“A Close Port of Call” by Altivo Overo is a high sci fi story centered on zebra dockmaster Mark Partine who is sent on a diplomatic mission with the charismatic lion captain Teftawn. Most of the story has Mark being nervous around Teftawn due to the species difference of predator-prey. However, the captain is sexually interested in the zebra. Amid struggles in the mission, Mark fights with his insecurities around the captain. Aside from a good writing style, the plot and characters were over-simplified and too predictable. The story is consistently homoerotic, yet the captain’s final pursuit of the zebra is written as if it should be a surprise. The sci fi universe portrayed in the story is also not very well fleshed out. Immediately after reading it, I realize I had no idea what most of the settings looked like. From an editing perspective, I would have liked to have seen a stronger opening story to the collection.
Fugue’s story “A Clockwork Mind” is a steampunk piece that inspired the cover art for the collection. A fox professor of Clockwork engineering learns that his father is dying and encounters an interesting character on the train to meet his father: a jackal sailor who is also an abolitionist and the son of a famous slave trader. Despite the unnecessary intro, this story is one of the better ones in the anthology. It had a clear sense of pacing, keeping the reader engaged and integrated the world-building efficiently throughout. I immediately felt like I was a citizen of Fugure’s clockwork world, and the in-depth characters were delightfully intriguing. Furthermore, it would be a great conversation starter for anyone interested in A.I. philosophy.
“A Song for Pandora” is a speculative fiction piece by Kevin Frane. It follows young ferret college student Cassie as she struggles with odd dreams that have her in the body of Pandora, a special ferret with the same father as Cassie. Pandora seems to be the holder of secret information that has been forgotten and forbidden in her society. For dream fiction, the story is quite cohesive and only initially disorienting. The author’s ability to set firm descriptions is a definite treat in this story. While probably one of the least furry stories in the collection, it is definitely an enjoyable read and a call to much of the great dream-based fiction we’ve seen the past fifty years.
White Yoté’s story “Dog Eat Dog” centers on the husky Killian and his solar-energy company. However, when he becomes aware the competing company has discovered the way to harvest any light energy, including moon-light and cell-light, Killian decides to enlist the help of half-cybernetic ringtail mercenary McKay to push the company to ruin. This story excels in its even pacing, making the details of the plot suspenseful and the intelligent banter attention-keeping. A very balanced, well-written piece that speaks volumes to the cannibalistic nature of greedy capitalism. As is the nature of science fiction to make bold political statements, this one fits well into the critical corpus.
The next story is another A.I. story entitled “Violet” by Stormcatcher. (SPOILERS AHEAD): Violet’s husband Mason passed away years ago. However, he left a cybernetic clone of himself behind to take care of Violet. When she activates the robot, she treats the new Mason as if they have never met: they start dating and become married. As far as the new Mason knows, Violet just doesn’t like to talk about her previous husband. When he demands to see Violet’s kids, she starts to stress out. Despite the disorienting opening in which readers do not really know this is even an A.I. story, it has rather intricate character development and plays with the A.I. trope effectively. The perspective was more than a little frustrating as it cycled a third person limited from the new Mason to a Violet (without revealing the A.I. part still) and back to some kind of third person omniscient. Enjoyable all the same. (SPOILERS CONCLUDED)
“Hyperstream” by Karai Crocuta is about jaguar Cassius and his desperate attempts to save his technologically savvy brother James from imprisonment. Cassius is imprisoned by the alien Sol, but Sol wants to make a deal with Cassius so that everyone gets what they want. The narrative of this story is incredibly hard to follow. It goes back and forth between what Cassius is really feeling and what could be a hyperstream simulation….or it could be the real hyperstream events…or it could be thoughts Sol is implanting into Cassius. None of that is really clear. What can be made of the plot is incredibly grabbing, and the characters are captivating as well. As an editor, I feel the story would have done much better had it been entirely linear, and the perspective changes make it frustrating as well. A pleasurable read for space action lovers.
“The Journal: Beginning” by Angelwolf follows Dr. Matthews in a scientific project that quickly becomes taken over by a military project. From what I gather, this story is meant to be the first chapter—or at least some excerpt—of a larger book. To be blunt and possibly an ass, I found this story to simply not belong in this collection whatsoever. It read like a Hollywood blockbuster short. Lots of action, confusion, melodrama, and explosions. The only “furry” element was a canid “creature” that appears in the last couple of pages. The author’s name was the most furry thing about the story, and the short clip did nothing to make me want to keep reading.
One of the shorter stories in the collection, “Graveyard Shift” by Redline focuses on the supernatural bounty hunter named Charade. When a mandrake starts terrorizing a town for killing its parents, Charade the fox is the only one who can save the humans. Honestly, in furry fiction, I have only seen a more badass fox once, and that was from Teiran. Charade is an amazing character and a great mix of the trickster mythos inherent with the fox and the gunslinger archetype. Although the story was not particularly gripping, the incredibly rich characterization made this story a real treasure.
“Relativity” by Rincewind tells the story of Pilot Rajit in his space exploration. The main premise is simply that he finds what he believes to be signs of alien life. Despite the cliched plot, the character kept me interested, and I wanted to keep reading. The greatest downside to this story is definitely the style. There are so many sentences throughout that are very distracting. From “in dee! pspace” to “lit up like a Christmas tree” being used to describe buttons in the middle of a panic sequence, the language is awkward and garbled on every page. Definitely needed more editing and a stronger conclusion.
One of my personal favorites from the collection is Calcifer Rauth’s piece “Kerner’s Bad Day.” Centering on enforcer-dragon Relaeth and his attached-scientist Kerner, the story starts beautifully: “Fragile glass and hard surfaces were never meant to be best friends; especially when the former was rushing to meet the latter at high velocity” (207). When Relaeth is temporarily assigned a new scientist and a murder occurs right after, Relaeth must use all of his wits and technological prowess to fight against the powers that threaten him.
Alexander Wood’s “Warm Exodus” cannot get enough praises from me. This is a tale of two wolf brothers, Enhart, the omega, and Asmodan, practically an alpha. When Enhart is suddenly the vessel for 400 alien life forms in his mind, he learns he has a time limit to get the aliens to “the Medium” before his body is ruined from the aliens’ inhabiting them. This story, although the longest one in the collection, is incredibly emotional, and it paints vivid characters, a gripping plot, and a poetic voice that has you begging the author to continue even after the story is done. A must-read for any anthro wolf fiction lover.
“The Firelight (A Parable)” is the editor’s own story in the collection. It is hard to say too much about it without giving the full synopsis. It reads very much like a furry fable, preaching a certain moral through clear, evocative language. My only real critique is that the lack of specifics (including names) makes it a lot harder to place oneself into the story.
Roar, vol.1 was quite an enjoyable read. It was pleasant to see the varying shades of furry science fiction. From an editing standpoint, much was lacking in this collection. From the apparent lack of proofreading and non-standardized English, it does not appear that the editor spent too much time with each individual story or with reading thoroughly through a proof copy. My largest critique of the book was the vast range of quality in the works. The editor seemed to accept works that lacked almost any merit whatsoever to the top tier of furry fiction. As I read through the later volumes of the series, I hope that the story selection process becomes much more critical and incisive. All the same, this is a book I would recommend any lover of furry fiction, probably just with a disclaimer.
Furry Times 