“Paw Prints Beyond the Moon” was a really fun collection to create a soundtrack for, because it required so many different musical styles. And also, the whole book is furry, and it’s just really fun to have an entire album of furry music.
That’s right — before “Fetching Asteroids” was an addictive video game, it was a flash fiction. And then, it was one of the first doo-wop songs I managed to make.
It was really tricky to figure out how to get that full-on doo-wop sound. But it’s so fun!
Topher the pug dog comedian who makes fun of cats in an ironic way was inspired by Stephen Colbert back when he was doing the Report.
I wrote a whole book about him and his feline wife, “When a Cat Loves a Dog.” It’s amazing to get to hear his voice in “A Real Stand-Up Guy.”
You know the Taylor Swift line, “when your first crush crushes something kind”?
When that happened to me, I wrote the sharpest flash fiction I’ve ever written, later rewritten to be set in the Otters In Space universe.
Now “High School Dogs” is a weirdly healing song…
If you ever wished The Cutting Edge would be turned into a short story about a Newfoundland dog being taught to figure skate by a tabby cat, and the resulting story would be turned into a really catchy song…
Boy, do I have surprising news for you.
When the furry dystopia anthology call went out, people didn’t understand how I was writing a story for it set in my Otters In Space universe… which just shows they weren’t paying attention.
Dystopias aren’t evenly distributed.
“Chestnut Wish” is an incredibly vivid musical snapshot of how it felt to parent a toddler. Except also, an otter feeling isolated in a squirrel city, on top of the struggles of parenting.
I’m glad to have this memory. And I’m so glad it’s a memory now.
If Ghostbusters were a three-minute furry song about a hungry yellow Labrador fighting off a skyscraper-sized peanut-butter golem…
Well, this is it. That’s what “Ecto-Busters One” is.
Just listen. Seriously.
No, seriously.
“Ecto-Cafe” is a five-minute journey through a haunted coffee shop as a hungry yellow Labrador has to fend off a coffee ghost and trick a bread golem into baking itself.
It’s catchy. It’s hilarious. It’s epic.
It’s a masterpiece.
“Where Have All the Mousies Gone” won an Ursa Major Award and got published in Daily Science Fiction as a short story.
And now, you can listen to a folk song version of it.
Imagine Doctor Who was a six-minute, catchy, 80s-style pop song; the doctor is a tortoise; and his companion is a mouse…
Yeah, that’s what “Tortoise Who.”
“Chrysalis Can Wait” is about an all-powerful Time Tortoise whisking a caterpillar off on a whirlwind tour of a world filled with warring societies of flowers. It’s a place I like to visit in my mind, and it’s so great to have a song to carry me there now.
“Sandbeard, Sandbeard
Pirate otter in the stars
Fiercest of the fierce
Fuzziest of the fuzzy
And best bewhiskered by far!”
“Stole a space-trawler
And hatched a plan so grand
For bringing treasure to her
Cheerful pirate band!”
“Dry Skin” is one of my rare 90s-style tracks. The topic of a drug-addicted salamander feeling self-conscious around fur-covered mammals until her blind date — a pig as bare-skinned as her — shows up just seemed to call for that grungy style.
“The Mouse Who Was Born a Bear” is pretty obviously a trans allegory, and it makes a really lovely folk song with a very moving, world-weary vocal.
“Octopus Ex Machina” is about an otter (who was born a cat) befriending an octopus (who used to be seven mice and a gerbil) during an impromptu artificial snowstorm at a pool party.
Bet you’ve never heard of a song with a concept wilder than that!
“The Moon Like an Unhatched Egg” is about a space race between four uplifted birds.
The turkey cheats, and the chickadee throws her own chances to prove he did. The eagle wins, and the raven always had another plan.
Yeah, my songs aren’t simple.
Do you ever feel like the most useless arm on an octopus, always daydreaming and causing the other arms problems?
Well, “The Dreaming Arm” is for you.
If you’re looking for a universe creation myth involving artist spiders, look no farther, for here it is — “Galactic Garden.”
“Jumping Jellyfish and Singing Salmon” is a surprisingly catchy hook for a song, and the song is full of magic, just like the story it’s based on — an Alternate Universe take on Otters In Space, swapping the sci-fi out for fantasy.