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The Girl Who Made a Mouse From Her Grandfather’s Whiskers
In a distant future, a little girl named Anny makes toy mice out of scraps and dust. Anny has never seen a real mouse, just as she’s never seen the planet her family came from many generations ago. All she knows is her home, Tsedt: an isolated village of human colonists’ descendants and their friendly helper robots.
But then one day the Amau arrive in Tsedt: plastic people with luminous eyes, intent on taking young humans to the distant city of Harbor to be educated. It’s not long before Anny is flown away to a place unlike any she’s seen before.
But then one day the Amau arrive in Tsedt: plastic people with luminous eyes, intent on taking young humans to the distant city of Harbor to be educated. It’s not long before Anny is flown away to a place unlike any she’s seen before.
- GenresScience FictionNovella
160 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 3, 2025
The distant future that feels like an ancient fable. The warm heart in this story is a reminder of what technology cannot fully pilfer from the human experience.
November 2, 2025
This is a weird book & I love a book that gets strange! I’m in the middle of exploring a bunch of novellas, saw the title (definitely unusual) & thought why not! I’d recommend it to people who are interested in sci fi that doesn’t conform to typical tropes of the genre.
I found myself hooked within a few pages & wanted to race straight through to the end. The reason I knocked a star off was because of the ending. While enough things were resolved that I could walk away from the story very satisfied, certain questions were never answered. I could definitely make a case defending the authors choice to leave us still wondering but ultimately I’d like to know what’s going on with the MC abilities that the other colonists didn’t seam to have.
Anyways absolutely loved this! Thought it was inventive, fun & filled with plenty to think about. Would absolutely be interested in more stories from this world!
I found myself hooked within a few pages & wanted to race straight through to the end. The reason I knocked a star off was because of the ending. While enough things were resolved that I could walk away from the story very satisfied, certain questions were never answered. I could definitely make a case defending the authors choice to leave us still wondering but ultimately I’d like to know what’s going on with the MC abilities that the other colonists didn’t seam to have.
Anyways absolutely loved this! Thought it was inventive, fun & filled with plenty to think about. Would absolutely be interested in more stories from this world!
August 17, 2025
Thank you to Feliza Casano at Lanternfish Press for an ARC of this book!
Evoking Kazuo Ishiguro and Robin Sloan, this atmospheric sci-fi fairytale somehow feels limitless and intimate at the same time. We see this future- recognizable in its humanity, but also strange- through the eyes of a young girl, which allows the reader to both experience the wonder and revel in the resilience of children.
Evoking Kazuo Ishiguro and Robin Sloan, this atmospheric sci-fi fairytale somehow feels limitless and intimate at the same time. We see this future- recognizable in its humanity, but also strange- through the eyes of a young girl, which allows the reader to both experience the wonder and revel in the resilience of children.
October 17, 2025
With my whole heart and soul, I adored this book! We begin the story with Anny, a young girl living with her family. She enjoys making mice from bits of fluff that she finds lying around and this in turn is her other family. When people are invited to the city to learn new and interesting thing’s circumstances become mysterious. This book is strange and confusing and whimsical or are any of these adjectives truly accurate? That is for you the reader to decide. If you enjoy books that allow you the freedom to interpret its meaning and stories that play with your imagination, books so unique that you would have a difficult time describing it yet tugs at your heart and makes your question reality, then here you go. When I am lucky enough to come across these little gems I am so grateful. I will not soon forget this book.
December 3, 2025
This short piece resonated strongly with me.
There is something distinctly beautiful about Anny's understanding of the world around her. Fusing curiosity and innocence, knowledge and ignorance, she discovers the power of true connection with others.
Kenneth Gordon's worldbuilding pulls off a unique feat here. He leads the reader into a place that feels incredibly old – almost ancient – yet somehow far in the future.
In creating such a world, Gordon pulls the reader deeply into Anny's story. We experience her immersion into a distant city so different from the village she grows up in.
I highly recommend this altogether unique novella.
Thank you to NetGalley and Lanternfish Press for the advance copy. All opinions are my own.
There is something distinctly beautiful about Anny's understanding of the world around her. Fusing curiosity and innocence, knowledge and ignorance, she discovers the power of true connection with others.
Kenneth Gordon's worldbuilding pulls off a unique feat here. He leads the reader into a place that feels incredibly old – almost ancient – yet somehow far in the future.
