For most of his wizarding life, Simon Canopus Artyle lived in the same splendid little house that was nestled up against the trunk of a giant tree. The tree was an Ephaian Oak, only it was much larger than any normal Ephaian Oak should be, having grown to its inordinate size due to the fact that Simon had spent over two centuries living in proximity to it, and magic flowed through Simon more readily than it did most people, including other wizards. When a wizard lives anywhere, though, giant tree or no, a full-fledged community typically grows up around them within five or six decades, since, as a general rule, a wizard is a very good thing for any town to have (and after this happens, most wizards decide against packing up and leaving, since the inevitable will inevitably happen again, and most simply can’t be bothered to make the effort anyway). (p. 1)

This opening paragraph indicates the leisurely, relaxed style in which Frane presents this somewhat Georgian anthropomorphic comedy of manners. Simon Artyle, a fox wizard of a couple of centuries (although he looks to be only twenty-nine or thirty), is a reader, a lover of books and libraries, to such a degree that other wizards have made him their Grand Historian of Magic, Wizarding, and Spellcraft.

“The Peculiar Quandary of Simon Canopus Artyle”, by Kevin Frane. Illustrated by XianJaguar.
FurPlanet Productions, June 2010, trade paperback $9.95 (vii + 78 pages; also at Amazon).

Since it’s the month of Halloween, now is a good time to review Clive Barker’s dark fantasy/horror novel Sacrament. Barker is a well-known horror novelist; perhaps not to Stephen King’s level, but if anything more respected by fans of the genre.

Sacrament is, like most horror stories, unusual. It deals with endangered animals and extinction, and I suppose it could be called a bit “green,” but that’s not why it’s of interest to furries. Lord Fox lurks in the pages of Sacrament, and he’s a different kind of furry fox, but strangely familiar.

One thing I’ve noticed about Nintendo products is that they last a long time. I’m not talking about the timeless aspect of the games, though there is that, too. I’m talking about the products. My old Nintendo 64 still works. So does my copy of Star Fox 64.

Star Fox 64 3D for the Nintendo 3DS is therefore one of the most redundant video game purchases I could possibly make, but is it a worthwhile purchase?

In a nutshell, if you have a working Nintendo 64 with a working Star Fox 64 cartridge, no, actually. If you don’t, though, it might be worth it.

A chicken known as J-Lo because she was born with two rear-ends has been killed by a fox, ocala.com reports. The chicken – who had a large backside covered by white feathers – become a national sensation when news of her double lady-lumps spread over the Web.

As reported by the Ocala Star-Banner:

The couple brushed the feathers away and found two pubic regions, spaced about two inches apart. Typically, there is one such region in the center with a single orifice.

J-Lo was previously in the news in January, when her owners brought forth the extraordinary clucker. Even Jay Leno cracked a joke as the double-bottomed chicken went viral.

We bid ye farewell, J-Lo. You just had too much junk in your trunk to be in this world for long.

I may be the only one in the world to say this, but I hope the next Star Fox – assuming there is one – has less flying.

Let me explain.

Surprising no one, Nintendo announced at this year’s E3 that it will release a new Super Smash Bros. for its forthcoming Wii U console. The fighting series includes furry Nintendo characters such as Fox McCloud and Lucario, plus guest character Sonic the Hedgehog.

Series creator Masahiro Sakurai has not ruled out the possibility of a release on the 3DS, which would be the first installment of the series on a handheld video game system.

The game or games, though definitely coming to at least the Wii U, are not yet in production. Sakurai’s studio, Sora, is currently working on the 3DS game Kid Icarus: Uprising, and may defer Super Smash Bros. until its completion, giving furry gamers plenty of time to petition for inclusion of their favorite characters.

In the Arctic there has been a change in the distribution of both red and arctic foxes. Red foxes have expanded their territory to the North as the climate has warmed, at the expense of arctic foxes.

Due to a lack of observations of interactions between the two fox species, biologists have been unsure whether the loss of arctic fox territory was due to direct competition, or if they were indirectly competing for the same food. Rodnikova et al have now reported observing a red fox intruding upon a arctic fox den in 2007.

While most animals prefer a ground-level existence, it appears some foxes enjoy the high life. Animal control experts disapprove, as the BBC reports:

We explained to him that if foxes were meant to be 72 storeys off the ground, they would have evolved wings

Construction of the Shard is scheduled for completion before the 2012 Olympics. When finished, it will be the tallest building in the European Union.

A recently published paper, covered in an article on PhysOrg, discusses the discovery of foxes buried along with humans in ancient graves, and moots the possibility that foxes – not dogs – may have been the animal first domesticated as pets by humankind.

A pair of foxes are minor celebrities in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, after being found hanging out on the roof of a home. They didn't seem to mind the curious visitors that came to see them, and even mated in front of them at one point. Courtesy: CBCT-TV (CBC Charlottetown) and WDIV-TV Local 4 (ClickOnDetroit.com)

In an ironic twist of fate that seems straight out of fiction, a hunter in the Eastern European country of Belarus was reportedly shot with his own gun by a fox he was hunting.

The "fantastic" fox involved happened to pull the trigger of the hunter's rifle at the right moment, when the hunter tried to finish it off with the butt of the rifle. The hunter is recovering in a hospital from a gunshot wound to the leg, while the fox, though previously injured in the ordeal, has retreated to the woods.

CNN photojournalist Giaco Riggs took a few pictures of a Red Fox in pursuit of squirrels on Capitol Hill last Friday.

"It just showed up and was hunting a squirrel," Riggs was quoted by CNN as saying. "When he showed up, all the other squirrels ran away. When the fox went away, all the squirrels came back."

The creators of a widely reported video of urban fox-hunting in London's Victoria Park now claim it was a hoax, the Guardian reports.

The group set up a blog, "Urban Fox Hunters", and posted videos on YouTube seeming to depict a hunt. But the foxes shown were not killed – instead, a dog with a fox pelt attached was chased down the streets by the bat-wielding hoaxers.

The media response was intense in the wake of a recent fox attack. Several groups offered significant rewards to identify those in the video.

The Mayor of London has called for a focus on pest control after a reported fox attack in the London borough of Hackney left twin nine-month girls hospitalized.

According to urban wildlife expert John Bryant, such attacks are extremely rare, and a recent poll by the University of Bristol found 65.7% households in favour of urban foxes, which number around 33,000 in the UK (as compared to 225,000 adult rurual foxes).

No such luck for the Alaotra Grebe, recently reported extinct by conservation experts. The birds – which made their homes on Lake Alaotra in Madagascar – are believed to be victims of a combination of poaching, the introduction of carnivorous fish and other invasive species, and the use of monofilament nylon gill-nets for fishing.