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Ep 77 – Dust off the Rust - It’s been too long! But we’re back with a new episode and some new cast members. Check in on where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to. Come meet Kiri, our new co-host, as we talk to her about her experiences in writing and ed
It’s been too long! But we’re back with a new episode and some new cast members. Check in on where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to. Come meet Kiri, our new co-host, as we talk to her about her experiences in writing and editing.
If you’re going to AnthroCon 2018, both Kiri and Ocean will be there to say hi. Also check out Claw and Tales from the Guild: World Tour, new books coming out at AC from FurPlanet.
Ep 77 – Dust off the Rust - It’s been too long! But we’re back with a new episode and some new cast members. Check in on where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to. Come meet Kiri, our new co-host, as we talk to her about her experiences in writing and editing.The Great & the Small, by A. T. Balsara – Book Review by Fred Patten
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
The Great & the Small, by A. T. Balsara. Illustrated by the author.
London, Ontario, Common Deer Press, August 2017, hardcover, $31.99 (287 [+ 4] pages), Kindle $4.99.
Don’t be scared off by the price. There is also a trade paperback for $14.99. And most of you will get the Kindle edition, anyway.
The Great & the Small begins with a bustling marketplace scene:
“… in the weak December sun, the harbour city’s popular market was bustling with people looking for last minute presents. Middle-Gate Market was festive with its potted evergreen trees and strands of blinking coloured lights. Shiny red balls trembled on the boughs of the tinsel-dressed pinks as salt air gusted up the hill from the sea below and rattled the lights against the rafters where they were strung.
Watching over all of this, under the faux Gothic clock, stood Middle-Gate’s most famous tourist attraction: a brass statue modeled after the gargoyles of Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral. The monster stood on guard, a five-foot winged beast that stood meekly by while tourists thronged around it, snapped selfies, and rubbed the creature’s flared nostrils for luck.” (p. 9)
Then dips beneath it:
“That was the side of the market the tourists saw and the locals loved. They had no idea of the other side, the one that lay below. A distinct world, with its own ways, its own rules: a colony of rats.
Tunnels wound underneath the hill, tooth-carved thoroughfares, veiled from the eyes of humans. There were tunnels high up and tunnels below that snaked deep into the hill’s belly.
The Uppers were dug alongside the city’s swanky cafés and eateries, and food was never far away. But lower down the hill, below the heart of the market, it was different. Tangles of narrow tunnels limped through broken pipes, leaking sewers, and sodden earth, connecting scores of foul smelling, crumbling burrows.
No rat lived in the Lowers by choice. Except one, that is.” (ibid.)
This novel tells two connecting stories; that of the subterranean rats, focusing upon Fin, the young cousin of the rat community’s Beloved Chairman; and that of the aboveground humans, focusing upon young Ananda Blake, a schoolgirl who happens to be the daughter of Thomas Blake, a cancer researcher who experiments on rats.
The Great & the Small appears to be a macabre tale of naïveté leading inexorably to tragedy. It consists of many short chapters of four to a dozen pages, each introduced by a quotation from one of the journals of the Black Death:
“And now disaster is at hand…”
Gabriele de’ Mussis, lawyer, Italy, 1348
“A staggering number of people died…
In many towns only two people out of twenty survived.”
Jean de Venette, Carmelite friar, 1359-60
The implication is that modern civilization will be wiped out by a new Black Death, and that the rats will spread it deliberately; not knowing – or not caring – that it will wipe them out, too.
This germ warfare seems almost to be justified at first, through numerous examples of the humans’ mistreatment of the rats:
“Fin hunched, quaking in the corner of the box. Fish heads cascaded onto him as the box flaps were torn back. The two-leg was monstrous. It spied Fin, and its mouth gaped open in a roar, teeth bared. Its eyes bulged, red-veined and popping. It swung its arm down hard. Fin dived to one side. A knife whooshed over his head.
Again, the knife swung down. Fin leaped out of the box, onto the two-leg’s bare arm. He vaulted of, soaring through the air, and landed on the pavement. His lame paw bent under his weight. He fell, sprawling.” (p. 16)
Ananda, who seems to be a junior-high student, is having an equally hard time:
The bell rang, bringing Ananda back into the present moment. Looking down at her notebook, she saw that she had doodled the rat at the market. She ripped the paper off and bunched it up, gathered her books and, head down, beelined out the door.
