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Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: novel

April 26, 2016

Anubis: Dark Desire – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

anubis-dark-desire-featuring-the-art-of-heather-bruton-dark-nata-204825Anubis: Dark Desire
St. Paul, MN, Sofawolf Press, September 2015, hardcover $59.95, softcover $39.95 (189 pages).

Anubis: Dark Desire is intended for an adult audience only and contains explicit sexual material. It will not be for sale to persons under the age of 18. (publisher’s advisory)

Anubis: Dark Desire began as an adults-only comic book published by Radio Comix under its Sin Factory label in June 2002. It contained stories and stand-alone pages featuring the anthropomorphic animals and gods of Egyptian mythology, mainly Anubis, the black-furred, jackal-headed god of the dead, having erotic encounters. The short comic-book stories were by many of the most prominent artists in furry fandom: Dark Natasha, Heather Bruton, Sara “Caribou” Palmer, Terrie Smith, Diana Harlan Stein, and Michele Light. The black-&-white comic book was extremely popular, running for four biannual issues to June 2008.

There was an immediate demand from the furry fandom for somebody, anybody, to publish a collection of the four issues. Sofawolf Press announced that it would, but not in a black-&-white comic-book format. Sofawolf would contact the artists to get their permissions, and their collaborations to produce a full-color, high-quality volume. It took over six years. On March 6, 2015 Sofawolf announced a Kickstarter campaign to raise $18,000 to produce such a book. It reached its goal by March 15. By the time the one-month Kickstarter ended on April 5, Sofawolf Press had $32,413 from 413 backers. The additional money was used to commission 17 new pages by Dark Natasha and Heather Bruton (plus appropriate bonuses that only the backers got such as stickers, lapel pins, shot glasses, and T- and bowling shirts).

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April 25, 2016

Krazy Kat: A Novel in Five Panels, by Jay Cantor – Book Review by Fred Patten

by Pup Matthias

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

5fee024128a0dab587e09010.LKrazy Kat: A Novel in Five Panels, by Jay Cantor. Illustrated by George Herriman.
NYC, A. A. Knopf, January 1988, hardcover $16.95 ([x] + 245 + [viii] pages).

The reviews for this unauthorized (since it was written long after Herriman’s death) sequel to George Herriman’s classic Krazy Kat comic strip, all praise how imaginative it is. But they use terminology like “an elaborate intellectual game”, “post-narrative techniques”, “Psychoanalysis, Hollywood, radical politics, television, popular and high art are all grist for Cantor’s satirical mill”, “an X-rated sort-of-sequel to the comic strip”, and “simultaneously maddening, shocking, funny and quite disturbing.” It is, in short, an absurdist, post-modernist novel that carries the cast of the gentle (despite Ignatz’s constant bopping of Krazy’s bean with a brick), isolated Kokonino Kounty into the full complexity of modern civilization.

Cartoonist George Herriman died on April 25, 1944. The Alamogordo test explosion of the atomic bomb was on July 16, 1945. Despite the bomb blast being in the wrong state and over a year later, it is Cantor’s postulate that it was Krazy Kat’s traumatization by the atomic bomb that was responsible for the comic strip’s disappearance.

“Krazy’s unexpected retirement has put the entire cast out of work: KWAKK WAKK, the gossipy duck who sang out Coconino’s dirty linen, has no one to tattle on. JOE STORK, a lean decent creature who brought the babies and the mail from Outside, is a nearly dead letter man, for fickle fans no longer want to get in touch. DON KIYOTI, native-born long-eared snob, lacks an audience to lord it over. BEAU KOO JACK, the black rabbit of thumping paws, finds fancy trade falling off at his grocery store. KOLIN KELLEY, who fired the bricks that Ignatz threw, cleans and recleans his cold kiln, knowing that if Krazy never works again he is cursed king of useless rocks. And MRS. MICE, Ignatz’s big-footed spouse, with MILTON, MARSHALL and IRVING, her Joe-delivered progeny, bicker pointlessly, Dad out of work and time on their hands.

