Anthropomorphic? Noooo … But how can you not like an animated TV movie about “‘Swami Ayyappan’, based on the life story of a boy ‘Manikandan’ who became one with God worshipped by millions”?

That is on Indian TV, of course. Animation Xpress for 2 July reports that,

Swami Ayyappan is slated to premier on national TV channels and subsequently distributed as DVDs during the upcoming Sabarimala season in various languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu & Kannada. [What, no Hindi?]

Sabarimala is a place of pilgrimage that welcomes devotees irrespective of religion, caste or creed. [Not many Christians, I’ll bet.]

Ted is the first movie directed by Seth MacFarlane, most known for his role in creating the hit animated sitcom, Family Guy. I am not a fan.

The sad fact is that a lot of people are in fact fans, and yes, I believe that that is a sad fact. To be clear, I am not down on gross-out humor, and can enjoy it as well as anyone else. Heck, I have done standup comedy, and such gags were a standard part of my sets. Gross-out humor is not my problem with this movie.

The problem is it is pretty much exactly what I expected. It is probably exactly what you expected, too. So, if you expect to like this movie, go on and get your ticket. If not, you can pretend to be a snob with me and the other cool kids, okay?

Before Transformations and More Terrible Than Chains, so much more happened. Learn about one chakat family’s lives and customs, loves and hates, friends and foes. Join with us as Chakat Forestwalker recounts tales of hir experiences and those of hir family and friends. (back-cover blurb)

Melbourne Furry fan Bernard Doove has been writing his chakat stories on his website “The Chakat’s Den” since 1995. Beginning in 2006 he began compiling his short stories into books, starting with Transformations, Jazmyn, and More Terrible Than Chains, which were story arcs that made separate novels. Now Doove has returned to his earliest stories, which did not.

Forest Tales contains the first twenty-seven stories in that series, redubbed “episodes”, written between 1995 and 2002. There are many more, but the series breaks easily at this point. Doove is the primary author, although four of the twenty-seven were written in collaboration with other authors, and one is written by Christian Neumann.

CreateSpace, May 2010, trade paperback $25.95 (466 pages; illustrated); e-book $16.99.

Pixar’s newest movie, Brave, is about a princess who turns her mother into a bear. I have a problem with Pixar, and in reviewing Brave, I would like to get up on a soapbox for a bit and explain that problem.

Many people really like Pixar movies, and think they are the best thing to happen to animation since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but I still have my problem.

That said, Brave deserves to be judged on its merits as a movie first, an animated movie second, and as a Pixar movie last of all.

Tristan Black Wolf, a resident of Syracuse, NY, is a member of the Furry Writers’ Guild and of North American Fur, and has stories in both volumes to date of Allasso, the “publication dedicated to finding new experiences within anthropomorphic writing and art.” The Man With Two Shadows is his first novel.

Jeremiah Pym is a modern private investigator, not the stereotypical hard-boiled, trench-coated PI of fiction. He has a modern office and undertakes typical p.i. tasks, such as getting evidence on unfaithful spouses.

There are days when being a private investigator can feel a little awkward. When a woman comes to you, convinced that her husband is throwing away money on some other woman, you expect her to refer to the other woman as a ‘bitch.’ What would make this interview particularly interesting is that the bitch in question happened to be a greyhound. (p. 1)

Mrs. Lindenbaum is so happy that her husband has been spending his money on dog-racing gambling instead of a floozy that she pays Pym’s bill cheerfully. Pym’s next client is another matter, and where things start to become a little strange.

AuthorHouse, March 2012, trade paperback $19.95 (viii + 244 [+ 2] pages; on Amazon).

Alright, my first time at bat as an Ursa Major movie pundit worked out, as Kung Fu Panda 2's win put me at three for three predicting the movie awards I set out to predict. Read on for my reaction to the awards and my first guess at next year’s nominees and winner.

The 42nd anniversary of San Francisco Pride happened this weekend. People from all over the world filled the city to celebrate. It was too large and fabulous for words, so I can only personally comment about fursuiting at some street parties. There was no organized furry event or mission, just a good opportunity to wear a costume.

The last organized furry participation was a float in the 2005 Pride parade, arranged via BAF and its mailing list. (I heard that there was some negligible drama about connecting furries + LGBT, but it stayed internal, with positive reactions elsewhere.) Due to logistics and cost, it hasn't reoccurred.

However, one of the organizers posted on Facebook: "The SF Pride committee bugs me every year to bring the Furries back, and that's just what I am going to do for 2013! That's right, for the 2013 pride parade there will be a Furry float!" (Yay!)

Isiah sits down with Kyell Gold to discuss his latest novel, recently reviewed by Fred Patten.
Isiah's comments and questions are not to be taken seriously.

Isiah Jacobs: Welcome back to the show, Kyell! It's nice to have you back!

Kyell Gold: It's a pleasure to be back!

Isiah Jacobs: So, your first publication for the year was back in March, with the release of Green Fairy. I assume it's a story about a gay environmentalist?

Kyell Gold: That's an excellent guess, but most people think about absinthe first, especially with the theme of FWA being "Moulin Rouge".

Isiah Jacobs: In fact, half of Green Fairy takes place at the Rouge.

Kyell Gold: A little less than half, but yes.

Isiah Jacobs: But your story and the convention wasn't the only things with the Rouge-like themes. Rukis also came out with Red Lantern AND both your story and hers were released at FWA. So that's triple the dose of Moulin Rouge, AND you were both guests of honor. Was all of this planned?

