One of the things I like about New Fables as a series is that the stories within are not strictly “furry”, nor are they explicit. Many of them touch on some very adult themes, but it’s the kind of book you could give to a family member or friend to ease them into “that weird animal thing that you’re into”. The Summer 2010 collection keeps up the tradition, and has the added bonus of featuring some of my all-time favorite stories ever printed in these books.

FA: United 2010 saw the awards ceremony for the 2009 Ursa Major Awards. Nine winners across ten categories received awards based on votes from fans. The full list of winners are below.

I want to encourage amateur authors to make that leap into professional writing. God knows it’s hard to write a novel, and it takes a lot of guts to put it out there for everyone to read. This kind of thing should be encouraged. The world needs good writers and I want to find those people that have the talent and the drive to write great literature. As a critic it’s my job to not only praise the authors that produce quality work, but also to critique authors, in the hopes that they become better.

That said, Save the Day is not a good book.

After the first title in the Cupcakes brand, Kyell Gold’s Bridges, was published, we’ve been interested in finding out what the other two authors running this project were working on. Kevin “Rikoshi” Frane is up next with an as-yet-unnamed story set in a medieval fantasy world, and we’ve managed to squeeze a few details out him.

The best slice-of-life is supposed to take the ordinary and present it in a way that makes it fantastic. After leaving the quietly wonderful world of the story, you look around to find yours is that world. A good author leads you to find the extraordinary in your own existence. Unfortunately, Seeing Spots by Andres “Cyanni” Halden doesn’t manage that.

I’ve been pretty lucky so far with furry fiction. I’ve read a number of good, and even great novels. It was only a matter of time before I got to a stinker, but I wasn’t expecting Ben Goodrige’s novel Found: One Apocalypse to be this bad. It’s the literary equivalent of dying a horrible decompression death in space.

Voting for the 2009 Ursa Major Awards starts today, and the nominee list has been officially released (though many of you already saw the leaked list yesterday). The entire nomination list can be seen on the Ursa Major website. I’m not going over everything, just being snarky about a few of them.

It’s obvious that Seth MacFarlane is aware of the furry fandom, and he’s even gone so far as to have an episode of American Dad go to a furcon, but lately it seems like he’s revisiting the idea a lot. Like he’s making furry jokes more than black jokes, and he has an entire show that is one stupid black joke.

This last Furry Fiesta’s closing ceremonies gave me a great view of one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen at a furry con.

Want to know what goes on in the first chapter of Kyell Gold’s new book? Too damn bad, we’re not allowed to spill, but we can give you some interesting details.