GeneStorm Book 2, Fort Dandelion, by Paul Kidd – Book review by Fred Patten.

by Patch O'Furr

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

GeneStorm. Book 2, Fort Dandelion, by Paul Kidd
Raleigh, NC, Lulu.com/Perth, Western Australia, Kitsune Press, 11/2015, trade PB $23.11 (347 pages), Kindle $7.95.

Gene Storm: Fort Dandelion follows closely after Book 1, City in the Sky. It is also “set in the Australian ‘weird-lands’ 150 years after the GeneStorm plague has transformed the world entirely. Everyone is a mutated hybrid. The protagonist is Snapper, a female half-human, half-shark. She rides a giant cocatoo,” as I said about Book 1. See the cover, unsigned but presumably also by Kalahari. Or this from the first page:

“Jemima Haversham Greyfin – known to all and sundry as ‘Snapper’ – pushed back her helmet and gazed lovingly off towards the south, towards the far off ruins. She patted the neck of her great pink riding cocatoo and dragged in a breath, savouring the rich, alien scents in the air.” (p, 5)

Other major characters include Kitterpokie, a female giant mantis with four arms (two with hands, two with pincers); Beau, a fox/golden pheasant hybrid; Throckmorton, a conglomeration of green, leafy flying plants with three pairs of wings, plus vines with heads that resemble pink and orange flowers and that carry a notebook, a crossbow, and a squeeze-powered air horn; and Sparkle, a massive crocodile/wild boar/rat hybrid. I could fill this review just describing all the minor characters, many of which have to be imagined to be believed.

Snapper and the first four are residents of Spark Town, a Wild West-type settlement isolated in a deep valley, somewhere in what was Australia before the collapse of civilization in the GeneStorm that mutated everyone into a hybrid of human and god-knows-what – no two alike — 150 years before. This was several hundred years in our future, as is obvious by the ruins of giant holograms, fusion reactors, aerodynes, and the like. Spark Town and the villages around it have been cut off from the rest of the world by the mountainous walls of the valley plus swaths of deadly radiation, until the events in City in the Sky.

Typewriter Emergencies, Edited By Weasel – Book Review By Fred Patten

by puppoppa

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

Typewriter Emergencies, 2015 Edition [edited by Weasel]
Manvel, TX, Weasel Press, October 2015, trade paperback $16.95 (179 pages), Kindle $3.99.

The blurb says, “Welcome to the first release of Typewriter Emergencies, a collection of psychologically damaging and hard hitting furry literature.” The implication is that this is the first of an ongoing series of furry stories that the blurb goes on to describe as “gut-wrenching”. “Weasel Press is proud to have our first furry collection on the books and we hope you will enjoy every moment this intense anthology has to offer.”

The 13 stories, with a cover by Kala “Miryhis” Quinn, are a quality mixed-bag of tales by furry veteran authors, non-furry writers who are nonetheless experienced authors, and at least one new writer. Several are examples of experimental writing.

“The Dying Game” by Amethyst Mare shows this in its second line. “Great Britain crawled into December like a raindrop tricking down glass.” (p. 9) Heather Rees, a “young, two-legged palomino equine”, seems determined to be miserable. “The bridge was crusty with moss and lichen, the green and yellow reminding her of disease ridden flesh, something that ate away at the outside of a fur while the inside lost the will to live.” The writing emphasizes a “gut-wrenching” vocabulary. “Cars on the road to her right snarled past, lifting her straightened mane up from her neck and into her face in a rush of angry air.” (p. 10) Heather is on her way to see Mikey, a young cat lover who has been horribly maimed by a passing train. “Michael had done no wrong. He had only been spraying graffiti. Where was the harm in that?” Well … “Michael had to be all right for her. He could live without an arm or a leg. He had to.” Notice that Michael has to be all right for her. The story is a blend of poetic wordplay (“Outside, the sky dipped its paintbrush into the grey-blue that was twilight, drawing a fresh scene across its daily canvas.”) and “psychologically damaging” descriptions, such as Michael’s hospital bed’s “sickly green curtain”, his husky nurse’s “clinical smile permanently fixed on her face [that] never reached her eyes”, and Heather’s mare mother screaming at her (ignoring the hospital’s rule for quiet) for wasting her time at Michael’s bedside instead of earning money at her job.

Fur fun in video and photo – gypsy bears and Chewbacca’s sex roar. NEWSDUMP (12/21/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com. 