Chris was waiting for her. He bumped her arm and scattered her books. ‘Hey, Rat-Girl!’ he said. His cronies snickered behind her.” (pgs. 44-45)
When the novel isn’t quoting journals of the Black Death, it is quoting Josef Stalin, identified as one of the biggest mass-murderers in history. Fin’s uncle being identified as the Beloved Chairman of the rats gives away that he, like Stalin, is not the kindly leader that he pretends to be. Fin discovers rats being experimented upon by Ananda’s father and wants to help them, but his uncle uses their suffering for his own plans:
“Fin said, ‘Papa! Please! I need to speak!’
Bothwell whirled around, his cheeks puffed out. ‘Oi! I am your superior, my lad!’
Fin pushed by him. ‘Oh shut up! Papa! Rats are dying! They’re dying while we sit around scratching our fleas and talking about… about nothing!’ He burst into tears. ‘They can’t escape. They’ve tried and they can’t. A two-leg has them trapped, and –’
‘Silence!’ said Papa again.
Fin looked up, startled. His uncle gazed down at him from the carved platform.
‘Lesson Number One: ‘There will always be those who die. For the Common Good, we who lead must rise above emotion.’” (pgs. 89-90)
The Great & the Small (cover by the author) is a Young Adult novel. It is a grim novel, full of suffering and death. Will anyone survive, human or rat? Read it to find out.
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Tennis, the Good Boy
Guys, Leave These Ladies ALONE!
Previews made us aware of a new comic series from Image called Maneaters, written by Chelsea Cain. In an interview, here’s how she describes it: “Maneaters is a monster story about women who turn into ferocious killer wildcats when they get their periods. They are very scary and dangerous and extremely grumpy. Naturally their unprovoked attacks cause a great deal of societal consternation, and measures are taken to help the women control themselves.” Got that? With art by Kate Niemczyk and Rachelle Rosenberg, the first issue pounces on the shelves in September.
image c. 2018 Image Comics
S7 Episode 16 – Straight Lines, In Order, Paws Down - Roo and Tugs are joined by Buck Riley, musician extraordinaire, to discuss his lifelong challenges with Autism Spectrum Disorder. What is it like? What changed when you found out? How does it affect yo
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Lygris S7 Episode 16 – Straight Lines, In Order, Paws Down - Roo and Tugs are joined by Buck Riley, musician extraordinaire, to discuss his lifelong challenges with Autism Spectrum Disorder. What is it like? What changed when you found out? How does it affect yo
The Adventures of Peter Gray, by Nathan Hopp
The Adventures of Peter Gray (Written Dreams Publishing, $16.99) is the first novel by Nathan Hopp. It's told from the perspective of the titular Peter Gray, a young wolf living on the streets of an alternate history New York City in 1899. The Adventures of Peter Gray invites us to experience the city through the eyes of one who loves it and see how both it and Peter's life changes over the year.I want to start off with the biggest weakness of this book [as a product]: the blurb. The problem with it is that it sets up misplaced expectations and reading then becomes frustrating when those expectations aren't met. The first paragraph of the blurb is fine, but then it makes the whole book sound like it's about Peter's quest for a family and the Newsies' strike. The Newsies' strike is introduced and finished in fewer than 30 pages; the book has 240.Ignore the blurb and appreciate the book for what it is: a collection of adventures of a young, orphaned wolf in the big city. There is an overall arc to Peter's story, but it develops slowly and organically while many smaller incidents build up to the climax. It's a good structure that works, making the whole book very suitable for quickly picking up and reading without having to worry about forgetting what happened last time.Nearly all the chapters are self-contained. We meet new characters that stay with us but each chapter has a distinct story. Maybe it's Peter having a picnic with his friends, maybe it's a time when he deals with bullies, or maybe he goes to visit the Statue of Liberty. The various adventures are entertaining and reminiscent of the carefree days as a child. However, that carefree feeling is tempered by the reality that Peter is an orphan, homeless, and broke. Setting the story in New York City was perhaps not the best idea. I understand why Nathan Hopp did it: the stories he's telling are based on real events, there are actual historical figures, and it gives us a familiar world. I found that familiarity to work against it. When I played Breath of Fire as a child, it was easy to accept the world. This guy is a dragon, there's a human, he's a were-tiger, and that's a walking onion. That's just how it is. When Kyell Gold's Dangerous Spirits series uses normal geography but replaces humans with furries, it's still fairly easy to accept. What I find difficult to accept is a world where furries (called Furren in this book) exist in the real world, alongside humans in the historical past. It's disorienting for me because instead of a blank slate that the world fills, I am constantly unsure whether what I know