015. Episode #58, “Eggscellent” by Regular Show creator J. G. Quintel, won a 2013 Emmy Award in the Outstanding Short-format Animated Program category; and various other episodes have been nominated for Annie, Emmy, Teen Choice, and other American and British TV awards. There have been a Regular Show monthly comic book since May 2013; and video games, action figures, plush dolls, bobbleheads, T-shirts, and more. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 10, 2015

Second Chance: Furmankind II, by Ted R. Blasingame – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Second Chance: Furmankind II, by Ted R. Blasingame. (Revised and expanded edition)
Raleigh, NC, Lulu.com, May 2015, trade paperback $21.99 (460 pages).

product_thumbnailThis says “Revised and expanded edition”, but if I am reading Blasingame’s production schedule correctly, this was written between June 2012 and June 2014, allowed to sit for almost a year, and then revised and published in May 2015. So this Lulu.com trade paperback may be revised and expanded, but it is the first paper/printed edition.

Second Chance: Furmankind II is not as much a sequel to Sunset of Furmankind as it is a continuation of the same story. The former novel concentrated on the humans in Brian Barrett’s/Jon Sunset’s group of volunteers being bioengineered into Furs – supposedly hardier than unmodified humans; a hybrid of human and animal: four each of large feline, large canid, bear, and fox – and sent with a similar group (but two are anthro red pandas) to the extrasolar planet Bonestell to establish an Earth colony there. Bonestell appears to be practically a paradise compared to other newly-discovered worlds; very much like pre-human North America – but the first human colony spaceship sent there completely disappeared for unknown reasons. This second group considers itself humanity’s Second Chance at colonizing Bonestell, and adopts that name.

Second Chance: Furmankind II is the story of the 32 male and female Furs’ (actually 31 due to a death in Sunset of Furmankind) first year on Bonestell; or 2½ Earth years due to Bonestell’s longer rotation. It’s very much like a novel about a group of pioneers of the early 19th century pushing into the Ohio or Mississippi river valleys to establish homes, farms, and a town; with the differences that nobody knows which of the new animals, insects, and plants are safe or poisonous, whether the planet has any dangerous natives, or what made the first colonizers disappear. The Second Chance group find out by trial and error. There are successes and failures; natural and violent deaths; matings and children.

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September 9, 2015

French comics: Cerise, Vol 1-3, by Laurel – Book Reviews by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Belgian, to be accurate.  Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

cerise tome 1Cerise. T.1, L’Avis des Bêtes, by Laurel.
Brussels, Belgium, Le Lombard, April 2012, hardbound €10,60 (48 pages).

Cerise. T.2, Smart Faune, by Laurel.
Brussels, Belgium, Le Lombard, February 2014, hardbound €10,60 (48 pages), Kindle €5,99.

Cerise. T.3, Le Seigneur des Animaux, by Laurel.
Brussels, Belgium, Le Lombard, July 2015, hardbound €10,60 (48 pages).

These three albums look at first glance like comics for little children. Well, they are and they aren’t. Mostly, they’re comics that little children should read, but they won’t get a chance to in America.

Cerise (Cherry, but the French is a common name in America, too) is a nine-year-old schoolgirl in Noticed by Beasts, the first album. She tries to save a snail from being crushed by a schoolmate. She fails, but the dying snail appreciates her effort and gives her the power to understand and talk with all beasts; mammals, birds, fish, bugs, you name it. The first album is mostly a collection of one-page gags around Cerise and talking animals: her pets (she has two cats and a ferret) and the local wildlife. No other humans believe her, and she boasts of her “secret ability”. In the last two pages, she meets Arthur, another boy who can also talk with animals. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 28, 2015

The Island of Dr. Moreau: A Possibility, by H. G. Wells – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

The Island of Dr. Moreau: A Possibility, by H. G. Wells. Frontispiece by C.R.A. [Charles Robert Ashbee]. London, William Heinemann, April 1896, x + 219 [+ 1 + 34] pages, 6/-.

the-island-of-doctor-moreauThis is arguably the first “furry” adult novel, not counting the talking animals of children’s literature such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. (Or the adult Metamorphosis/The Golden Ass of Lucius of Apuleius, which was caused by a magic salve and the gods.) It was intended as an anti-vivisection polemic, and it made quite a stir when it was published, although not entirely for the reason that Wells intended. According to the introduction by Alan Lightman in a later edition (Bantam Classic, 2005), “Ranked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror.”

