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Shirley Rousseau Murphy
2019-02-05 12:12 PM PDT
OF COURSE, IT MIGHT BE that I just got done writing a novel about one, but now, I'm seeing cats every where. Cats buried in snowbanks, sliding down hills, cleaning houses, listening to music, showing up outside a guy's window during the polar vortex, and even werewolf cats!
I don't know about you, but I think the Criminal might be right, and that someday, cats are gonna take over the world, and we're gonna end up being their food.
I've got no proof. It's just a feeling, but if there's one nearby, just read that last part out loud and see what they do.
That's all the proof I need, but it's not that important anyway, because we'll all be long gone before that happens. Maybe our great, great, great, great grandkids will have to worry about it, but we won't.
Anyway, after I finished my novel, I wondered how many other authors used the talking cat trick, and surprisingly enough, not too many did. The only one I could really remember was the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
I did a web search and ran across a website, GoodReads.com, that had a webpage listing 118 books about talking cats. The list is called, Forget Meow! - Talking Cats in Fiction."
I haven't had a chance to check them all out, but most of them seemed to be about fantasy worlds where cats can talk. That's called high fantasy, but the kind I was writing about was called low fantasy, and those are usually set in the real world.
A sub-genre of low fantasy is urban or contemporary fantasy, and not only do they take place in the real world, but also in modern or contemporary times. Another sub-genre that my book falls under is known as science fantasy, and that's when science is used to explain a fantasy scenario.
My book does exactly that. It not only uses a thin veil of science to explain a talking cat, but also an RV that can almost turn invisible.
While looking through the Good Reads list, I did find one novel that was more like mine, than all the others. It's called, "Cat Raise the Dead."
I went to the local online library to check it out, and come to find out, it was number three in a series of more than twenty books called the Joe Grey series. I don't really like to read books out of series, so I went looking for the first one, and that was called, "Cat on the Edge."
The author of the Joe Grey series is Shirley Rousseau Murphy, and her mystery stories are amazing. Joe Grey is one of the talking cats, and his girlfriend Dulcie is another. A few books into the series, a talking kitten called Kit joins them.
They're ordinary cats, except they can talk. They also help the local Police Department solve murder mysteries.
What I found the most fascinating about her series was how she worked around some of the problems that I also encountered while writing my own book.
The first is explaining how a cat can talk. While I use science to explain my talking cat, Murphy uses Celtic Mythology and other folklore stories to explain hers. I can't remember the details, but I do remember something about underground cities run by talking cats, and also about them being guardians of the gate to the underworld.
The second problem was who the cats could talk to, and who they couldn't. In a fantasy world where all the cats can talk, that's not much of a problem, but in the real world, that can become a big problem if the wrong people find out.
In my book, the Criminal cat-naps her from the military to save her life, and that adds a whole 'nother layer of problems, besides the usual ones like people stealing her for financial gain, or scientist wanting to cut her open to see what makes her tick.
In the Joe Grey series, Murphy keeps it down to six people who know their secret, and one of them can also turn herself into a talking cat too. There's also an evil black cat that can talk, and a whole feral clowder of them that wander the west coast like gypsys. Some other low lifes know about the talking cat detectives too, but they're not about to say anything. They just want to kill them.
Like I said, the series is amazing, but also funny. What's comical is that the one person who should be in on the secret is the Police Chief, because the cats are always calling him on the phone to give him tips, and he can't figure out how his "snitches" are getting their information. He doesn't even suspect that they're cats. Oh, he's got a weird feeling about it, but he never really gives it a second thought.
What makes it even funnier is his wife is in on it too, but she can't tell him, because she promised the cats. His best friend knows it too, and they're also both afraid to tell him, because they think it'll send him off the deep end.
That brings up another interesting problem, how will people react to a talking cat, and that's actually where I had the most fun while writing my book. Also, I allow the Cat to talk to a Homicide Detective, and that's one of the many ways my book is different from the Joe Grey series.
Another way is how her cats act. She does a damn good job of explaining how the mind of a cat works, and she also has them hunting and killing mice and rabbits too.
My cat, being a product of a genetic modification, was a kind of test-tube kitty, and didn't have a mother to nurture and teach her how to hunt. The result was that she feels sad for the mice that are tortured in front of her, while she's caged up in the "Secret Room".
If you like talking cat stories, and even if you don't, you should definitely check out the Joe Grey series, and if you like those, then you should definitely read my book too.
I know it's a shameless plug, but hey, this is my blog after all.
RELATED ARTICLE (from petcha.com): "Talking Cats in Stories: Yes or No?"
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SuperGIRL? Shouldn't that be SuperWOMAN?