Why did Krazy, they wonder, suddenly shy from the spotlight? And if only she would work again …” (p. x)

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April 14, 2016

Forest Gods, by Ryan Campbell – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Forest Gods, by Ryan Campbell. Illustrated by Zhivago.
St. Paul, MN, Sofawolf Press, September 2015, trade paperback $19.95 (343 [+ 2] pages), Kindle $7.99.

6147FNg4eeL._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_This is the direct sequel to Campbell’s September 2013 God of Clay, and the middle novel in his The Fire Bearers trilogy.   As with all too many trilogies of this sort, The Fire Bearers is a single novel in three volumes more than a series of three novels.   If you have not started it yet, get and read God of Clay first, then immediately read Forest Gods. Be aware that it ends with a cliffhanger, and that it may be another two years until Book Three is published.

In a fantasy prehistoric Africa, the great Saharan savanna is drying up. Animals and human tribes migrate south and further south again to the forest-jungle as the new desert inexorably spreads after them. But the forest itself will not let them enter. The trees and vines come alive and kill any humans who venture among them. This is apparently because the forest gods – Kwaee, king of the gods who looks like an anthropomorphized leopard; Asubonten, the giant crocodile goddess of the rivers; Atetea, the little ant god; and many others – have turned against them. Most of the forest gods blame the humans for turning to Ogya, the powerful god of fire and destruction, and becoming his worshippers. But Kwaee, sulking on his forest throne, isn’t doing anything about it. Kwaee doesn’t even believe in the Fire Bringers (humans).

Doto, Kwaee’s son who also looks like an anthro leopard, worries that his father is abdicating his responsibility by ignoring the desert’s spread. When Doto begs Kwaee to Do Something, Kwaee angrily orders Doto to capture a Fire Bringer if they’re real.

The forest gods’ story is intermixed with that of two young human brothers whose tribe has slowly been pushed from the shrinking savanna to the edges of Africa’s forest-jungle. Clay and Laughing Dog, the second and third sons of their tribal ruler, hold different beliefs: Clay worships the tribe’s traditional animal gods, while Laughing Dog is an atheist. Clay is captured by Doto and dragged into the forest-jungle to be presented to Kwaee, who will almost certainly kill him.

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April 13, 2016

Over Time, by Kyell Gold – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

Over Time, by Kyell Gold. Illustrated by Rukis and Kenket.
St. Paul, MN, Sofawolf Press, January 2016, hardcover $39.95 (432 pages), trade paperback $19.95 ([5] + 376 [+ 2] pages), Kindle $9.99.

overtimeOver Time is a romance novel intended for an adult audience only and contains some explicit sexual scenes of a primarily Male/Male nature. It is not for sale to persons under the age of 18. (publisher’s advisory)

Over Time is the final volume in this series; Out of Position Book 5. It’s hard to write a meaningful review of this Book 5 alone without covering all the background. If you’re familiar with the first four novels – Out of Position (January 2009), Isolation Play (January 2011), Divisions (January 2013), and Uncovered (July 2014) – you’ve probably already gotten this Book 5. If you’re not, you’ll do better to read all five in the proper order. They’re all five worth it.

They’re also all very homoerotic, with explicit gay m/m sex scenes. They are about two young men (who happen to be a tiger and a red fox) falling in love and going through considerable lovemaking with all the erect penises and the sticky bodily fluids, as they go through life. Kyell Gold is a prize-winning, top-quality author, and these five novels are so well-written that you will be caught up in the lives of Devlin Miski (the tiger) and Wiley “Lee” Farrel (the fox), even if you don’t care for the gay sex scenes. Or even if you don’t care for football – there are also many scenes of explicit extended football action.

The five novels are narrated in the first person by Dev and Lee, in mostly alternating chapters. In the first book, Out of Position, Dev and Lee are adolescent seniors at Forester University. Dev is a cornerback on the university’s football team, and Lee is a gay activist. Dev has a one-night stand with what seems to be a sexy vixen who turns out to be Lee in drag. Dev realizes that his sexual orientation is gay and that he is in love with the male Lee, while Lee realizes that his practical joke on a football jock has led him to a real romance. After carrying on their romance in secrecy, the novel ends with Dev publicly “coming out of the closet”; the first football player to do so. (Out of Position was published several years before the first admittedly gay football player in real life.)

