Otters in Space - A review
by pj wolf

The fact that Otters in Space is a YA book is interesting of itself. Even though most of the fandom entered by way of saturday morning cartoons and other YA material that starred anthropomorphic animals in their formative years, the fandom itself hasn't produced much, if any, material aimed at younger audiences. If Otters in Space is to be a first step, I think the fandom could do much, much worse.

The story opens with humans having elevated common animals to sentience and possibly walking about on two legs, and then booked it to points unknown. Dogs have become the majority race, though there are at least cats and otters; if something happened to the other animals on the planet, it hasn't been identified. Cats as a whole aren't as happy under dog rule, and there have been overtures of pushing cats farther to the fringes of society through legislation. Enter Kipper, a cat just trying to make her way through a flurry of temp jobs, since she can't seem to land herself a permanent one in a dog-dominated society. At her latest assignment, she stumbles upon a mystery: cats are leaving, possibly to establish some kind of cat-only paradise. Considering how she lives now, the idea has only appeal to her.

Once she starts investigating the veracity of this concept, reality comes around in the form of a hired gun to rough her up. This starts a madcap dash where she tries to stay one step ahead of whoever is pursuing her, while trying to track down exactly what happened to her impulsive sister, and if she got to that magical Cat Havana.

This is a curious little world that Mary Lowd has set up here. For one, the overarching mystery that humans have left the Earth as we know it leaving sentient dogs and cats behind is an interesting one. But putting a backseat to that is the real drama taking place, that also serves as a nifty little travelogue to explore the new world that we find ourselves here, going from what was Los Angeles through Mexico to Ecuador, where the otters control a space elevator. And once Kipper manages to get herself aboard the elevator though some more subterfuge, we the readers get to experience 'otter space' in the station that otters have built before jetting off on a ship to finally find out if Cat Havana exists and if so, what it is like.

If I were to have any criticisms of Otters in Space, it would be that the language and sentence structure are a bit simplistic. But considering the intended audience, this is not a bad thing. Really, I found the book really interesting, and while there's an ending to Kipper's arc about Cat Havana, I really want to know more about the overall world, and what Kipper is going to do now that the things that pushed her out of her element have been more or less resolved. The plot point about what happened to Kipper's sister, Petra, ended up falling a teensy bit flat in an entirely reasonable way, but really that point had served it's purpose in getting Kipper into 'otter space.'

If I were to nitpick, I'd draw attention to some mangled letters that got mashed together or something during the printing process. I don't know if it was simply the book that I had picked up, but it was very odd. The phenomenon only happened maybe once or twice in the entire book, but that just may be something that Furplanet should look out for in future runs of Otters in Space. Also, the cover depicts a cat (presumably Kipper) in a space suit, something that never happens in the book.

Ultimately, I know a sequel is out and I want it. And if the first is any indication, I'm going to want the third book that hasn't come out yet.