I've been reading a bunch of furry books. Not necessarily written by furs, but you know what I mean.
I'll keep the spoilerish details as vague as possible.

-- Dragon Princess (1st of 3) - S. Andrew Swann
Body-swap, Fantasy, Comedy

Starting off with not-totally a furry book, but it's a body-swap story so I'm sure some of you freaks will like it. I did. A thief, princess, wizard, and dragon get into a 4-way swap and hijinks ensue. It's primarily a comedy and is actually pretty funny which is crucial. Though I was surprised how good the body-swap content is. I won't get into details but the main characters (thief-turned-princess and princess-turned-dragon) spend a good amount of time reckoning with their new situation in more than just comedic ways. It's even a little touching at times. This is the book that recently re-kindled my interest in swaps.

The writing won't knock your socks off, but it's serviceable and is pretty enjoyable overall. Haven't gotten to the sequels yet.
8/10

-- Shady Hollow - Juneau Black
Mystery

I was really excited for this book as it was described as a comfy woodlands mystery (and the covers are really pretty). But unfortunately this is a shallow mystery with zero intrigue and the authors seem more interested in the characters' snacking habits than worldbuilding. The killer is so immediately obvious that you'll probably think s/he is a red herring, but then the book ends and you wonder why it was a 'mystery' in the first place. This is also one of those pieces of furry fiction that basically could have featured humans and nothing would be different. The fact the characters are animals is rarely relevant beyond surface-level details.

This is a book that feels more interested in being kitschy and cutesy than telling an interesting story.
2/10

-- Forests of Night (Moreau Quartet 1) - S. Andrew Swann
Mystery, Sci-fi, Noir

When I said I wanted to read more furry books this one is basically the template for what I was looking for. The story is fairly boilerplate, post-Blade Runner sci-fi detective stuff, but it shines in the world-building and some character moments. Nohar is our tiger PI and he's just a cool dude. He's got a huge gun, he's brooding. His sense of smell is very prominent in the writing. He can tell when people are nervous, happy, aroused, etc. It's used in some interesting ways.

The furries in this book were made to fight in wars years ago, but those wars are over and society is just kind of stuck with them now. A few of them escape the ghetto, but they're firmly second-class citizens. One interesting detail is that different areas specialized in different animals. So Nohar Rajasthan came from India obviously. But rats are mainly from Central/ South America so they speak Spanish, foxes were used by the UK, etc. Also, very uniquely, the anthros (Moreaus) don't have human sexual dimorphism. The females are flat. So humans mistake females and males often unless they're speaking or wearing gendered clothes.

Really fun worldbuilding, some cool action and plot twists. Again, Swann's writing is fairly workmanlike, but it's a solid story. My favorite character died and it bummed me out.
8.5/10

-- Perdido Street Station - China Mieville
Grungy, Sci-fantasy

I hate this book. But for the first ⅓ I loved it. It's complicated. The world-building and creativity of the setting are absolutely fantastic. I imagine that's the reason it is so well-regarded. Even with how much I came to despise the book I have to admit the author creates an enveloping, fantastical world with crazy races, deep lore, and interesting dynamics. But the way it is written grows progressively more tiresome. I'd call China's writing self-indulgent. Huge rambling walls of adjectives describing minutiae of the scenery get old after about the ⅓ mark when all you want is for the plot to get underway. The first half of the book is more-or-less a slice-of-life, but the plot, when it eventually kicks in, swerves sharply into an eldritch slasher thing and it feels very jarring.

Another big problem: The characters are almost unanimously unlikeable. They're supposed to be a motley assortment of weirdos, which is nice and all, but at no point was I like "These guys are fun/ interesting/ charismatic and I want to see them succeed." And while I won't go into detail most of their endings just feel like a cheap punch to the face. So even the one or two characters I kind of liked were shat on by the ending.

While the world-building is great there's a pervasive attitude of smugness and post-modern cynicism to the book that increasingly turned me off. The points I give it are for the setting alone.
3/10

-- Fearful Symmetries: The Return of Nohar Rajasthan (Moreau Quartet 4) - S. Andrew Swann
Mystery, Sci-fi, Noir

You may be wondering about Moureau Quartet 2, and 3. They're both based on minor characters from the first book and I just didn't find them interesting. But this one's pretty good.

Nohar, like all Moreaus, has a bit of the Old Snake early aging going on but he's got one last job he can't ignore. I can't remember this one much tbh, but it had some of the same magic as the first book, I enjoyed it.
7.5/10

-- Kismet - Watts Martin
Political 'thriller'

I knew I'd chafe with Kismet right off the bat when our sci-fi rat-girl experiences some very 'current year' flavored furry discrimination. There's a strong air of socially-just disdain throughout the book and that's just not what I want from my space-faring sci-fi adventures (or really any adventures).

As far as the story and writing go Kismet is mostly just boring. The set-up to the plot is so rote I was honestly surprised. Stop me if you've heard this one before: "Struggling space vagabond with a shady past gets a too-good-to-be-true job offer and immediately gets embroiled in a big, corpo-political conspiracy that intersects with said shady past." I can think of about 5 IPs with the exact same setup. The prose isn't very descriptive. I found myself not having a very good picture of the settings and characters in my brain.

One thing the author is pretty good at is dialogue exchanges. They have a good energy and flow. Also the anthros in this world: 'transforms' as opposed to normal human 'cisforms' (how topical) are furry by choice which is a very interesting twist. Usually anthro characters are just born that way, but in this world it's a decision they or their parents made. Unfortunately the book never adequately explains why scores of humans would voluntarily ostracize themselves like this beyond aesthetic/ fashion in some cases. I know why you or I would want to be anthros, but the book doesn't really explore that enough for me.

Our main rat-girl comes off as a bit of a misanthropic NEET. Her whole arc, per the description, is basically "Anti-social rat realizes how much she actually cares for her family/ furry culture." But it doesn't make her any more likeable in the moment. Also, I have to say, she has a few romantic/ sexual encounters in the book and they felt jarring every time since we see her go from, again, uninvolved and quippy to googly-eyed and thirsty in the space of a paragraph. Ansel is top-tier though. Her flamboyant, fox, hacker friend. I wanted to hug him.

Generally bland writing with some very cool concepts and set in a sci-fi world that is unfortunately reminiscent of modern Los Angeles.
4/10

-- Dog Country - Malcolm F. Cross
Psychological, Military, Sci-fi

This book opens with our main dog Edane bleeding out after getting blown up in Tajikistan and I was invested after about two paragraphs. It's a very personal book, focused squarely on Edane and his adapting, or failing to adapt, to civilian life after being created, raised, and trained to be a soldier. Something I really like about it is the anthro aspect isn't really central to the story. It's about a person who can't understand normal life trying to find his place. Universal. But he's a clone dog soldier so it's automatically better. It's not another story about anthros and humans clashing, thankfully. Edane was raised by humans and he loves a few, he just doesn't get their quirks. I was really happy to read a book where anthros and humans more or less get along fine except for some speciesism on the fringes.

The psychological stuff is all really good. Edane just doesn't understand humor, or how to please his girlfriend, or simple pleasures. All he's good at is being a soldier and that comes through in the military action which is all pretty exciting and visceral. You really get the impression fighting is the only time he feels alive, but he knows that's not healthy so it creates good, juicy character drama.

I'm definitely getting the rest of this guy's books. I think a bunch of them share this setting. Big recommend.
9/10