Anyone Looking For A Good Furry Sci-Fi Novel?

[ChapterAquila92]

Here's a treat for you guys: I recently finished reading an interesting omnibus called 'The Moreau Quartet - Vol 1', a collection of two sci-fi detective novels ('Forests of the Night' and 'Fearful Symmetries') written by S. Andrew Swann, and man does it check off some good boxes.

I won't go into much detail about the two books specifically, but the premise is this: It's 2053, and the world has long since genetically engineered life successfully. Alluding to the namesakes of their respective pieces of sci-fi literature, "moreaus" (uplifted animals, both humanoid and feral) and "frankensteins" (genetically manipulated humans) live as second-class citizens, the first generation predominantly designed as bioengineered weapons used in recent wars.

The omnibus follows Nohar Rajasthan, a second-generation tiger moreau conceived naturally from two former members of an Indian Special Forces unit that deserted and fled to America during the Pan-Asian War. Having never known his real father, and his mother dying from complications involving feline leukemia when he was 5 years old, Nohar fell into human care while finding a father figure in Mandvi "Manny" Gujerat, a mongoose moreau and combat medic from his parents' unit, and an unlikely friend in Robert "Bobby" Dittrich, a human and fellow high school outcast. He later joined a street gang called the Hellcats while searching for his father, but upon discovering what kind of person his father was he decided he wanted nothing to do with him, subsequently leaving gang life behind and eventually finding a full-time, if poorly paid, job as a private investigator.

The first novel picks up during one of his cases, and the second one starts off ten years after he initially retired.

The stories contained within this novel would have been a great match for the "Gangsters & Gumshoes" theme of VancouFur 2015, and for a series written two decades ago 'The Moreau Quartet' holds up quite well to the times. A definite must-read for a furry into either genre.

[Fuzzy Wizard]

This sounds alot like the premise of the D20 modern campaign setting. I played a campaign and tried to be a sexy panther and my DM decided people would not find it attractive no matter what my scores. I don't see why people think these characters would end up second class citizens. End up pets for rich people...

[ChapterAquila92]

This sounds alot like the premise of the D20 modern campaign setting. I played a campaign and tried to be a sexy panther and my DM decided people would not find it attractive no matter what my scores. I don't see why people think these characters would end up second class citizens. End up pets for rich people...

As stated in the premise, moreaus were originally created as bioengineered weapons, mainly to provide additional manpower where needed. Oftentimes, the gene-techs didn't care about future implications such as maturity and longevity, which leads to such things as Honduran rats physically maturing very quickly but with brains the equivalent of that of a human child.

The sentiment is hardly uniform though - some places (California for instance) is pretty accepting of moreaus in their population, to the point where their ghetto-like 'moreytowns' are at a higher standard of living than those in other regions.

One thing to note is that franks have it worse than moreaus - where moreaus are barely tolerated, with the speciest excuse of being 'not human' used to justify them as acceptable targets, franks all too often fall into the uncanny valley for appearing 'too human', not including the sqeamish response most people give when it comes to manipulating the human genome.

As an aside about keeping anthros as pets, that may as well be indentured servitude (or slavery, if you prefer) since you now have an extra body, whom you only need to provide sustenance and shelter for, to do work for you. That said, I'm not overly keen on going into the finer details of such a proposal.

[lwhitehead]

C.J. Cherryh The Chanur Saga series is good, a good Space Kat series.


LW