In creating such a world, Gordon pulls the reader deeply into Anny's story. We experience her immersion into a distant city so different from the village she grows up in.
I highly recommend this altogether unique novella.
Thank you to NetGalley and Lanternfish Press for the advance copy. All opinions are my own.
October 29, 2025
A very clever and sophisticated novella that reads like a fairy tale. Evokes essence of a child’s fairly tale and is much scarier. A moral tale of what can happen when humans use robots to try and deliver them benefits. I really enjoyed it. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.
March 31, 2026
One of the strangest wtf books I've read. Enjoyed it but very puzzled by it too.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
What would fairy tales look like on a world that, once upon a time, was settled by human colony ships? Somehow, the idea of Aesop or B’rer Fox and B’rer Rabbit, or even the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, still being the stories that children get told to help them cope with the world or get life and morality lessons, doesn’t quite work. (Disney might make it, but imagining what that would look like would be a different book entirely!)
That Anny’s remote village is a farming village that reads like somewhere in fantasy land makes the story itself feel like fantasy. That little Anny’s best friends are the veritable army of mice made out of scraps and fluff that she keeps under her bed AND, more importantly, writes stories about in her head, just adds to that impression of fae and fantasy.
At least until her grandfather – and his helper robot, Oskar – move in. Not because of Oskar, as there are plenty of “billies” (short for habilibots) around the little village. They just don’t personally impinge on Anny’s childhood all that much.
But because of her grandfather. Grandfather who remembers the early days of the colony, and, more important for the story, the early days of the city that grew up around the colony ships and their landing site. His memories, as interpreted through Oskar, disturb the peace of the household even though they seem like, well, fairy tales. Or the product of the disordered mind of an old man who is losing it. Or both.
And that’s the point where the story takes a turn into the Twilight Zone. Literally if you squint a bit. Because the people from the city, now called Harbor, suddenly find the little village. And start making the kind of offers that people – at least young people in a small village dreaming of more – mostly don’t want to refuse.
A trip to the ‘big city’. A chance to see the world outside their tiny village. The hope of a new, bigger, better, brighter, life. Grandfather knows it’s all a lie, but no one wants to listen.
Except little Anny. When the people from Harbor come for her, she knows she’s in danger – even if she isn’t quite able to understand why or how. She can tell that their truth is not THE truth, and that she needs to find a way to escape. If she can.
And that’s when the mice, not just her mice, and not just the mouse she made with her grandfather’s whiskers, come to her rescue so that she has a chance to rescue her family. Even if Anny, with the help of the mice, has to destroy much of Harbor in the process.
Escape Rating B: At first, I had a bit of a time getting into this one. I think you kind of have to just go with it for a bit and let it grab you. Or you have to settle into Anny’s perspective and stop worrying about whether what she’s telling you is happening is REAL, just in her imagination, or actually a child’s interpretation of events that are above her head but all around her.
In that sense, it reminded me of One Level Down, as we’re also seeing that SFnal world from a child’s perspective, at least at first. That world is every bit as cruel in its way as Anny’s world is in hers, and Anny has to break herself out by reaching a perspective of a less child-like version of herself.
Anny’s world is just that bit less cruel because the terrible things that happen to her are caused by outside agencies, where the child in One Level Down is betrayed by her own family. So there’s a bit of a remove that helps the reader ease into things here.
The reader, on the outside looking in, knows that the situation in Harbor is not a damn thing like the people from Harbor present it to be. Anyone who has read even a bit of SF can easily determine the exact ways in which that situation is very, very wrong. And it does have a bit of a Twilight Zone feel in the way it’s currently going wrong.
But part of the SFnal element – and all of the fairy tale elements – are carried in the paws of the mice. Not just Anny’s mice, but the mice she finds at Harbor, hidden in the walls, powering the infrastructure and perfectly capable of setting that infrastructure on fire. Which they do, because Anny, in her own way, is one of them.
How Anny becomes one of them, whether her own mice or real or imaginary constructs or imaginary wrapping for something else real is never fully explained and doesn’t have to be. Because we’re Team Anny every step of the way, and if Anny needs to pretend to be Anny Mouse or become Anny Mouse or just be ANNYMOUSE (anonymous), that’s just fine with us as long as some version of Anny brings down Harbor and gets to take herself and her people HOME.
Originally published at Reading Reality
That Anny’s remote village is a farming village that reads like somewhere in fantasy land makes the story itself feel like fantasy. That little Anny’s best friends are the veritable army of mice made out of scraps and fluff that she keeps under her bed AND, more importantly, writes stories about in her head, just adds to that impression of fae and fantasy.
