Monday, September 14, 2015

The Smell of Blood and Thunder, Liz J. Andersen

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2015; ~10,500 words
Rating: 3, Good, ordinary, story

A world where people coexist with intelligent dogs and cats sends for a vet to cope with a problem with intelligent fleas.

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Not meant to be taken seriously, of course, this is a fun read. The conversations translated from "flea language," are consistently the funniest part, although the dog conversations are pretty good too.

The scenes with the cat aren't very funny. A few loose ends could be handled better. The local doctor who fails to return the armor just drops out, for example, and although a big deal is made of the difficulty of transferring from one ship to another in a space suit, nothing of note actually happens. 

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