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Anyone Looking For A Good Furry Sci-Fi Novel?
10 years ago
Ready, Aye, Ready!
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.
The stories contained within this novel would have been a great match for the "Gangsters & Gumshoes" theme of VancouFur 2015, and even after two decades, 'The Moreau Quartet' has held up quite well to the march of time. A definite must-read for a furry into either genre.
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.
The stories contained within this novel would have been a great match for the "Gangsters & Gumshoes" theme of VancouFur 2015, and even after two decades, 'The Moreau Quartet' has held up quite well to the march of time. A definite must-read for a furry into either genre.