The public focused less upon the animal-men than upon Dr. Moreau’s callous vivisection experiments. In the novel, the physiologist comes across as an obsessed sociopath who cares only for his scientific research, and is oblivious to the pain he causes to his animal subjects. But to the public, he was a crazed monster. This image is clearly emphasized in the second motion picture adaptation, Island of Lost Souls (1932), in which Charles Laughton plays Dr. Moreau as a whip-cracking sadist who seems interested in his experiments only as a justification for his cruel tortures of his victims, and to create subjects whom he can rule as a god.

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August 26, 2015

Anthropomorphic Animated Features, 2015-2016 – by Fred Patten

by Patch O'Furr

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

ZootopiaFox

Yarst! This has gotten really complicated, so bear with us.  These release dates are mostly useless.

Yes, the official American release date of Minions was July 10, 2015, but it was released in Indonesia on June 17 and in Australia (in English) on June 18, and in the United Kingdom on June 26.

Boonie Bears: A Mystical Winter (Xiong Chumo Zhi Xueling Xiongfeng) was released throughout China on January 30, 2015, but most Americans won’t see it until it is released by Warner Bros., dubbed in English, on January 17, 2016. Frog Kingdom – (“Princess Froglegs goes undercover to compete in her father’s Froglympics in order to avoid being married off to a male suitor,” from IMDB) – is a new movie as far as the U.S. is concerned, produced by Grindstone Entertainment in Santa Monica, California and distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment, also in Santa Monica, and released on June 30, 2015; but it was released first in China on December 28, 2013. A Mouse Tale premiered on February 10 as an American direct-to-DVD release; but its theatrical premiere was not until April 7 in Kuwait.   (Interestingly, A Mouse Tale was first distributed on DVD in the U.S. by Lionsgate Entertainment, but it was co-produced by Red Post Animation Studio in Lima, Peru and Vista Sur Films in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was announced by Vista Sur as Rodencia y el Diente de la Princesa http://www.vistasurfilms.com.ar/) Japanese animated features are notoriously unofficially subtitled and available in America on video or DVD within a month or two of their Japanese theatrical release.

All that a release date usually means is that the movie has been released; e.g., is real and should be findable somewhere.

Titles, especially of non-English-language features, are also mostly useless. One theatrical feature about “the animals that DIDN’T make it onto the Ark” was produced in CGI animation by Ulysses Filmproduktion GmbH in Hamburg, and originally released theatrically in thirteen countries between April 9 and August 21, 2015. In the U.S., its release was July 17. In Germany its title is Ooops! Die Arche ist Weg …, in the U.K. it’s Two By Two; in America it was announced with trailers as both Ooops! Noah is Gone … and Two By Two before settling on All Creatures Big & Small. You shouldn’t need translations of its Dutch title (Beestenboot) or Spanish title (¡Upsss! ¿Dónde Está Noé…?). The Japanese feature listed as The Boy and the Beast is actually titled in Japanese Bakemono no Ko, which is literally The Beast’s Child or Son of the Beast (or Monster); who knows what it’ll be titled if it gets an American release? The Spring 2016 Russian feature Volkii i Ovtsi has been announced as coming to the U.S. as Sheep and Wolves. In case you don’t know any Russian, that’s a reversal of the Russian title. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 21, 2015

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.

product_thumbnailWhen 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.

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August 19, 2015

Roi Ours, by Mobidic – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Roi Ours CoverRoi Ours, by Mobidic.
Paris, Delcourt, May 2015, hardbound €18.95 (110 pages), Kindle €13.99.

Thanks to Lex Nakashima for ordering this French cartoon album from Amazon.fr and making it available to me for this review.

In a prehistoric Mesoamerican world, a human village is ruled by the animal gods and goddesses: the Jaguar god, the Fox god, the Stag god, and many others. The village is cursed by the Caïman goddess; to lift the curse, the chief is ordered by the tribal shaman to offer his own daughter, Xipil, as a sacrifice. Xipil is bound to the Caïman’s totem pole and abandoned to be eaten.

