Reviews

Cats in Space...and Other Places by Bill Fawcett

elvenrapier's review

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

3.5

Absolutely adored the short story Black Destroyer. What a duel of minds.

rocketbride's review against another edition

3.0

I'm embarrassed to admit that this isn't my first sf cat anthology. I will pass this along, but will hunt down the guardsman, as it was easily the most compelling story of the bunch.

sassmistress's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful

5.0

I see why you can't find a reasonably priced copy of this book anywhere. Fantastic collection from the greats in the Golden Age of Science Fiction - McCaffrey, Clarke, Nye, Heinlein, and others I didn't know but will be looking them up! I DNF'd 2 stories, and found one to be confusing, but the rest were an absolute delight. Generally hopeful, as this subgenre generally is. One got annoyingly philosophical 😅 but most were just a grand adventure, some quite tense planet-side or ship-side danger, and several were pretty funny. Ended with a real banger! 

Several did a masterful job of developing alien races and cultures, creative "space jobs", and one (Well Worth the Money) was a fun new AI take. I was excited to see another brainship story from McCaffrey; not her best one but I can't get enough of those. 

Bullhead was an oddball; very little sci-fi and more black magic fantasy in a wild west/pioneer setting. It also... barely mentioned a cat being around. So this one was a pretty weird inclusion for this anthology. 

Alas, there were several typo errors in this library ebook that I suspect are due to poor OCR of the original. 

Definitely read this if you like classic sci fi and get the chance. I'm not planning to spend the hundred-plus dollars on a hard copy, but I'm definitely going to keep watching the market and hopefully get this for my personal library some day. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Classism, Panic attacks/disorders, Infidelity, Child abuse, and Mental illness

Moderate: Blood, Drug use, Racial slurs, War, Sexual content, Ableism, Death, and Gore

Minor: Addiction

Bullhead gives off serious black magic-y vibes. Several n-words. Sexual content in the form of a closed-door affair and non-explicit description of

a fish temporarily replacing what's between his legs, after the adulterers disband in horror.

Ordeal in Space - PTSD/agorophobia, heavy focus on its experience

Space-Time for Springers has a "retarded" daughter in the family.

This daughter

causes intentional, premeditated, hidden harm to

the baby.

The cat puts a stop to it by

self-sacrificing his... sentience? higher self awareness? and magically puts the daughter onto a normal development track.

Black Destroyer is more graphic than usual for that era, with the monster basically liquifying bodies after a quick gory death.

The Pride contains childbirth, described with blood and umbilical cord. Also attempted murder, the perpetrator being immediately attacked and killed with a sword, though several of these stories contain similar content.

The Ballad of Lost C'Mell has a godlike figure and brief possession by such.

The Man Who Would Be Kzin has just enough womanizing to give you an intentional distaste for the MC, and an implied three-way, though it can't get much vaguer. A race is described as having a subass of citizens with an addiction that confers tactical benefits, as well as societal derision.

nerwen's review

adventurous challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.75

grimmauxillatrix's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.0

This is an anthology, so the stories vary significantly in enjoyability. It's a mix of old and newer (90s-ish) mostly science fiction stories about cats. Some of the stories are about or significantly involve cats, however many only mention a cat, which seems like a bit of a cop-out. There's a decent amount of enjoyable content in this anthology, but you definitely have to sift through some questionably included filler to get to it. 

5/11 of the stories in the segment of the book regarding regular cats actually had any significant cat involvement. This is a massive disappointment, and feels like they were cheating to fill pages.  

The shorter "alien cats" segment did actually focus on cats, but the first and longest story in that segment was borderline unreadable due to the fact that the author made up a million words and terms and never bothers to explain them. I'm glad I decided to skip to the next story because the rest of the stories in the alien cats segment were quite enjoyable. 

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Content Warnings

Some of the stories in this book get weeeeird, and a lot of the ones that were written in the 50s and 60s are very classically misogynistic. I wish I could trigger tag individual stories, but I can't, so: Ship of Shadows only has women characters who are sex workers, and it's irritatingly anti-sex worker. Bullhead has an abusive character whose dick turns into a fish. It is not NEARLY as interesting as I've made it sound. Otherwise just take it with a grain of salt and that the contents of each individual story vary wildly.

chobrowny's review against another edition

tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.75

wetdryvac's review against another edition

5.0

So much fun.

limabeangreen's review

adventurous challenging funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

bzedan's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

A fun mix of stories both familiar and new, with lots of good cat action.

twinsunsfour's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

4.0