Cats in Space...and Other Places

Brainship

by Bill Fawcett (Editor), Cordwainer Smith, Fredric Brown

Space. The Feline Frontier.

It has been said (by Mark Twain) that “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” In this volume we explore the many and manifest reasons why humans should voluntarily accord first place in space to their feline brethren. From Robert A. Heinlein’s “Ordeal in Space” in which the merest kitten confers the gift of courage on his human, to Cordwainer Smith’s “Ballad of Lost C’mell,” which answers the very question of what would be the outcome of the melding of human and cat, we offer here sixteen reasons why cats are Number One in our book.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Cats, Fantasy, Fiction, Anthologies, Animals

449 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1992

About the author

Bill Fawcett has been a professor, teacher, corporate executive, and college dean. His entire life has been spent in the creative fields and managing other creative individuals. He is one of the founders of Mayfair Games, a board and role-play gaming company. As an author, Fawcett has written or coauthored over a dozen books and dozens of articles and short stories. As a book packager, a person who prepares series of books from concept to production for major publishers, his company, Bill Fawcett & Associates, has packaged more than 250 titles for virtually every major publisher. He founded, and later sold, what is now the largest hobby shop in Northern Illinois.

Fawcett’s first commercial writing appeared as articles in the Dragon magazine and include some of the earliest appearances of classes and monster types for Dungeons & Dragons. With Mayfair Games he created, wrote, and edited many of the Role Aides role-playing game modules and supplements released in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, he also designed almost a dozen board games, including several Charles Roberts Award (gaming's Emmy) winners, such as Empire Builder and Sanctuary.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled across this book and was intrigued as both a sci-fi and cat lover. Unfortunately, it was very hit and miss. Mostly miss for me. There are a few good short stories that are still worth the read but many of the shorts feel like you needed to have read other books in the series to understand what is going on in the short story.

Even one of the stories that I liked the most, "Duty Calls" by Anne McCaffrey, falls into that category. This short was centered around a "brain" and "brawn" pairing, but unless you've read her "Ship Who Sang" series, you probably would be pretty lost as to what was going on.

Some of the stories are definitely dated as well, language-wise and sterotype-wise as well. (Women in fantasy can only be sexy and wear very little clothing/be playthings.)

Overall, unless you're a huge fan of a certain author you know is in this anthology, I'd skip it.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of science fiction stories about cats, of course, though I think a couple of them would quality more as fantasy than science fiction. There were some stories that I loved, some that I thought were so-so, and some a didn't care for -- a mixed bag. The true gems of the collection (in my opinion) were "Ship of Shadows" and "Space-Time for Springers" (both by Fritz Leiber), "The Game of Rat and Dragon" and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (both by Cordwainer Smith), "Mouse" by Fredric Brown, "Ordeal in Space" by Robert A. Heinlein, "Schrodinger's Cat" by Ursula K. Leguin, and "Black Destroyer" by A.E. Van Vogt.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats and/or cat-like aliens. Readers like me who are or have been owned by cats will love it; non-lovers of felines need not apply. I liked the Kzin story by Bear and Stirling (though I wondered why not a Niven instead), as well as the McCaffrey, the Le Guin, the Nye, the Drake, and the Clarke. I loved the two Cordwainer Smith stories, the two Fritz Leiber stories, and the ones by Fredric Brown and Robert A. Heinlein. My favorite was Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt. Cats rule!

[Baal Of · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, if uneven, collection of stories, but then that is my usual expectation with anthologies. I am primed to like this because I like cats so much, so there is a definite bias. My favorites were both Fritz Leiber stories, and then Black Destroyer by A.E. Van Vogt. I thought Bullhead by David Drake was mediocre, but then I've never much liked his writing. Chanur's Homecoming was painfully boring which just falls in line with my general feelings about C.J. Cherryh's work.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real surprise. The diversity of these stories was amazing, from cat as helper to "cat" as a completely developed separate species. Really good.

