It's that time of year for all the 'Best of 2001' lists, and the science fiction world is no exception. Locus, the sci-fi industry's major news rag, has a compilation list of the Best SFFH Books of 2001, as compiled from several different sources. Take a look at it, and check out what you'll probably see appearing on next year's Hugo ballot. The New England Science Fiction Association has some suggestions, too.

It's been said many times before, but it's well worth saying again. Do not buy or adopt animals for pets during Christmas. Several shelters are holding off adoptions due to worries of pets given as gifts. Pets are even abandoned BEFORE Christmas, to make way for the new animal presents or to to avoid the difficulties of animal care at this time of year.
And it's not just dogs and cats that can be abandoned by an unprepared owner after Christmas.Ferrets, rabbits,
and other critters are left homeless too after the holidays.
What can you do instead of buying a pet for yourself or a loved one? Why not donate to an animal charity instead?

Elbow squid! Elbow squid! Elbow squid! Now that I have your attention, scientists have discovered a neat new squid species in the dark depths of the ocean. Unlike regular squid, who have eight arms and two specially adaptive "grabbing" tenticles, this creature, dubbed "Mystery squid", has ten indistinguishable arms, which project out like bicycle spokes, bend at 'elbow' points and dangle down from the squid's body for about 20 feet. That and it's huge, winglike mantle make it unique in the cephalopod world.

Scientists point out that this new discovery shows how little we know about the ecosystem and animals of our oceans.

This article

describes a very unfortunate event on a train: In Helsinki, a train's television screens started showing a very graphic animal slaughter video, repeatedly. The article reads that the video "turned out to be the conductor's home video".

My only question... what kind of person would make a home video of "Images of a big white goose-like bird being slaughtered with an axe, including a close-up of the sliced neck" and "images of a pig split in half and hung from its feet with hooks"?

The Olive Ridley turtle is heading for land at this time of year, to make the trek up beaches to lay it's eggs. But in one of their major nesting areas, thousands have been killed before even reaching the shore. Intangling fishing nets and fatal propeller injuries from illegal fishing trawlers have been responsible for an estimated 1,300 turtle deaths in the last few days.
Officals estimate many more will die before the end of the laying season, as they suspected 50,000 died last year at the same time, but feel powerless to stop illegal fishing in the area where nesting is taking place. The high casualties may drive this turtle to extinction.

Taken from alt.fan.furry, as posted by Mike Curtis: "Dan DeCarlo, creator of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH, and the ARCHIE character Cheryl Blossom, died this morning." Mr. DeCarlo was the Guest of Honor at this year's past Anthrocon. Read on for the rest of Mike Curtis' post.

After a very successful run in FURRLOUGH, TALL TAILS returns to its self-publishing roots in the form of a trade paperback now available from Dream Weaver Press.


The Collected TALL TAILS Vol. 1 collects issues 1 - 4 including the very first preview originally printed in Golden Realm's REVELATIONS. The trade is hitting comic stores as we speak and retails for $14.95.


What better place to start a story than from the beginning so hop on!


For more information or to purchase your copy online, visit the official TALL TAILS website.

From cartoonresearch.com: Internet cartoon QUEER DUCK is staging a major comeback with SHOWTIME both online and on air beginning in January.
For those who may have missed this phenomenon, five episodes of QUEER DUCK, created and written by three-time Emmy winner Mike Reiss ("The Simpsons,'' "The Critic''), premiered online on Icebox.com in October 2000.

Another furry novel list has recently made its debut on the web. The new Furry Book List is maintained by Xenia Arrick, aka Swandog.

The original, of course, is the Furry Novel List originally created by Dan Lorey and currently maintained by Dave Farrance (this is the one that gets posted to alt.fan.furry and a couple of other newsgroups twice a month).

KATU is reporting that a Portland student will not have her picture in the yearbook because she has her pet rat on her shoulder. The picture is in the article.

From cartoonresearch.com: A VH1 Press Release says:
"Ren & Stimpy,'' the classic, music-filled cartoon about a churlish Chihuahua and his brain-frazzled feline friend -- and their outre adventures with hairballs, George Liquor, rubber nipples and screamin' lederhosen -- have returned to TV every night on VH1 at midnight, all through December through New Year's Eve.

From cartoonresearch.com: If closing the Warner Bros. Studio stores wasn't bad enough...
Warner Bros. and Sanrio have entered into an agreement under which they will develop and launch co-branded merchandise featuring the popular characters Tweety and Hello Kitty.
The agreement, which calls for merchandise to be sold exclusively at Sanrio locations throughout Japan and most of Asia, is the first time industry-leading companies have partnered to develop and market a co-brand featuring their popular characters.
Merchandise featuring the new co-stars will launch in March 2002 in Japan. Click here to read the press release.

The Associated Press reports thar Seymour Reit, author, illustrator, and one of the creators of Casper the Friendly Ghost, died November 21. He was 83.

For many years Reit wrote for Archie comics and Mad magazine. In addition to several nonfiction books for adults, Reith wrote over 80 children's books, including one of the more famous books about Balto, the lead dog of a sled team that carried serum needed to end a diptheria epidemic to the town of Nome, Alaska in 1925.

Word from Don Featherstone, inventor of the pink flamingo, though The Annals of Improbable Results is that folks are trying to imitate the origional pink plastic flamingo. The gist is that if you look under the tail, and it has Don's signature cast into it, it's authentic and you should buy it. If not, it's a fake and you should boycott the makers.

Further Confusion has bad, good and even better news about our expected
visit from Kirshner this year. First the bad news; due to a scheduling
snafu that caused a double booking of our convention weekend, Kirshner
will not be able to attend with their cats.



Now the good news! We have contacted Ron Whitfield, of Marine World
Africa fame, and scheduled a visit from him and one of his gorgeous tigers
to replace the expected visit from Kirshner's tiger!