But it’s not the Caïman goddess who comes first, but the Bear god. “You look a little young to me for an offering… and not very meaty! Has she already eaten all her own priestesses?” “The shaman said that she is demanding greater sacrifices.” “Well, he should have offered his own daughter. Do you want to stop the massacre? Or do you prefer to go through with it?” “My father said…” “Your father is an imbecile! He’s not listening to the signs any more. I’m telling you that the Caïman is making fun of all of you; she’ll never raise her curse on you. You’ll have to do something else. Go tell your father.” Read the rest of this entry »

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August 15, 2015

Twisted by Miranda Leek – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

(Note from Patch: Thanks to poppa bookworm for formatting. Fred’s review was held for a while, because the author didn’t feel comfortable about criticism in it. There was opportunity to revise the book itself, but that didn’t happen for months, so now we’re putting it out anyways.  Honestly, I think the book concept sounds really fun and imaginative, which can be highly entertaining even combined with horrible execution. Think: Troma movies.  I’d pick this up before many mainstream books!)

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Twisted, by Miranda Leek. [2nd edition.] Illustrated by the author.Twisted 2nd edition
Bloomington, IN, AuthorHouse, July 2014, trade paperback $26.95 (533 pages), Kindle $3.99.

This novel does not acknowledge that it is a second edition, but if you look at its Amazon.com entry, the first edition, May 2010, is still for sale right under it. The first edition is 376 pages, this is 533 pages, so it has at least been expanded. The first edition identifies the author as 17 years old; by the second, she is 22. Hopefully the four-year difference also includes an improvement in the writing, because the writing is still pretty bad.

The concept is certainly unique, as far as I know: anthropomorphic amusement park rides! The hero is Railrunner, a red roller coaster. The villain is Ironwheel, a black roller coaster. The setting is “Amusement Park Between”, a dimension consisting only of a vast world inhabited solely of living amusement park rides. The narrator is Rodney Philips, a young man whose previous employer has gone out of business and who is desperate for any kind of new job. He answers a newspaper advertisement for Mystic Park’s new roller coaster engineer, and learns that he is perfect for the job — in fact, he is a were-roller coaster!

Twisted introduces more than anthropomorphic roller coasters, particularly when it moves into “Part Two: The Land of Wonder and War”; the world of Amusement Park Between. There are Merrylegs, a gaudy carousel unicorn; Static, a blue-&-green dodgem car; Moonhoof, another carousel horse; Angeltrack, Railrunner’s mother (yes, Railrunner is freaked out at realizing that he was born as a baby roller coaster by a roller coaster mother); Freakshow, Ironwheel’s roller coaster general; Havoctrack, a salty roller coaster sea captain; Spiderleg, an eight-hydraulic-armed spider ride; a nameless go-kart, and many others. There is the whole world, which is much more than just an endless amusement park:

“I poured myself another round of wine. ‘What is that?’ I queried.

‘Where all red roller coasters have called home: the sacred Temple of the Red. There is where Thunderbark will train you, and that, Railrunner, is where you will fully discover all of what you are. The Temple is about a two-day journey from here. It lies beneath the surface of the great Achterbahn River, within the island of Quinet, past the town of Trenzon. The temple is an amazing thing, made entirely of gold, a castle fit for a king and his nobles.” (p. 155)

Er – I’m having a hard time visualizing a solid-gold castle-temple beneath a river. In fact …

Twisted is one of those rare novels that you can nitpick to pieces all day, and it still remains surprisingly readable. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 14, 2015

Kairos: Tome 3 by Ulysse Malassagne – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

Kairos T 3 book coverKairos. Tome 3, by Ulysse Malassagne.
Roubaix, France, Ankama Éditions, January 2015, hardcover €11.90 (64 pages), Kindle $7.99.

Thanks once more to Lex Nakashima for getting this from Amazon.fr and sharing it with me. This is in French, but it’s mostly cartoon artwork. Since there’s no sign of an English-language edition, here is the French original.

And so the saga is over.

To recap, Niils loves the mysterious Anaëlle. During a camping trip in the French countryside, she is kidnapped by dragon knights and taken through a dimensional portal. Niils follows them into the anthropomorphic dragons’ world. In t.2, it turns out that Anaëlle is the dragon kingdom’s princess; she escaped into our human world and took on a human form to escape a forced marriage to her own father; she was tracked down and seized by the dragon knights to fulfill her destiny; Niils goes after her and finds that the dragon commoners are ready to revolt against their royal family; and he leads a revolution even while he is turning into a dragon himself. Read the rest of this entry »

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