The first line in this science-fiction novel is: “When I woke up, surrounded by talking dog-people, it was clear we’d strayed pretty far from the mission parameters.” (p. v) There are a talking chimpanzee in a smoking jacket, cravat, and pin-striped trousers; a gigantic lion with a hairless human head; and a robot in the form of a silvery-mercury metallic eagle in the first scene. Furry, no. Anthropomorphic science-fiction, yes.

Captain Ramachandra Jason Stone is a 22nd century spaceman, the captain of Wayfarer One, the first interstellar spaceship launched to travel to Alpha Centauri. The crew is put into cryogenic suspension for the forty-three year voyage, but something goes wrong.

The Wayfarer One is not found and Stone revived until 12,000 years later. By then, humanity – defined as anything sentient, whether a natural life-form or an Artificial Intelligence – has spread into the Human Entelechy, a “superculture of thousands of inhabited worlds and habitats linked by the threshold network, centered roughly on Sol. There are roughly ten trillion sentients, not counting the large number of intelligences who exist as digital incarnations in virtual domains”, etc. (p. 45)

47North, May 2012, trade paperback $14.95 (vi + 343 [+ 1] pgs.), Kindle $4.99, audiobook $10.

The Unimaginable Road, a.k.a. Arraborough, Book One, begins when six wandering animals coincidentally meet in a Blackwood Forest clearing near a mysterious abandoned house, on a prairie far from the nearest town, about a mile from the cliffs over the Balaba Ocean. The animals – cousins Slick and Slither Snake, Inkwell Pig and Wild Boar (also cousins), Tust Turtle and Hillany Chicken – have all been drifting through one animal region and city after another – Ellineste, Loragin, Thilomina, Hoglarotha, Serpenton – looking for someplace where they can feel safe.

To fill the heavy silence [around the campfire], the snake with vertical green stripes and the perpetual scowl says, ‘I’m Slick. We’re cousins. We went through a pretty bad time in the spring, back in Anilton. Slither had the idea that there must be a better, safer place to live, so …’” (p. 6)

They compare depressing notes, and Slither proposes that they build their own commune, a sanctuary, right where they are.

Melange Books, June 2012, trade paperback $14.95 (188 pages), e-book $5.99.

Isiah takes a closer, in-depth look at his recent reviews.

Crossaffliction is working on a sort into categories of all Flayrah’s posts. He has started at the beginning in January 2001, and is so far through September 2004. He notes that as of that date, there are only seven Furry convention reports. “[T]hey seem to have fallen out of fashion as of late. In case you hadn't noticed.”

He is right. I have complained about the difficulty that this makes in writing a history of Furry fandom. Early s-f fans wrote convention reports of five to ten pages in their fanzines. When Sam Moskowitz wrote his history of s-f fandom in the 1930s, and Harry Warner, Jr. wrote his of s-f fandom in the 1940s, and I wrote a history of the World S-F Convention from 1939 through 1948 in 1976, we had no trouble getting information on the conventions because of the long, detailed con reports in the fanzines. But there has been little of this in Furry fandom. A Furry con report tends to be little more than, “I went to the con and I had a good time”, or, “A lot of people caught the con crud”, or posting a half dozen or so photos of unidentified Fursuiters.

To do something about this, here is my very incomplete report of CaliFur VIII just past. I hope that other attendees can add to it.

Isiah reviews The Silver Circle by Kyell Gold, after his recent interview.

Flight of the Godkin Griffin is an example of anthropomorphic literature at its best. It is told in the form of the diary of Mistress Commander Angharad Godkin, 48 years old, from the eve of her long-awaited retirement after thirty-four years in the army of the Godkindred Kingdom; at once obviously an inhuman army on another world.

Angharad has been recuperating at Fort Endgame after being wounded at the battle for Glendallia; a Pyrrhic victory in which she lost most of her cavalry unit and half of her command staff. She is just packing to leave when she is summoned to the office of the Fort’s commander:

The Mistress General hovers behind a desk, overlooking several maps and emitting a palpable air of tension. She has never elucidated her bloodlines to me, though to be named Godkin she must be the product of the interbreeding of at least ten species, as I am. In appearance, she is mostly mammalian, leaning toward genet or marten with rounded ears and a striped tail.

‘Mistress General, you wanted to see me?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says curtly. ‘Angharad Godkin, you are hereby assigned to replace the provincial governor of the newly pacified province of Shraeven, on orders of the Godson.’
My beak drops open in shock. Any soldier in the Godson’s army can retire … unless they’re on active duty.
Casandre sighs. ‘Sit, Angharad.’
I refuse. ‘I’m retiring tomorrow.’
‘Not anymore,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, Angharad, truly, but the Godson himself sent the orders. It’s time for Governor Chordwain to step down.’ (p. 3)

Sofawolf Press, June 2012, trade paperback $17.95 ([iii] + 243 pages). Illustrations, map by the author.

I was in a bad mood all day when I went to see this movie. A real bad mood.

I was looking forward to seeing it, however, because I decided it would cheer me up. I wasn't expecting it to be great and cheer me up; I expected it to be bad, and then I would get to take out all my frustrations on it in my review.

Essentially, if this movie was not the second coming of Furry Jesus, I was going to rip it a new orifice which I would then proceed to assuage my rage.

Can I even write that?

Anyway, you read the headline; this movie cheered me right up in the way I did not expect it to. By not sucking. Also, by not only not sucking, but by really not sucking a lot.