Midwest Furfest 2015 – More than 5,000 gather in Chicago. (Via Furrymedia.)

The International Business Times has tons of great fursuit photos. You may find a few more in a slideshow from the same Reuters photographer. Enjoy a con video from Vox Fox and a music video from Kiba Wolf.

Buzzfeed’s worst of 2015, Furry Chic in 2016, and Fred’s birthday. NEWSDUMP (12/18/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com. 

Fred Patten’s birthday was December 11 – Happy 75th, Fred!

Read an interview with Fred about the founding of Furry fandom, by esteemed novelist Phil Geusz.  Thanks Fred for bringing so much content that helps Dogpatch Press to put out Furry News every week day.  Sorry that this went out too late to share Furplanet’s weekend birthday discount sale for Fred’s titles.  But check them out:

• The Ursa Major Awards Anthology
• What Happens Next (anthology)
• Five Fortunes (anthology)
• Anthropomorphic Aliens (anthology)
• The Furry Future (anthology)
• An Anthropomorphic Century (anthology)

“Accidental Guests of the Midwest Fur Fest” – outsider appreciation gets viral views.

This personal blog post got lots of love.  The Healthy Not Nuts blog covers a husband and wife’s thoughts on recipes, diet, health and photography.  It’s lovely when Furries add spice to the mundane!  “…how can you not love these creatures that look so cute, cuddly and happy all of the time?”  The post earned 267 comments.  The writer shared an appreciation letter for the post, where he mentioned getting over 20,000 views.

Furries in Buzzfeed’s “The 50 Worst Things On The Internet In 2015.” (NSFW)

Use this archive link (so they get no incentive to publish unforgivable crap).  Furries are in items 14, 20, 31, and 46.  There’s also bonus bronies, puppy and pony players. Whether it’s love or hate, at least things are never boring…

Goodbye to Furnation.

Furnation was one of the first visible Web presences for Furry fandom. It helped many to discover their fursonas in the 1990’s. Reddit calls it “the end of an era.” Flayrah gave it a feature under it’s tag for collected coverage. Social network Furrtrax made a generous offer of free hosting to keep it online.  I tried helping, but got the feeling that Furnation’s admin was too burnt out with health problems to devote an ounce of effort for community moderation. I also assume the build of the site might be antiquated and burdensome (perhaps technical, or with copyright for content built by individuals.) It’s influence lives on in places like FurPlanet (formed from Furnation Magazine), one of the 3 main Furry publishers.

The Necromouser and Other Magical Cats, by Mary E. Lowd – Book Review By Fred Patten

by puppoppa

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

The Necromouser and Other Magical Cats, by Mary E. Lowd.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, September 2015, trade paperback $9.95 (131 pages), Kindle $6.99.

This collection of 13 cat short stories by Mary E. Lowd contains nine reprints and four original tales. It also contains all of her popular “Shreddy” stories, including a new one written just for this collection; six in all.

Shreddy is an overweight tabby housecat; one of three pets – the other two are Cooper, a moronic labradoodle, and Susie, an idiotic spaniel — of a Red-Haired Woman enamored of electrical devices that she doesn’t really understand. Shreddy would undoubtedly take exception to being called a “pet”. He is an independent individual who just happens to share a house with her and her brain-dead, slobbery dogs. He is constantly in a battle of wits with the Red-Haired Woman (which she doesn’t notice), using her electrical devices (that he doesn’t understand, either). Whether Shreddy is using the Red-Haired Woman’s printer to reanimate dead mice (“The Necromouser”), using her smartphone’s games to bring deceased mice (“‘Brains!’ they all squeaked back in chorus”) and neighborhood dogs back from the dead as zombies (“Shreddy and the Zomb-Dogs”), using a TV dish to hatch a griffin’s egg (“Shreddy and the Silver Egg”), dueling with Whisperquick, the ghost mouse (“Shreddy watched with eyes dilated like a kitten high on catnip, wondering whether the Red-Haired Woman and the dogs could see the ornaments constantly rearranging themselves. Surely the Red-Haired Woman must notice that one of her Santa ornaments was wearing six hats while five others went hatless?”) for control over a plastic-&-metal Christmas tree (“Shreddy and the Christmas Ghost”), inadvertently entering a PlayCube (“Shreddy and the Dancing Dragon”), or coming to an accommodation with a Venus flytrap with a sweet tooth (“Shreddy and the Carnivorous Plant”), Shreddy is always determined to defend his turf, even if it almost kills him.