At least until her grandfather – and his helper robot, Oskar – move in. Not because of Oskar, as there are plenty of “billies” (short for habilibots) around the little village. They just don’t personally impinge on Anny’s childhood all that much.
But because of her grandfather. Grandfather who remembers the early days of the colony, and, more important for the story, the early days of the city that grew up around the colony ships and their landing site. His memories, as interpreted through Oskar, disturb the peace of the household even though they seem like, well, fairy tales. Or the product of the disordered mind of an old man who is losing it. Or both.
And that’s the point where the story takes a turn into the Twilight Zone. Literally if you squint a bit. Because the people from the city, now called Harbor, suddenly find the little village. And start making the kind of offers that people – at least young people in a small village dreaming of more – mostly don’t want to refuse.
A trip to the ‘big city’. A chance to see the world outside their tiny village. The hope of a new, bigger, better, brighter, life. Grandfather knows it’s all a lie, but no one wants to listen.
Except little Anny. When the people from Harbor come for her, she knows she’s in danger – even if she isn’t quite able to understand why or how. She can tell that their truth is not THE truth, and that she needs to find a way to escape. If she can.
And that’s when the mice, not just her mice, and not just the mouse she made with her grandfather’s whiskers, come to her rescue so that she has a chance to rescue her family. Even if Anny, with the help of the mice, has to destroy much of Harbor in the process.
Escape Rating B: At first, I had a bit of a time getting into this one. I think you kind of have to just go with it for a bit and let it grab you. Or you have to settle into Anny’s perspective and stop worrying about whether what she’s telling you is happening is REAL, just in her imagination, or actually a child’s interpretation of events that are above her head but all around her.
In that sense, it reminded me of One Level Down, as we’re also seeing that SFnal world from a child’s perspective, at least at first. That world is every bit as cruel in its way as Anny’s world is in hers, and Anny has to break herself out by reaching a perspective of a less child-like version of herself.
Anny’s world is just that bit less cruel because the terrible things that happen to her are caused by outside agencies, where the child in One Level Down is betrayed by her own family. So there’s a bit of a remove that helps the reader ease into things here.
The reader, on the outside looking in, knows that the situation in Harbor is not a damn thing like the people from Harbor present it to be. Anyone who has read even a bit of SF can easily determine the exact ways in which that situation is very, very wrong. And it does have a bit of a Twilight Zone feel in the way it’s currently going wrong.
But part of the SFnal element – and all of the fairy tale elements – are carried in the paws of the mice. Not just Anny’s mice, but the mice she finds at Harbor, hidden in the walls, powering the infrastructure and perfectly capable of setting that infrastructure on fire. Which they do, because Anny, in her own way, is one of them.
How Anny becomes one of them, whether her own mice or real or imaginary constructs or imaginary wrapping for something else real is never fully explained and doesn’t have to be. Because we’re Team Anny every step of the way, and if Anny needs to pretend to be Anny Mouse or become Anny Mouse or just be ANNYMOUSE (anonymous), that’s just fine with us as long as some version of Anny brings down Harbor and gets to take herself and her people HOME.
Originally published at Reading Reality
October 4, 2025
According to my Kobo I was 77% of the way through when I stopped reading. This book was very uniquely written. I think the idea was that since its from a child’s perspective, the oddly constructed sentences were ok. I did like the idea of the world he created. It kind of felt like the land of Oz gone wrong and that made it very intriguing in that aspect.
However, I found the book hard to follow. The descriptions used were often vague or confusing, and alongside the style of writing I often didn’t quite get the whole picture. Also, I was 44% of the way through before I could answer the question “Why does the book have this title?” And “Why should I care about what is going on?”.
Because the main character is fairly neutral towards what is happening, I as the reader also felt that way. There wasn’t an actual ‘issue’ or danger even 44% of the way through the book. I just got a slight ‘something is wrong’ feeling and for me that is not enough to keep reading a book. I wanted to put the book down then but wanted to also give it another try.
This book needed more urgency or have the issue seem bigger by at least 20% of the way in.
Loved the world though.
However, I found the book hard to follow. The descriptions used were often vague or confusing, and alongside the style of writing I often didn’t quite get the whole picture. Also, I was 44% of the way through before I could answer the question “Why does the book have this title?” And “Why should I care about what is going on?”.
