More Futures for FeralsEdited by
Danielle Ackley-McPhail
(eSpec Books, October 2025, kindle. pb., 188 pp.)
“Strangely Familiar” by Sherri Cook Woosley
“The Right Way” by Lisanne Norman
“Tradition” by Patrick Thomas
“Caretakers” by Will McDermott (reprint, not reviewed)
“3 AM” by Jacob Jones-Goldstein
“Ginger and the Bully of Lowergate Court” by Sharon Lee (reprint, not reviewed)
“Poohbear & Smokey” by Marc L. Abbott (reprint, not reviewed)
“Hide and Go Squeak” by Eric Hardenbrook (non-genre, not reviewed)
“Cat 7 Purricane” by Kris Katzen
“Getting too Familiar” by Charles Barouch
“Degloved” by Brad Jurn (non-genre, not reviewed)
“Fluf” F.R. Michaels
“Man’s Best Friend” by Nancy Jane Moore (non-grenre, not reviewed)
“The Thing about Humans” by Christopher L. Burke (reprint, not reviewed)
“Smart Space Cats” by Anton Kukal
Reviewed by C. D. Lewis
More Futures for Ferals is a sequel anthology to A Future for Ferals, both charitable productions to raise money for cat shelters that rescue feral cats. Yes, the proceeds will help save cats. Yes, purchasing this volume will bring you into the divine favor of any deity worth the name. Completely guaranteed. Tangent does not review poetry or reprints, so the works covered in this review are limited to those without a history of prior publication, just as reviews are limited to stories with some speculative element (talking cats, cats mousing in spacecraft, etc.). Beyond the reviewed titles, More Futures for Ferals offers reprinted stories, nonfiction such as anecdotes featuring cats and writings on feline rescue, and original fiction without a speculative element but which involve cats.
Sherri Cook Woosley‘s short fantasy “Strangely Familiar” presents a variation of “The Ugly Duckling” from the point of view of a rescued cat of dubious pedigree that is trying to help a trainee wizard succeed as they go through a competition for the wizard’s first work placement after graduation, then as they try to survive the work assignment. The fantasy elements support the revelation of the protagonist cat’s superior qualities when the situation develops to make them relevant. The ugly-duckling plot arc is well-executed, with the protagonist-cat initially ridiculed for looking different and lacking a pedigree and putting on weight and so on to the protagonist’s ongoing misery (and guilt: she feels she’s letting down the wizard to whom she serves as a familiar) until the climactic reveal and reversal (there’s a reason the cat looks different, and while the cat might not exactly be a secret prince there’s a reason for the uncertain parentage, too).
Set on an offworld colony, Lisanne Norman‘s “The Right Way” follows a crew trying to repair a ship whose expensive navigational net has been damaged by a rat infestation. When a local used-parts dealer suggests shipboard cats to control the future threat, the mission becomes clear. Absolutely ignorant crewmen entertain readers with incompetent cat-capture efforts until a local feral rescue clues them into The Right Way to handle cats. Finding feral cats a permanent home? Check. Turning curmudgeon cat-skeptics into affectionate fans of felines? Check. This is a feel-good story with no opposition beyond characters’ initial cluelessness how cats can save their bacon.
Patrick Thomas‘ “Tradition“ opens in a barred-off Coliseum where descendants of some old elite operate death matches which turn out to be cat-conducted rat hunts, punishments for dogs who reject the regime, and the occasional slaughter of a human who threatens the wrong cat with a rock. Many of the character names are drawn from historic Rome, but the setting appears modern enough to know Chicago and know newspapers. The work doesn’t have a single plot arc so much as it offers a fabric of vignettes that show cats, rats, dogs, crows, and humans in a relationship governed more by the force of those in power than by any principles of civilization.
Jacob Jones-Goldstein‘s “3 AM” provides readers an explanation why cats sometimes tear through the house at odd hours revisits an idea that appears elsewhere in this anthology, that pets protect households from horrors unknown to the humans who feed them. Like many of the stories in this anthology, it recounts a rescue by adoption into a forever-home and depicts the happy consequences. The speculative element is the otherworldly peril from which the pets protect their adoptive family.
“Cat 7 Purricane” by Kris Katzen is a cat rescue set in a post-apocalyptic medicine-delivery plot. Readers who recall Zelazny’s Damnation Alley sending an anti-hero across a continent of perils to redeem himself delivering medicine to strangers will recognize the inversion: “Cat 7 Purricane” showcases residents of a remote scientific outpost who have suffered an infectious disease exposure and hope to receive a helicopter medical delivery to a shoreside landing pad to which the protagonist has been dispatched in the hope of collecting it before a hurricane grounds the aircraft or a tsunami wipes the docks off the map. Meanwhile, the protagonist’s father teeters on the edge of succumbing to the infection and, with the oncoming tsunami in sight, she spots this stray….
Charles Barouch‘s narrator opens “Getting too Familiar” on a kitten rescued behind the narrator’s tiny apartment where, while not working one of his low-paid jobs, he writes. The impoverished writer feeds the cat despite struggling to feed himself … and the cat soon supports the household by typing out works strangely like the narrator’s own writing, but more polished. Speculative elements include a talking (and typing) cat and time travel. Humor reaches into both cat mannerisms and nerd culture.
F.R. Michaels‘ “Fluf” offers an urban fantasy comedy about a fantasy-writing cat owner who finds herself in a cat-owner fantasy. In keeping with a millennia-old worldwide tradition of culture heroes laying unlikely defeats upon terrible foes by leveraging their wits, the protagonist starts off surprised in her kitchen by an intruder who not only has found her baseball bat, but is a powerful warlock who needn’t wield a baseball bat to best anyone. Being a proper villain, the warlock has an evil scheme worthy of his horrible means: he’s there for her cat Fluf. Also, he disses her unpublished paranormal romance manuscript. The fiend. Outstanding execution, funny, a delightful conclusion.
Narrated by a feline inmate scheduled for execution in an animal impound in an offworld area with Norse-themed names, “Smart Space Cats” by Anton Kukal is an action-packed little piece with a lot of activity. Kukal delivers a roller coaster with hope and disappointment and redemption on several axes as a doomed cat hopes for adoption, a family expects to get home without being stranded without oxygen by a space station’s bombing by terrorists, and a father hopes to get back to everyday life without being impoverished by mercenaries entitled to seize what they recover under governing salvage law-–it’s a lot to pack into 3600 words. Whether it’s cats or SF that draws the reader, Kukal delivers.
C. D. Lewis lives and writes in Faerie.