2019-01-20 05:54 PM PDT
BACK IN THE SIXTIES when I was just a young pup, Supergirl was my first crush. What the hell, I was just a kid, but I still like the fact that the woman could kick some ass just like her male cousin, and she's even beaten him a time or two.
Thinking about that got me wondering, why Supergirl instead of Superwoman? Why is she called a girl, while her cousin is called a man? I mean, come on, they didn't call Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, did they? Although, I do wonder how that would've went over?
I don't follow the comic world as closely as when I was a kid, so I have no idea if they even care, but it was brought up in the first Season of the Supergirl TV series starring Melissa Benoist as my first crush come back to life.
In the series, Calista Flockhart, playing the owner of an immense Newspaper Empire, Cat Grant, is the one who names her. She also just happens to be Supergirl's boss. The idea doesn't sit well with Kara Danvers, Supergirl's secret identity, and she even ask her why Supergirl? Why not Superwoman?
Her answer was that all woman are girls, aren't they? It was pretty dramatic, but to me, it was lame.
It's interesting to note that the very first Supergirl was actually called Superwoman.
In a 1943 DC comic, Action Comics #60 (May 1943), Lois Lane dreams she's a companion to Superman. I haven't read it, so I'm not really sure how that worked, but in that comic, she's called Superwoman.
It wasn't until 1959, Action Comics #252 (May 1959), that the most familiar version was introduced, and she was called Supergirl instead of Superwoman. It was the Fifties, and woman were still considered inferior to men, and that's probably the real reason she was called a girl. I'm sure some people must've complained, but obviously that didn't change anything.
Personally, I like the fact that she's called Supergirl, and it has nothing to do with woman being inferior to men.
Every single reference in English to the opposite sex, female, woman, she, and her, all of them somehow refer back to the male, like without them, women wouldn't be able to exist. Even Lady, I think, refers to a lad, the younger version of a man, and don't get me started on Ma'am, Madam, Mrs., Miss or Ms., because they all refer back to M for Male.
I have to laugh, because that all seems so petty, but it's important none the less. It's important, because the only exception that isn't derogatory is girl. It's the only one that doesn't reference back to a man somehow, and that's what I like about it.
Another reason I like it is because it's so deceptive. She's only a girl, what can she do? Obviously, those people conveniently forget that Supergirl beat her cousin a few times, and they're also clueless about Fearless Girl too.
In case you've been living under a rock for the past decade, Fearless Girl is a small statue in New York. It was only a small statue of a girl, but what caused the uproar was that she was facing the Wall Street Bull and daring it to charge her. That's my take on it anyway, and I had to laugh again, because what were they all worried about? After all, she's just a girl, what can she do?
She can do plenty and being a girl doesn't change a thing. It's like girls are the secret identities of the Superheroes all women really are.
It's too bad men, me included, can't see and appreciate that more often.
History is replete with examples of women being called on to step it up when men couldn't. World War II is the perfect example. Women stayed home and did the jobs men left behind, and they were awesome at it.
And, did you know that when the codes for the original computers were written, almost all of it was written by women?
Today, it's mostly a male profession, and not many of them seem to remember the contribution that woman made to their own history.
As a matter of fact, not too long ago, there was a big fuss over at Google when a manifesto was released explaining why women weren't qualified to write software. The guy who wrote it obviously didn't know his history either.
Ironically, social media is doing a hell of a job in helping to change those perceptions, and the #MeToo movement is a good example. It's moving fast too, and that gives me hope that maybe I'll still be around when equality for everyone finally does go global for real.
Besides social media, another interesting trend that I've noticed are women referring to themselves as grrls, or grrrls, and if you look up Riot grrrl on Wikipedia, you'll see what I mean.
Hmm, Supergrrrl?
I like it.
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Who's AmyStrange?
2014-04-06 02:07 PM PST
THE FIRST QUESTION most people have is, what's this "AmyStrange" website all about? The second is, who's AmyStrange? There should be a picture of her on the left.
AmyStrange, as you can see, is a cat, but to Dave, she's been his best friend for over ten years. That's longer than I've known him.
Cats, at one time or another, have been considered everything from Gods, to witch familiars, to the serial killers of the animal world.
AmyStrange would probably describe herself as a psycho cat, but she was also "Bitten by the curiosity of everything UNeXpLaiNed". I'm not sure what exactly Dave means by "bitten". I'm guessing he was bitten by AmyStrange and now he's twisting that around to make his arguement. What's sad is that this is all he's gonna contribute to the homepage. He says he's too busy proofreading everything I'm writing. He says this while shaking his head sadly. I wouldn't be surprised if he proofread this part out, but what the hell, sometimes he can do some funny stuff, and that's being nice... MORE
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