Because the main character is fairly neutral towards what is happening, I as the reader also felt that way. There wasn’t an actual ‘issue’ or danger even 44% of the way through the book. I just got a slight ‘something is wrong’ feeling and for me that is not enough to keep reading a book. I wanted to put the book down then but wanted to also give it another try.
This book needed more urgency or have the issue seem bigger by at least 20% of the way in.
Loved the world though.
May 30, 2026
I LOVED this, by chapter 3 I couldn’t stop reading it, but what a weird novella and thus a hard one to describe. If I had to comp this, it’s like if The River Has Roots and Robin Sloan’s Moonbound had a baby. It begins with a nuclear family and their billie, Osker, who is something like an AI robot who is very old and helps translate Anny’s grandfather’s “Hmmm hmmm hmmms.” Anny, our child POV and MC, knows the world is big and that there was a Faraway and a Before, but she loves her little town and making the mice that live under her bed. There is a lyricism and whimsy of the writing that made it feel sweet and dreamlike, but then — after a couple generations of not being heard from — “The City People,” who seem a little off, come and start taking the town’s children to the city making promises that they will love it. For me, what felt like a fairytale becomes a dark fable. I highly recommend for folks who can handle books that are a bit confusing and looking for a sci-fi that’s totally fresh (IMO), even if a little odd. It’s a small press with only 30 reviews, so I’d love love love to see this get more attention.
April 24, 2026
Wow. I mean, what a title! Instantly had me hooked the second I read it. Kenny was really not afraid to get weird and I am all for it! One of my favorite things is reading books where an author gets weird, and this was a really fun read.
Anny holds such a uniquely beautiful way of viewing the world around her. The voice of a young girl is perfectly evident and it captured my attention immediately. It helps throw the reader into the situation as well so that both the character and audience are trying to figure out what is going on together. Had me immersed from the first page. It keeps the world-building at a really interesting balance.
I’d recommend to those who enjoy sci-fi and dystopian settings and are looking for a quick, easy and enjoyable read.
𖤓“ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ᴀɴ ᴇᴍᴘᴛɪɴᴇꜱꜱ, ꜱᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ. ᴏɴᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ꜰɪʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴛɪɴᴇꜱꜱ.”𖤓
Anny’s undefinable quality isn’t no quality at all, it’s the best kind of quality one could ask for.
Anny holds such a uniquely beautiful way of viewing the world around her. The voice of a young girl is perfectly evident and it captured my attention immediately. It helps throw the reader into the situation as well so that both the character and audience are trying to figure out what is going on together. Had me immersed from the first page. It keeps the world-building at a really interesting balance.
I’d recommend to those who enjoy sci-fi and dystopian settings and are looking for a quick, easy and enjoyable read.
𖤓“ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ᴀɴ ᴇᴍᴘᴛɪɴᴇꜱꜱ, ꜱᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ. ᴏɴᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ ʟᴏᴏᴋɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ꜰɪʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴛɪɴᴇꜱꜱ.”𖤓
Anny’s undefinable quality isn’t no quality at all, it’s the best kind of quality one could ask for.
October 6, 2025
The way this book was written, I assume it was meant to be some sort of allegory. But I couldn't tell you what the meaning is. The world-building started out interesting, but I have no idea what was going on in the second half of this book. Who/what is The Mouse? Who/what are mice? Are they real or alive? Are they all in Anny's head? What exactly were the city people doing to the villagers and why? I have no clue. It sounded like the world and the story could have been interesting, if only it weren't written in such vague and distant prose. Perhaps this book just wasn't for me and others would get more from it.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Ursula K. Le Guin meets H.P. Lovecraft in this daring little novel, and we, the readers, get to savor that battle. With simple language and seamless worldbuilding, Kenneth Hunter Gordon weaves a daunting tale of human survival. And through the logical, childish eyes of his protagonist Anny, we learn what it means to be human, nonhuman, and everything in between.
It’s difficult to put this one in a box – the hallmark of an original work. I’ll be thinking about it for a long while! Thanks to the author and to Lanternfish Press for an early copy.
It’s difficult to put this one in a box – the hallmark of an original work. I’ll be thinking about it for a long while! Thanks to the author and to Lanternfish Press for an early copy.
April 26, 2026
The cover and title drew me to this story and I enjoyed it. I see this as a young reader book.
May 8, 2026
Thoughtful and original.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews