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As you can tell from my book covers, I have cats in many of my Science fiction novels, even in those not featuring a cat on the cover. Most of these cats are telepathic, and it’s not by accident. We all know cats have a sixth sense… and nine lives to boot.
I love cats, and if I had to go on a long voyage through space to another planet, I couldn’t imagine not taking a cat as a companion. I would also want to seed that new earth-like planet with cats. It makes perfect sense as I couldn’t imagine life without these beautiful creatures.
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Marshmallow in BLACK DRAGON is a cuddly ball of fluff who helps the hero cheat at cards and charm the ladies. His favorite reward is synthetic tuna.
But some of these cats are enormous, and readers not familiar with my work sometimes ask: “How is it possible to have such big cats on a spaceship, or a space station?”
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| Alpha Space Station in the movie Valerian and the city of a thousand planets |
Obviously, they have the wrong idea of the size of an interstellar ship. Since there is no limitation to size in space, ships can be the size of several football fields. As for the space stations of the distant future, we are not talking about our tiny ISS orbiting earth, but about space stations as large as entire cities or small moons, like artificial planets orbiting alien suns or gas giants, and supporting millions of people.
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| The Byzantium Space Station as I imagined it. |
How do cats happen to be in space or on other planets?
Sometimes my fictional cats are wild and native to their alien planet, like Tibeta and her cubs in Angel Brave, the Smilodons of Azura, a planet teeming with large predators. I pity the hero, Keoke, who has to face this deadly family of cats.
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| Tibeta, the sabertooth Smilodon cat in Angel Brave |
Sometimes, like in the Chronicles of Kassouk, the big cats are the result of a human experiment gone out of control, and are trained and used in battle, or kept as pets.
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There are also the big cats experimented upon, who are genetically modified and electronically enhanced to communicate telepathically with their owners. They usually become companions for bounty hunters, like Akira’s cheetah retriever in AKIRA’S CHOICE, or the telepathic cougar helping Fianna catch the bad guys in ANGEL MINE.
In MALAIKA’S SECRET, Raja, the lion guarding the temple, was rescued from illegal smugglers of exotic animals.
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In SNATCHED, my heroine has to face a native saber-tooth tiger in the jungle.
In ALIEN LOCKDOWN, set in the Andromeda galaxy, my protagonists face a native predator called a bearcat.
There are no significant cats in my medieval fantasy series CURSE OF THE LOST ISLE, based on Celtic legends, but I must mention for dog lovers, that I have a heroic dog named Kopek in DAMSEL OF THE HAWK, book 7, which is a standalone in the series.
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But there are more cats to come in my future books. In ANGEL SHIP, Book one of the Blue Phantom series, to be released in the fall of 2022, the heroine, a warrior princess, has a telepathic feline bodyguard with a keen sense of peoples’ true character.
Vijaya Schartz, author
Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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Strong Heroines, Brave Heroes, cats
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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I also love cats both large and small. I once gave small cats to my critique partners as Christmas gifts. Every writer needs a cat,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Janet. I, too, think every writer needs a cat. There is so much to learn from these smart creatures.
ReplyDeleteI like the names of your cats, big & small, but I'm not a cat person. Sorry! In all fairness, it doesn't help that two-third of my kids are allergic to cats, but they all have dogs LOL
ReplyDeleteI think every writer needs a cat to lay on their feet, purr in their ear, and most importantly, to walk across the keyboards. And I agree with a cat as companion on a long journey.
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Ditto! :)
DeleteI am a dog person and have only ever had one cat to be honest, but I do like to put the odd one here and there in my books as I love their oh so carefree attitude to us humans. I agree they would be the best companion to take into space.
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