Let’s be honest here, guys, reading is a lot of work. It can’t easily be done while multitasking. It requires a level of concentration that TV and video games (and porn) don’t. And unlike most of my recreational activities, I can’t really enjoy it drunk. But by far my biggest deterrent against reading is that books are long, and I’m a busy guy, god dammit. So how can I get my short quality furry fiction fix without playing the Russian Roulette that is YiffStar?

Authors Kyell Gold, Rikoshi and foozzzball have teamed up with furry publisher FurPlanet to produce a line of novellas, works of fiction that fall in that space between short story and novel. Full length novels are, as Gold describes them, cakes, and so the stories produced by the Cupcakes brand are the same flavor and quality, but in a smaller size.

The brand, which sees its first book in February, was created as a way to fulfill a noticed niche in the fiction market, one that both consumers and authors weren’t getting.

“My thinking has always been that novella length pieces have always been the most comfortable thing for me to write, and they are the single most difficult thing to do publishing wise,” Rikoshi explained. “They’re too long to get into an anthology, and until now they’ve been too short to do anything with on their own.”

What may make Cupcakes unique and appealing as a line of books is not so much what happens in the story, but who it happens to.

“One of the things that really ties our work together that we all really agree on and feel passionate about is that our stories are all, at the core, about the characters.” Gold said. “And for all three of us, character comes first. And that’s something that we really respect in each other’s work.”

“I think that most readers tend to value that sort of thing, but especially in the furry fandom, character is something that people just latch on to,” Rikoshi added. “Maybe more so than plot, more so than nuance, more so than theme, I think it’s the characters that pull people in.”

With the first book premiering at Furry Fiesta 2010, the authors plan to write four novellas a year, with varying themes and content ratings. Gold’s first story, Bridges is a modern day romantica story about finding love in a new city, whereas Rikoshi’s first novella is an all ages fantasy themed story about the social lives of wizards.

“We have a gay porn writer, a straight porn writer and a gay non-porn writer,” Gold joked. “Although our styles are distinctive, within the context of furry fiction they’re more similar than dissimilar.”

Bridges can be purchased at Furry Fiesta 2010, February 19-21 in Dallas, TX. It will be available shortly thereafter on the FurPlanet website.

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