The Ursa Major Awards have been officially decided! I
won’t list the full awards here, but you can certainly head over to the Ursa Major Awards website to read them for yourself.
However, I will list the winners of some of the fiction
categories:
Best
Anthropomorphic Novel
Winner - Off the
Beaten Path by Rukis
Best
Anthropomorphic Short Fiction
Winner – When a
Cat Loves a Dog by Mary E. Lowd
Best
Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work
Winner – Blacksad:
Amarillo by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
It’s my hope to read every one of these stories so that
we can truly celebrate the fiction that the community of genre fans has decided
upon as the best. I’d like to share them all with you as well, though I am wary
of doing so with Off the Beaten Path
as that book is officially rated as NC-17 for violence and sexual content. I
would like to keep this blog as clean and approachable as I can for readers of
all ages.
If you readers have any strong opinions on that matter,
please share them!
On another note of thought, I’ve been musing about a
common problem in anthropomorphic media, and science fiction media as a whole:
The ‘rebranding’ of the planet Earth.
 |
| I love that the 'twist' of this movie is in the title. |
I say ‘problem’, but really I suppose one could call it a
trope of the genre. Usually, when one has a world filled with creatures that
are unfamiliar to human beings, it’s tough to get away with calling the planet
Earth. However, for writers, it’s rather hard to escape the pull of our own
planet. After all, we understand most of the nitty-gritty details for how our
planet works and what is required to build life as we know it. Most planets
that stories take place on have oxygen and water, a cycle of seasons and
weather, at least one moon, one sun, and normal-ish gravity. Some writers will
certainly add moons and suns or create terribly inhospitable weather on their
planets, but I think I’ve yet to see a book where the home planet is a gas
giant. Really, most planets that are presented as alien worlds in science
fiction stories are still fairly easy for us to relate to from an Earth
perspective.
For anthropomorphic novels, though, this concept tends to
get a bit grayer. The obvious alien element already exists: walking and talking
animals. So it doesn’t take much convincing to make the reader think they’re
some place other than the planet Earth. However, it is a frequent habit of
anthropomorphic stories to still take place on Earth… and yet not call it Earth
at all.
This usually takes one of two forms: The first is where animals
basically are filling in for human beings without much concern for how it was
biologically possible (Mr. Toad drives a car around England? Eh, why not?) The
second is where animals have evolved either in place of humans or after the
fall of humanity. I’ve seen at least a couple of stories where one of the big
twists is that, despite all the strange species the reader sees walking around
in the world, we’re still on planet Earth! It’s just several thousand years
into the future after the nuclear fallout/trip to mars/summoning of
Cthulhu/etc.
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| Mr. Toad and Winston Churchill live in the same universe? We now need a story where they team up! |
So, really, what would be preferred? Is it better or more
fun to truly be in a different world altogether, or does having the story take
place in a version of Earth help us to identify with the characters and situations
better? Most good anthropomorphic stories involve, at their heart, a theme of
what it truly means to be a person, if not simply a human being. Maybe one of
the results of that is our necessary tie to the planet that we come from.
What do you readers think? What sorts of worlds do you
prefer being presented to you, and what are some of your favorites?
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| Oddly enough, I've been working on other projects and drawing things aside from your friendly neighborhood blue raccoon. For instance, drawing beavers without a reference! Doesn't tie into the theme, but eh. They rebuild the world every day. |
Until next time, happy reading, all!
-Chammy
Currently Reading:
The Forges of Dawn
by E.M. Kinsey