[Douglas Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend threw this my way due to my slow descent into a crazy cat lady. It scratched an itch. With that said its uneven collection, some of the older pieces from the 60's are almost quaint sitting alongside the 80's excess, literally going from strong jawed astronauts with a kitten in the corner to cat people speaking pidgin languages and getting drunk in space stations. The standouts for me, don't actually have cats in space, Bullhead by David Drake is centered around a disabled warlock mostly muttering to his mule in the late 19th century but the dialogue and intrigue is such that it screams to be read. And The Man Who Would Be Kzin by Greg Bear& S.M. Stirling about a man infiltrating the ranks of an invading alien fleet wearing nothing but telepathic camouflage, what a great concept.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection, for the most part! A couple of these short stories simply weren't my cup of tea ("Schrödinger's Cat" & "Chanur's Homecoming"), but that's down to personal preference. Having read this for the first time in 2023 and realizing all these stories were written quite a long time ago (1939 for the oldest!), most of them have aged excellently. All are well-written, most of them memorable.

My stand-out favorites, in no particular order, are "The Game of Rat and Dragon" by Cordwainer Smith; "Space-Time for Springers" by Fritz Leiber; "Well Worth the Money" by Jody Lynn Nye; "Black Destroyer" by A. E. Van Vogt; and "The Man Who Would Be Kzin" by Greg Bear and S. M. Stirling.

I have a number of new (to me) authors and book series to look into now. Definitely give this one a shot if you can get your hands on it!

Side-note: I read the electronic version by Baen Books, borrowed from my local library. I noticed a handful of instances where visually-similar letters were substituted for one another (i for l, etc), which is most likely a relic of text-recognition software used when digitizing the copy. It didn't make reading impossible, by any means, but it distracted me a bit. @BaenBooks, y'all can do better.

[Captain I · Rating 2 out of 5]

One story is BRILLIANT.
A couple are enjoyable.
Most feel like the beginning (or middle) of a book that should go on and explain more. I was very confused.

[Dresden Haskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was overall an enjoyable anthology, if a little hit and miss, as others have said. Here's a run-down of all of them, in my opinion - mostly good, with a few meh and only two I outright did not enjoy.

The Game of Rat and Dragon by Cordwainer Smith: Loved it. Loved the weird eldritch things out there, and the solution to the threat. I wish I could read an entire novel about this setting and see how it unfolds and learn more about the lore.

Mouse by Fredric Brown: Written perfectly well, starts out powerfully intriguing, then just sort of peters out and stops. I say "stops" instead of "ends" because it doesn't feel like an actual ending.

Ship of Shadows by Fritz Leiber: The author came down with a dreadful case of having his head up his own ass here. I mean, Leiber REALLY got caught up in trying to sound clever and inventive that he forgot to sound coherent or enjoyable. Unfortunately it's also one of the longest stories in here, and it just drags on and on. A cat is also barely involved in this one, so it loses points for that.

Schrodinger's Cat by Ursula K. Le Guin: A bit silly and weird, a bit hard to get what she's getting at, but brief and well-written. I liked the humor in it, but it was also a bit forgettable once I finished reading it. A shame, because Le Guin is one of my favorite authors and her works usually resonate deeply and leave me thinking on them long after. Ah, well. Not bad though.

Tales of a Starship's Cat by Judith R. Conly: Poetry, not prose! Not much to say except I really liked it. Short and sweet. The only poetry in the book. Worth reading, even if poetry usually isn't your thing.

Who's There? by Arthur C. Clarke: Loved it. No notes.

Bullhead by David Drake: Well-written except for the phonetic accents, which I will eternally detest in any works, especially when done this thickly. An interesting little story. However, a cat's presence is tangential at best here. I also must nitpick Drake's decision to include two similar men in this story named Ransden and Rance for no apparent reason. I honestly thought Rance was just a nickname for Rans at first and had to re-read a section to reorient myself when I realized my mistake. Not bad otherwise, though.

Ordeal in Space by Robert A. Heinlein: Loved it. No notes.