remains true. This is best exemplified by Bromley, a minor character who happens to be an eight-year-old German Shepherd. German Shepherds are a breed of dog that was created by humans, so how does that work in this world? This is the disorienting part of not knowing what is still true and what is not. Historically it doesn't work either. Bromley is a German Shepherd, eight years old and living in New York City in 1899. The German Shepherd breed only began in 1899 and would've taken time to be established in Germany before moving to New York.Of course, that doesn't take away from the development of good characters. Everyone feels and acts like an individual, and it's nice to see them all grow and develop over the year which the book spans. It's especially good to see the development of Gavin who we were introduced to as a bully but whom Peter later befriends. Considering the polarization that we see in the world today, I think it is really good to have characters that show that people can change and that it is possible for enemies to become friends. Other characters, like the fennec Ms. Lesser, show that there is often more to people than we can see.These are not the only themes explored: the book has the Newsies standing up for their rights, many examinations of discrimination, community, and poverty. I think if we empathize with Peter, it should stimulate us to ask questions about our own lives. As I was reading the book, with everyone knowing that Peter was living out on the streets, sleeping in barrels and struggling for food, I wondered why they didn't help him. Why didn't they give him a bed to sleep in? But would I take in someone off the street, even if I talked to him every day? Almost certainly not. Perhaps in that way, one might wonder what that reveals about us. If our lives were a book, what would a reader think of our choices?The last topic I want to touch on is motivation. While the main story aspects have clear motivation, I don't always see that for the world at large. For example, why even have furry characters here? It's seldom brought up, and I don't recall it playing a major role. It doesn't even add much diversity to the world as fennecs, raccoons, humans, wolves, foxes and mice all appear to be roughly the same size with the same capabilities.Species don't seem to correspond to any particular human race or caste, and this can lessen the impact of certain scenes. We see a certain amount of hatred directed at a gay fox and mouse couple but given the date and an encounter elsewhere in the story, it's unclear if the hatred is due to them being gay or them being a mixed-species couple. I think more evidence leans towards it being homophobia, but it's slightly ambiguous. Similarly, we see discrimination against humans, but we are not given any understanding of why. While hatred and discrimination in the real world are almost always based on half truths or whole lies, there is some sort of motivation. Religion, fear of the unknown, fear of losing jobs, and so on. There doesn't seem to be any cause, whether real or imagined, for the anti-human prejudice in the story.The story is written in the first-person from the perspective of Peter Gray. You would think that we would know his motivations well, but they are also seldom explored. This is a huge contrast to Fallout Equestria and some of its spin-offs where we get a constant window into the main characters thoughts. We follow Peter Gray but we don't really know him; there's a vague sense of detachment. Why doesn't he steal? Is it his religion? And, despite his claims, we know he does try to steal small things, so why does he do that? How does he justify himself? We are always left unsure.These are mostly minor flaws. As I said previously, The Adventures of Peter Gray is a good book. It's set up well, easy-to-read, and the short, self-contained chapters make it very convenient to pick up when you only have a short time. The characters are all unique and the themes are handled well without being preachy. As I went through it, I found myself increasingly invested in the outcome and wanting to see more. The ending, although quite cliche, was suitably emotional. I think it is a very strong first novel for Nathan Hopp, and I can definitely recommend it as a good read. Hoo Goes There?
Here’s a very unusual graphic novel which comes to us courtesy of Action Lab, called The Ghost, The Owl. “On a cool evening on the swamp, a figure appears dancing across the water. A human figure, but far from a human form. A Ghost, a young girl spirit that seems to have lost its way. A good Samaritan owl decides to help against the wishes of his animal brethren. What mysteries does the ghost girl hold the secrets to and what will happen when she and the owl unlock them together? Will they find out what happened to her? Will she find her way to where she needs to be? What will happen to the animals in the swamp and surrounding forest?” Written by Franco and illustrated by Sara Richard, it’s available now at Barnes & Noble. Meanwhile there’s a preview over at Comicsverse.
image c. 2018 Action Lab
Overwatch: Wrecking Ball Origin Story
New furry character in Overwatch! I guess this means we need to get ready for all the rule 34 Hammond/Winston slash art.
