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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 20, 2015

Don Oriolo’s Felix the Cat Art Available Nationally – announcement by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Exclusive Felix the Cat Fine Artwork from Don Oriolo Coming Soon from Soho Prints (PRNewsFoto/Soho Art International/Soho Prin)We get mail. In this case, a press release with a cover letter.

Hi Fred:

Saw that you covered my client Don Oriolo’s Felix Art last year and thought you might like to see our press release from today and possibly cover that?  Let me know if you need anything on this.

Best, Scott

He must be referring to my book review on Flayrah last year, of Don Oriolo’s Felix the Cat Paintings.

And here is the press release. Felix was the first star of anthropomorphic animal animated cartoons in the 1920s, so it’s pertinent even if limited to modern art.

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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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August 10, 2015

The Vimana Incident, by Rose LaCroix – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

The Vimana Incident, by Rose LaCroix.the_vimana_incident_by_nightphaser-d89nndt
Dallas, TX, FuPlanet Productions, February 2015, trade paperback $9.95 (205 pages), epub $7.95.

This title is a work of anthropomorphic fiction for adult readers only.

“Rose LaCroix is proud to present her most anticipated novel, where psychedelic science fiction, historical fiction, and alternate timelines come together in a suspenseful, mind-bending masterpiece.” (back-cover blurb) Well, it’s certainly her most ambitious novel.

Edward “Red Ned” Arrowsmith is a red fox British aerospace engineer in an anthropomorphic 1939, where the world is not preparing for World War II but is engaged in a race to establish the first permanent Lunar colony. Ned is the chief engineer at Bristol Lunar, the firm that supplies the hardware for the British space program. A manned Lunar landing has already been accomplished; now the race is on to build a permanent base. The Americans, the British, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Soviets are all in peacetime competition, but they don’t pretend that it’s friendly.

One day the commander of the Royal Air Force Lunar Expeditionary Force pays a surprise visit to Red Ned’s office. He’s needed to go on a secret mission to the moon. Does he accept? Ned guesses so, but when? Right now – the commander (an otter in a RAF officer’s uniform) will drive Ned to the dirigible airfield to get a flight to the launch site immediately. “‘We’ll have time to stop by your house so you can bring a change of clothes but we have to be on the RAS Empress of India by no later than four o’clock pip-emma. That is, if you choose to accept this mission.’” (p. 15)

I suppose that if you can accept talking anthropomorphized animals, a secret mission where one is called upon to become a member of a Lunar mission at a moment’s notice with no training is no problem. But it fatally weakened any aura of believability for me. After that, The Vimana Incident became for me just a fast-moving amateur secret-agent/science-fiction adventure with a funny-animal cast. Until about halfway through, where it becomes very much more than that … Read the rest of this entry »

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August 7, 2015

Five juvenile novelizations of anthro animated features – book reviews by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Minions CoverMinions: The Deluxe Junior Novel, Adapted by Sadie Chesterfield, Based on the Motion Picture Screenplay Written by Brian Lynch. Illustrated.
NYC, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, May 2015, hardcover $9.99 (131 pages), paperback $6.99.

Paddington: The Junior Novel, Adapted by Jeanne Willis, Based on the screenplay written by Paul King, Based on the Paddington Bear novels written and created by Michael Bond. Illustrated.
NYC, HarperCollinsBooks/HarperFestival, October 2014, trade paperback $5.99 (142 pages, Kindle $5.99.

Penguins of Madagascar: Movie Novelization, adapted by Tracey West. Illustrated.
NYC, Simon and Schuster/Simon Spotlight, October 2014, trade paperback $6.99 (142 pages), Kindle $6.49.

Planes: Fire & Rescue: The Junior Novelization, Adapted by Suzanne Francis. Illustrated.
NYC, Random House, June 2014, trade paperback $5.99 (122 pages).

Rio 2: The Junior Novel, Adapted by Christa Roberts. Illustrated.
NYC, HarperCollinsBooks/HarperFestival, February 2014, hardcover $14.40 (144 pages), trade PB $5.99, Kindle $5.99.

None of these juvenile novelizations would be worth reviewing alone, but they make a point for furry fandom: for about the last five years, there have been practically no anthropomorphic theatrical animated features, and a lot of animated features starring mostly real or fantasy humans like Pixar’s Brave and Inside Out, from major animation studios that have not had authorized juvenile novelizations of about 140 pages. (If it’s from Simon Spotlight, you can count on it having exactly 144 pages; a tipoff that all of its juvenile novelizations are written to a formula. But, in the case of Minions, those 144 pages include 131 pages of novel, plus 13 pages of color plates, black-&-white illustrations, and advertising.) Many VFX-heavy live-action features like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy and Tomorrowland have novelizations, too. I could have picked Blue Sky Studios’ Ice Age: Continental Drift or Epic; Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph or Tangled or Frozen or Big Hero 6; DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo or Mr. Peabody and Sherman or Home (despite Home being already based on a “real” book, Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday); LAIKA’s ParaNorman or The Boxtrolls; Sony Pictures Animation’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs or Hotel Transylvania 2; Warner Animation Group’s The Lego Movie (144 pages from Scholastic, Inc.) – almost any animated feature. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 6, 2015

Doc Rat Vol. 13 and 14, by Jenner – Book Reviews by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Doc Rat. Vol. 13, Lucky for Some, Doc, by Jenner.
Melbourne, Vic., Australia, Platinum Rat Productions, June 2014, trade paperback A$16.00 (unpaged [76 pages]).

Doc Rat. Vol. 14, Prey Tell, Doc: Son of Fortenflanck, by Jenner.
Melbourne, Vic., Australia, Platinum Rat Productions, December 2014, trade paperback A$16.00 (unpaged [88 pages]).

Vol-13-cover-front-proof-Small-450x316These are the latest two pocket-sized volumes of Jenner’s Doc Rat online daily comic strip. They are especially desirable right now when the Doc Rat website is having electronic problems, so you couldn’t read these strips for free on its archive if you wanted to. But even when the archive comes back online, these thin booklets are extremely handy for carrying around with you. They are only available in one bookshop in Melbourne, and by mail order over the strip’s website for A$16.00 or US$12.95 each. They are highly recommended.

It’s no secret today that Jenner is Dr. Craig Hilton, a general practitioner in a suburb of Melbourne. Dr. Benjamin Rat M.B., many etc.’s, is also a GP in a suburb of the Australian animal city of Fornor. Jenner began Doc Rat in June 2006, and like any long-running comic strip, it has a wealth of backstory and supporting characters by now. It helps if you are familiar with them, but it’s not essential; just as it isn’t essential to be familiar with the medical profession to appreciate all the technical references that Doc Rat and his staff plus others (Gizelle Thomson, his Thomson’s gazelle office receptionist; Mary Scamper, his motherly rabbit nurse; and numerous pharmaceutical high-pressure salesmen) casually throw around. Doc Rat has his own GP practice, and most of the situations that he faces are shared by any small business: billing, paperwork, keeping up with the latest developments in your specialty, and so on.

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August 5, 2015

Trick or Treat, Volume 2: Historical Halloween – Book Review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

(I considered holding this for October – but Fred reminded me that Trick or Treat Volume 3: Pranks, Parties, and Pumpkins will be out – so enjoy it now!) – Patch

trick-or-treat-volume-two-historical-halloween-edited-by-ianus-j-67211Trick or Treat, volume 2: Historical Halloween, edited by Ianus J. Wolf.
Las Vegas, NV, Rabbit Valley Books, October 2014, trade paperback $20.00 (373 pages).

This is Rabbit Valley’s second annual (2014) Halloween theme anthology; “something for the adults to enjoy”, as last year’s volume said. It presents ten new stories; six scary horror “tricks” and four “delectable romantic and erotic” treats. The book’s fine wraparound cover is again by Stephanie “Ifus” Johnson.

Wolf points out in his Introduction that “historical” is treated liberally. “It is also worth noting that much of the original history of Halloween and its roots of Samhain that we ‘know’ are actually still debated in most academic circles.” (I can personally attest to its evolution. When I went to school in the late 1940 and early ‘50s, you were ‘wrong’ if you spelled Hallowe’en without the apostrophe between the two e’s. Today, nobody bothers with it.) “So relax, have some fun, and don’t think too much of this as a history lesson.” (p. 2)

The anthology is again divided into two parts, each presented by one of the anthropomorphic hosts. Trick the wolf gives us six scary “tricks”, and Treat the black cat follows with four erotic “treats”.

“Jenny-Burnt-Tail” by Huskyteer is set in the British trenches during World War I. A Scottish (terrier) trooper carves a turnip into a jack-o-lantern on All Hallows Eve, and Captain fox tells his men a seasonal reminiscence from his childhood. This story isn’t as scary in itself as the way that Huskyteer tells it, with convincing 1915 British accents and slang. The mud and mist and cold and wet, with enemy snipers all around and maybe poison gas – you really feel that you’re there; never mind any spooks that may also be there. It’s educational, too; you’ll learn a half-dozen regional names for will-o’-the-wisps (including Jenny-Burnt-Tail, which is genuine despite sounding like it was created for this anthropomorphic world). A superb mood piece. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 31, 2015

Pet Noir, by Pati Nagle – book review by Fred Patten.

by Pup Matthias

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

coverPet Noir, by Pati Nagle.

Cedar Crest, NM, Book View Café/Evennight Books, August 2013, trade paperback $14.39 (iii + 180 [+ 1] pages), Kindle $4.99.

In an undated far future, Leon is a kitten biomodified to talk and with an opposable thumb. Here he’s being taken by his handler at four weeks old from the industrial lab where he was born to his new home, in a cat carrier:

“I could just see his face if I pressed up against the wire. He watched me, looking kind of wary.

‘So what’s this Gamma Station?’

‘It’s a transportation hub out near Cygsee Four. It’s where I live and work.’

‘Sounds boring.’

‘No, it’s a nice place. You’ll like it.’

‘Cygsee Four. That’s Cygnius 61 C IV, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s in the middle of nowhere.’

‘Nowhere’s a relative term, Leon. It’s got a lot to offer. Better than living in a lab.’

‘Got elephants?’

‘Well, no. But there’s a nice park. You can run on the green grass.’” (pgs. 3-4)

Leon has been modified to become an undercover detective on Gamma Station, a smaller transportation hub to the outer space colonies. Smuggling of bioenhancers has been taking place, and the smugglers have escaped detection so far.

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