Space-Time for Springers by Fritz Leiber: How did Leiber write such a stinker earlier and then came back to deliver an actually decent story in the same anthology?

The Tail by M.J. Engh: Very short, but it's only exactly as long as it needs to be. The tone is both humorous and chilling. Loved it.

Well Worth the Money by Jody Lynn Nye: This was the short story that got me to buy this book - I had heard a summary of this one floating around on the internet, and the concept delighted and intrigued me. The story itself delivers perfectly. Loved it. This is what I came here for.

Chamur's Homecoming by C.J. Cherryh: The author's head was even more up her own ass than Leiber's was. This was just terrible. I could not comprehend more than brief specks of action here. She piles in a million characters, concepts, and time-skipped-over events rapid-fire in a manner that makes me feel she wanted to rather write a space opera quadrillogy in which she could give proper attendance to all of them. Unfortunately, she did not have multiple novel lengths to explain what the hell is going on and who the hell these people are, so instead I was rushing through it confused and frustrated and eager to reach the end, or perhaps some section which would illuminate me and bring understanding to the whole thing.

Duty Calls by Anne McCaffrey: Loved it. I would love to read entire books in this setting about these characters.

Black Destroyer by A.E. Van Vogt: This was pretty fascinating. I loved reading a sci-fi horror slasher in the vein of The Thing or Alien with half of the chapters from the perspective of the killer monster itself. Had some unfortunate orientalism come out of nowhere, however.

The Pride by Todd Hamilton & P.J. Beese: Well-written and intriguing. I enjoyed it, however, it also simply Stopped instead of Ended and left me feeling unfulfilled. It was pretty long, too, but mostly it felt like a prologue for a story that never got to happen. Alas. Still good.

The Ballad of Lost C'mell by Cordwainer Smith: This one was just okay, a bit 'meh'. Very dated in its gender and sexuality, and carries some unfortunate White Savior tones. Strange how the first story by Smith here was one I loved the most, but his second story was one of my least favorites. Ah, well.

The Man Who Would Be Kzin by Greg Bear & S.M. Stirling: An excellent work to end on. Loved it. Great worldbuilding, fascinating characters, the protagonist is a bit Byronic yet deeply sympathetic. It was tense and intriguing and I read through it quickly not because I wanted to get it over with but because I had to see what happened next.

[Wise Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars really. I liked most of the stories and out of those, I had favorites. Like another member said, the book is divided into two parts. The first half is about cats as we know them today, the second half is about alien cats or cat-human hybrids.

Out of the 17 stories, 2 I didn't like: Bullhead and Chanur's Homecoming. The former was more like Bull$hit and not even science fiction. It was boring and weird, more like a horror/fantasy and the cat was BARELY in the story. Stupid title too, as bullhead is a type of fish. The dialogue was hard to decipher; I didn't even "get" the story or what it was supposed to be about.

The latter didn't even belong in the collection, because it's not a short story that can stand on its own. It's chapter 12 of the NOVEL, itself a part of a long series! No wonder I was lost; I didn't enjoy it at all and found it hard to follow. The editor must not have caught this.

The Ship of Shadows was okay, Duty Calls also. One story was really a poem, Tales of a Starship Cat.

Out of the ones I liked, my favorites were Mouse, Space Time for Springers, Schrodinger's Cat, Whos' There, Ordeal in Space, Black Destroyer, Ballad of Lost C'mell, and the last story but not the least: The Man Who Would be Kzin. The stories publication dates range from 1939-1991, though even if I didn't know that, I could tell from the way females were portrayed that they were from the early to mid-20th century.

The final story, The Man Who Would be Kzin, left me wanting more. I thought of The Man Who Would Be King" but no connection there. I had to look up a lot of words, some I couldn't even find the meaning of online.

Anyway this world is part of a long series with 20 books, and it is actually a spin off of another long series. Too many books; I hope to find something similar-a trilogy or a stand alone. There's too many books I want to read to make a commitment like that, 20 books!