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April 11, 2016

Fred Patten Presents: What the Well-Read Furry Should Read – early 2016 Update

by Pup Matthias

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

Back in September 2015, Fred Patten gave us his list of anthropomorphic books Furries should read, all of which he has reviewed. But even that list only scratches the surface. So after many months, Fred gives us an update featuring over 100 new entries, listed by author and title, plus over 20 special articles he has written during that time. Enjoy sinking your teeth and claws into some new reading obsessions. For those who missed out, here’s the original including Fred’s Top Ten.

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March 10, 2016

Windfall, by Tempe O’Kun – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

windfallWindfall, by Tempe O’Kun. Illustrated by Slate.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, July 2015, trade paperback $19.95 (325 pages), electronic edition $9.95.

This is a mature content book.  Please ensure that you are of legal age to purchase this material in your state or region. (publisher’s advisory)

It has been six months since the popular TV series Strangeville was cancelled after five seasons. The cast has split up and gone their own ways. For Max Saber (husky) and Kylie Bevy (otter), teenage supporting actors who played a high-school boy & girl on the series, this has meant returning to their homes across America. Yet they have remained in touch through texting, and after six months, both are wondering whether their TV romance might have been more serious than they realized. When Max, on his parents’ Montana ranch, gets an invitation from Kylie to spend a three-week vacation in her old New England town of Windfall – the town that the creepy, surrealistic Strangeville was modelled upon – he takes it. Yep, their romance is real. So is the horror of Windfall.

As readers of my reviews know, I don’t think much of funny-animal novels in which the characters are really humans with superficial animal features. But Windfall presents them in depth. There are constant mentions of fur, wagging tails, perked or drooping ears, the female otters’ whiskers and webbed paws. A teen rhino fan asks Max to autograph his horn. “The otter threaded her tail through the hole in the [car] seat and popped the key into the ignition.” (p. 41) Max calls Kylie “rudderbutt”. Some of it is occasionally anthro-specific, as when Kylie finds a deer’s skull while she and Max are camping in the woods:

“She knew that [the deer had been feral]. The eyes were too far to the sides and the neck attached at the wrong angle, leaving little room for the brain. Still it looked enough like a sapient deer’s skull to give her the creeps.” (p. 57)

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March 4, 2016

Secrets of Bearhaven, Book One, by K. E. Rocha – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

9780545813037Secrets of Bearhaven, Book One, by K. E. Rocha. Illustrated by Ross Dearsley.
NYC, Scholastic Press, January 2016, hardcover $14.99 (242 [+4] pages), Kindle $9.24.

Here is the first novel in another talking-animal series for 8-to-12s. 11-year-old Spencer Plain has grown up immersed in bears. His parents, Shane and Jane Plain (well, some parents do give their children goofy names), are bear activists; wildlife specialists devoted to bears and founders of Paws for Peace. They know all about bears and have taught Spencer all about them. They give presentations on bears to the public. But Spencer has never lived with bears – not in nature, or in a secret bear civilization in the forest; a high-tech society where the bears have communicators around their necks that translate their growls into English. He has never imagined working with bears to rescue his parents from human villains.

The book begins at a breakneck pace:

“Roooaaaaaarrr!

Spencer Plain raced through the forest, his heart pounding. He dodged trees and skidded across patches of slick moss, trying desperately not to fall. Now was not the time to fall.

There was a bear behind him.” (p. 1)

Or this:

“‘What’s going on, Uncle Mark?’ Spencer said, his voice coming out too high and a little shaky. ‘I talked to Mom and Dad this morning, and they were fine.’ It was one o’clock now. How could so much have changed in only seven hours?

‘Same here,’ said Uncle Mark, slowing the car to idle at a red light. ‘But then I got a message from your mom around eleven, and I haven’t been able to get in touch since.’

‘What kind of message?’ Spencer asked. He looked out the window, trying to get his bearings, but they were stopped at an intersection in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the middle of a long stretch of brownstones. None of them offered any clues.

‘Your parents made an important plan a long time ago, Spence. Your mom’s message today was that I should put that plan in motion …’ The light turned green and Uncle Mark shifted into gear, quickly pulling ahead of a garbage truck. ‘So here we are. In motion.’