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Episode 36 - Sharks are too dark
Episode 35 - Sharkgirls will seem strangely sexy
Episode 34 - Proud Shark
Episode 33 - Sharking it all up
Legend Of The Three Caballeros: First Look
A new Three Caballeros series? Yes, this one done by Disney Interactive and currently showing on the Disneylife app in the Philippines. This supposedly is coming to Disney XD next year. If you search youtube you can currently find episodes there but I expect them to vanish very quickly so I'm not posting them here. [1] [2] [3] [4] [1] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tc-01.jpg [2] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tc-02.jpg [3] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tb-03.jpg [4] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/tc-04.jpg
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Massive Book of Mouse
We got this from Cartoon Brew too: Taschen, well-known for their collection books of art and photography, will soon be releasing Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History, an enormous book created to celebrate the mouse’s 90th birthday. “The 480-page book by Daniel Kothenschulte, like the earlier Taschen volume on Disney [animated features], will be extremely heavy, shipping in its own cardboard box with handle. It will retail for $200. The book will include 1,400 images covering all of Mickey’s 122 cartoons, his comic adventures, and the world of Mickey merchandise and memorabilia.” The Cartoon Brew article includes several preview images. Look for the book this November.
image c. 2018 Taschen
Hicast Cake Expert - We hope to see you at Anthrocon! keep tabs on ou…
We hope to see you at Anthrocon! keep tabs on our twitter accounts to know our panels will be and when! http://www.draggetshow.com support us on Patreon! -- https://www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow You can also find us on iTunes & wherever you find podcasts! Dragget Show telegram chat: https://telegram.me/draggetshow Hicast Cake Expert - We hope to see you at Anthrocon! keep tabs on ou…
Rise of the TM Ninja Turtles Opening Credits
I'm not sure what to think of this new Ninja Turtles series. I really hope the writing is at least as good as the 2012 series. This opening seems ... busy.
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Exploring New Places – Fred Patten’s New Anthology (Press Release)
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Exploring New Places, edited by Fred Patten, is launching at Anthrocon 2018 in Pittsburgh, PA over the July 4th holiday weekend (July 5-8). The book can be pre-ordered from FurPlanet Productions. It will be for sale on the FurPlanet online catalogue afterwards.
Exploring New Places is an all-original anthology of 19 short stories and novelettes of anthropomorphic animals venturing into unfamiliar places, in their own city, on their own world, in space, or in a different dimension. This anthology is designed to appeal to fans of science-fiction and fantasy.
Whether by the power of music to “send you right out of this world”, or a rabbit spaceship captain searching for the creators of her species; a galactic police agent called to a new planet to solve murders, or alien furries who enter a human university; a gorilla student wandering off in a museum, or two-tailed squirrels confronting interstellar explorers; these are stories for your imagination and entertainment.
Contents:
To Drive the Cold Winter Away, by Michael H. Payne
In Search of the Creators, by Alan Loewen
The Rocky Spires of Planet 227, by Mary E. Lowd
Defiant, by Joshua Carpman
Why Indeed, by Pepper Hume
Come to Todor!, by Fred Patten
You Are Our Lifeboat, by Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen
The Animal Game, by Vixyy Fox
Ashland’s Fury, by MikasiWolf
Legacy, by M. R. Anglin
Umbra’s Legion: Shamblers of Woe, by Adam Baker
Umbra’s Legion: Where Pride Planted, by Geoff Galt
Beyond Acacia Ridge, by Amy Fontaine
One Day in Hanoi, by Thomas “Faux” Steele
Welcome, Furries, by Cathy Smith
Back Then, by Frank LeRenard
Tortoise Who, by Mary E. Lowd
I Am the Jaguar, by Cairyn
The Promise of New Heffe, by Kary M. Jomb
Price: $19.95. 401 pages. Wraparound cover by Demicoeur. ISBN 978-1-61450-421-4.
Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon. You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward. They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.
Birds of a Feather, Hiding Together
We learned about this through Cartoon Brew, though it’s been turning up in multiple places. It seems that the Disney Company has produced a new animated TV series based on the 1944 Donald Duck feature The Three Caballeros. But here’s the strange thing: The new series, Legends of the Three Caballeros, is only available through the Disneylife app — and only in the Philippines to boot. From the CB article: “Frank Angones, a co-producer on the new Ducktales, further commented on his Tumblr that the show has been finished for a while, even before the new Ducktales reboot was produced. He added, ‘It feels sort of like an alternate universe rooted more in the old Donald shorts than anything Barks-related – there’s no sign of Scrooge, the nephews, Gyro, Duckburg, lots of humans everywhere, etc., with April, May, and June standing in for the kid protagonists.'” 2019 is the 75th anniversary of the original film, so folks are hoping Disney will be inspired to release this new series in other parts of the world. Would you look at that: For once, we’re not the only ones whining about cool animation we can’t see in this country!
image c. 2018 Disney Interactive