If anyone is reading this and can recommend something, let me know please. These Kzin are alien cats somewhat like us, in that they can walk on 2 legs if they want and can talk. But their technology and intellect are way more advanced than ours. The idea of cat-human hybrid is a bit much even for me, yet the idea of feline-like aliens battling humans for centuries grabbed my attention.

All in all, a varied collection of stories with cats (literal or not) in outer space or elsewhere. Some are humorous in parts. If you like cats and sci-fi, you'd probably like this . The cover is cool too.

[Rex Libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is a collection of science fiction stories involving cats and/or cat-like beings. Like any collection, the stories are of varying quality and interest. That said, it does contain my favorite cate story: Space/Time for Springers. Springers is the story of a kitten named Gummich who knows he will obtain the power of speech and pass from kitten-hood into human adulthood when he has some coffee. He knows this because the human adults drink coffee and they speak. The older cats and the two small children in the house do not drink coffee and they do not speak. QED.

I got this book back in 1992? I thought it was much older than that. But what I found very interesting is who a number of authors were. Back in 1992 my knowledge of SF authors was very limited, but since then it has expanded greatly. I now know I have been sitting a book filled with stories from the great writers of our time!

[Susan]

This reminded me of being assigned "Leda and the swan" in high school English where after a short period of growing unease you realize that yes, that THAT really was what was happening, because you have been poked in the eye by the sudden and unexpected bestiality. Are the stories well written? Are the plots good? I don't know. Since this is not mandatory reading and it makes me deeply uncomfortable I'm going to abandon it to try to purify my soul with a textbook or something.

[Derri .]

I've only read the story I bought the book for (so far)
Well Worth the Money by Jody Lyn Nye

A slightly inebriated crew add the space ship's cat to the crew. When the crew are incapacitated (for reasons) the cat has to deal with it.

Clocking in at a mere 23 kindle pages, I wish there were more stories about this cat.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought many were great and most were good, but some lost me. The latest stories are from the early 1990s. I thought the funniest was Who's There by Arthur C. Clark, and the most amazing Black Destroyer by A. E. Van Vogt, written 80 years ago but as riveting as anything today.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 17 stories by various authors. I was going to give it 3 stars, but there are a few 5-star stories (including A.E. Van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" and Arthur C. Clarke's "Who's There?") that elevate the overall rating.

[Canbeuncanny · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories from the first part of the book are hit or miss, with some heartwarming (or haunting) stories where cats play the part of furry companions. I couldn't make myself finish the second part of the book. The first two stories were incomprehensible and far from captivating.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was just a slog to get through and I probably should have dnfed it. But some of them were ok mostly the ones the end with the cat aliens because the most of the first stories the cat seemed kind of like an afterthought and shoehorned in

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Varied in quality

A very uneven collection. The Greg Bear Kzin story was the best, probably, but the Anne McCaffrey was also very good. The rest… Well, let’s just say this book need not ever be on anyone’s must read list.

[M. Winslow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great group of stories, especially the last one. Not what I expected from the title of the book, but very worthwhile reading.

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a wide variety of tones and situations, this book has something for everyone. Some stories I liked better than others, and some were absolutely fantastic. I recommend to all cat lovers.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny and fascinating. I think it is hard to find an anthology like this where you like every story. But there were more great stories than otherwise. Ursula Le'Guin and Anne Macaffery contribute.

[Lissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories were better than others.

[Elaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of short stories that tell the stories of the most wonderful if occasionally sarcastic companion, the cat.

[Albert_Camus_lives]

Leer black destroyer by A E Van Vogt

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories are great. Some are not.

[Wetdryvac · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much fun.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, most of these stories I found boring. There were a couple of interesting ones, though.

[Alana Bleness · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say, it combines two things I love: cats and short stories.

[Katie]

In particular, I want to read "Well Worth the Money" by Jody Lynn Nye.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alllll over the place, total mixed bag lol.