Hairy Characters

No, I'm not talking about werewolves or demons. I'm talking about pets. Domesticated pet characters are a rarity in science fiction, especially in space voyage and off world subgenres, which I think is a shame.

Let's break it down even more, to cats and dogs, which are the two most prominent animal companions for humans. There is something about cats and dogs that call to a natural bond with human beings. Not to mention their natural tendency to offer themselves as protector and friend.

Cats have been domesticated as early as 3500 BC by ancient Egyptians. (I personally believe the ancestral God-worship of cats is why felines can often be so cocky and "superior" to others...including us.) Okay, yeah, they had a bad break during the Middle Ages but they recovered with the whole Black Plague incident when they turned superhero and killed the plague-infected rats.

Scientifically, petting your animals lowers your blood pressure. Pet owners tend to live longer. They also reduce depression and studies have shown they improve how people see their quality of life.

And you think cats are long-standing companions, then you'll be blown away by dogs.

Canine partnership with us Homo Sapiens has be as long ago as 4500 BC. Most people think they started as only hunting "tools" but it's been shown they were hunting companions, not tools, and in fact were also revered by Egyptians.

This relationship has not waned with the evolving times. So, why would this change for the future? Why are domesticated animals so far and few between in SF works? Yeah, there are a few scattering pet characters, but not many.

When I began writing the second book in the Telomere Trilogy, it was natural for me to work a pet into the story. A male character, Damani, wasn't him without his dog. They were a pair. I further expanded that relationship in the third book, End of Eternity, when he took center stage as the main male character.

Below is an excerpt of End of Eternity, showcasing the bond between this man and his dog. (Just remember, this book is in draft form and hasn't been edited to publisher's specifications. The final could - will - be different.)

Excerpt:

"Zane." Damani crouched, buried his face in his dog, and didn’t care who saw or heard the emotion in his voice. He nuzzled Zane's neck, rubbed his side, and patted his belly. "There’s my boy. Aren’t you a sight for tired eyes. You miss Daddy?"

Zane barked, jumped his front paws onto Damani’s thighs, and barked again.

"That’s a big fat yes," Galvin decided. "Though, he might want custody rights with Makai. The way my brother spoiled him, you’d thought Zane was Makai’s dog. They were inseparable."

"You have a new friend?" Damani asked Zane, cupping his jaw.

With his world once again right, Damani let his attention return to Luna and Jetta. A definite change from when the women first met. No verbal communication, but Damani was sure mind speech was happening. A lot by their expressions and Jetta's sly glance in his direction. They hurried off, out of the hangar bay.

"I don't need to hear minds to see you're in deep trouble." Galvin positioned himself next to Damani and watched the woman leave. "I've seen the same look from her several times and it never ends well."

"So have I," Jace added and slapped Damani on the back. "Sorry, Watcher."

"No matter. Let me clean up and then I'd like to know where we're at with the case."

"Noah's already called for a mission briefing in three hours. Rest a bit. Seems you need it," Galvin said with a sarcastic pat on his cheek.

Galvin and Jace strode off together.

"Come, Zane." Damani snapped his fingers and both walked side-by-side towards his quarters, where he planned for a long shower.

It seemed the two men worked out the remaining stiffness between them as well. He shook his head. Chaos. It's what family and friends brought. Chaos, turmoil, and stress. Happy one moment, fighting the next, then flipped to happy all over again. He didn't need any of those things.

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Hope you liked the excerpt.

Who knows, there could be doggies out there, ready to explore the stars at our side. Let me know what SF books you've read with strong cat or dog characters. I'd love to add them to my TBR list.

Oh! And remember, next week our summer crossover event starts. We'll all be hopping around from here and swapping blogs with each other.

It'll be crazy! It'll be wild! It'll be fantasmic!

Excerpt from my first: Duty and Devotion

To follow up on my "First Time" post from the 6th, below is an excerpt from Duty and Devotion.

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The next morning, Kaitlin and Jenny dragged her to the ground hangar where they joined up with another crew to go to surface cruising. Nettie had trained in simulation and gone out a couple times, but the fear of real surface, open space, still unnerved her. Kaitlin once concluded it was because Nettie had been raised in a bubble.

When their surface cruisers rolled out of the hanger decompression area, bile threatened to undo her. Since it would have taken too long to remove the suit, she forced it back. These vehicle models were not enclosed, but had an exposed frame the other crew called a 'roll cage'. Nettie decided not to ask why they called it that. They might have answered her, and she would have had to de-suit.

She stayed silent while Kaitlin and Jenny fought over steering privileges, repeating to herself people had been surface exploring for several hundred years. It was a perfectly sound method of fun and adventure. Yeah, she thought bitterly, fun and adventure. Nettie clung to the vehicle's handles as they covered ground, heading away from the facility.

"Relax, Nettie. At least we're not somewhere like Mars... though crater jumping would be fun." Having lost, Kaitlin sat in the rear seat while Jenny steered. The other crew drove ahead of them.

Nettie took a relaxing breath and decided to approach the situation as a soldier would during a mission. She mentally recorded the scene. Behind her loomed the structure of the facility. Several stories of metal and pressurized diamond glass were lit up by bright lights. Beyond it, encompassing two-thirds of the sky was Jupiter. The orange and white bands twisted slowly.

Facing forward, she took in Callisto's open frontier rolling out to caress the horizon. It was a flat surface of eroded and dusty glacier-type ice several hundred miles deep. Beneath that was water, which had never seen the light of day.

It wasn't to say the waters are dark. Hundreds of years ago when man first landed on this moon, they drilled through the glacier in search of little green mermen. Instead, they found small to medium size life forms of the fish variety -- and they found brightness. Aptly named the Under Ocean, the core of the moon kept it warmed and lit. The magnetic balance between the core and Jupiter prevented the glacier surface from cracking. The surface's coldness and the core's warmth kept the glacier surface from melting, or Under Ocean becoming too warm.

Nettie drew her thoughts from under the surface back to the Callisto sky. Without the damping of the facility lights, Galileo's constellations sparkled like diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. Her fears calmed and she forgot the terror of open terrain. She recognized the beauty of it. This was the definition of wonder, of awe. Majestic had no true meaning for her until now. The brightness started where the sky kissed the surface in the distance and went across the whole heavens.

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Well, hope you enjoyed it! There's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

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