‘What important plan?’

‘I’m taking you to a safe place,’ Uncle Mark answered.” (pgs. 10-12)

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March 1, 2016

The Cockroaches of Stay More, by Donald Harington – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

CockroachesOfStayMoreThe Cockroaches of Stay More, by Donald Harington.
San Diego, CA, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, March 1989, hardcover $19.95 (337 pages).

“One time not too long ago on a beginning of night in the latter part of May, a middle-aged gent was walking homeward along the forest path from Roamin Road to the village of Carlott, behind Holy House in the valley of Stainmoor or Stay More. The six gitalongs that carried him were rickety, and there was a meandering to his gait that gave a whole new meaning to the word Periplaneta. This wanderer gave a smart nod, as if in agreement to a command, though no one had spoken to him yet. His wings were not folded neatly across his back and were neither tidy nor black but flowzy and brownish. Presently he was met by a plump parson whose wings were very black and long and trim like the tails of a coat, and who was humming a hymn, ‘The Old Shiny Pin.’

‘Morsel, Reverend,’ said the flowzy gent, and spat, marking his space.” (pg. 1)

Donald Harington was a prize-winning regional author who built his literary career on writing about the backwoods Ozark area of Arkansas. He specialized in the small rural communities that were never large to start with, and that have dwindled since to ghost towns; one of his best-known books is the non-fiction travelogue Let Us Build a City: Eleven Lost Towns (1986). He set more than ten novels in the fictional village of Stay More, Arkansas, chronicling its rise and decline over a hundred-and-fifty-year period. All except this one have featured Stay More’s human inhabitants. In The Cockroaches of Stay More, it has become a complete ghost town except for two human recluses – and hundreds of cockroaches.

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February 29, 2016

Birdsong: A Story in Pictures, by James Sturm – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

birdsongBirdsong: A Story in Pictures, by James Sturm. Illustrated.
NYC, TOON Books, April 2016, hardcover $12.95 (60 pages).

This is my first furry book review of a little wordless picture book (9” x 6”) for pre-schoolers. Two thoughtless young children are playing warriors in a forest. The boy attacks a red bird singing in a tree. Wounded, the bird slowly flies up into a mountain, slowly enough that the children can follow it. They climb until the reach a cave inhabited by an angry hermit. The hermit magically transforms their bodies into monkeys. The children are captured and become a circus marvel: “They Read! They Write! Chimps Or Children?” Eventually (the implication is that several months pass) the circus owner gives them their freedom. They build a house in the trees. When they see another red bird, they do not disturb it.

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February 27, 2016

2040: Reconnection; a “Thousand Tales” Story, by Kris Schnee – book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

20402040: Reconnection; a “Thousand Tales” Story, by Kris Schnee. Illustrated.
Seattle, WA, CreateSpace, December 2015, trade paperback $4.99 (86 pages), Kindle $0.99.

This thin booklet is not a sequel to Schnee’s Thousand Tales: How We Won the Game (CreateSpace, June 2015), but it is set in the same world. Or rather Ludo’s world.

Ludo is the advanced Artificial Intelligence who can scan anyone’s brain and recreate it in “her” fantasy world, in the setting and body of their choice. Handsome men and beautiful women, noble warriors, flying griffins, anthropomorphic animals; anything, living in an ancient Greek or medieval European or sci-fi futuristic paradise. Of course, their original body in 2040 A.D. Earth is dead, and the consequences of this back on Earth may be unknown, but who in Ludo’s world cares?

Alma does. She’d been an old man dying painfully from cancer:

“She’d signed over her modest estate to Ludo in return for having her cancer-infected brain slowly diced, analyzed and recreated as software. As each chunk of brain matter got sheared away she’d lost parts of her memories, her senses, only to have them come back from that terrifying void. She’d gone blind in the surgical room, then seen test patterns and finally the vibrant colors of the digital world. The ruling AI’s voice had asked her, incidentally, what sort of body she wanted once the process was complete.

As an old man whose flesh was incurably ruined and destroying itself horribly, Alma had begged to become something different.” (p. 1)

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