Customer Reviews

Outworld Cats

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

1. Comic Book/Austin Powers-like? Yes (VBG). This story reminded me of some of the early Science Fiction I read 45 years or so ago as a teenager. Heavy on plot and action rather than characterization. A fun, quick read, reminiscent of simpler times.

2. The genetically evolved "cats" were well thought out and are clearly the strongest characters in the story. The kind of main characters that would be perfect for a Science Fiction series for Teenagers. Maybe someone will pick up on that someday.

3. Lovejoy must have planned for at least one sequel to this story. At the end of the story there is otherwise unexplained dialog indicating that a picture of the "cats" was found in an ancient Tomb, and some ground laying for an archeology expedition. In fact, it was a search for that "sequel" that lead me here.

Enjoy.

This book is a stellar example of something that should have had a sequel. The cats are great, the plot twists and turns too fast for those of slow wit, so do read carefully! I picked it up at a used book store and haven't put it down. It starts out with great Sci-Fi tugs and then moves into the antics of the two cats... who remind me of every trouble-making/overly-smart cat I have ever had. It touches on the occult and paranormal interests and the good guys are all funny, if not completely odd, characters. These cats have all the right moves at only the right moments. I do believe the only reason he wrote the book was because of the cats!

I will say that if he had written it later in his career it would have been better. The bad guys are written a little flat and with assorted neurosis and paranoias. The main plot faults revolve around the irritating behaviors of the typically bungling thugs, who can't seem to outwit these very brainy cats. But, on the whole I can tell that Lovejoy enjoyed writing this book. I enjoy pulling this book out for a completely turn-my-brain-off reading night.

The book starts out describing the race Masters who breeded and engineered cats as a useful race for engineering in their spaceships. The concept and the idea was fascinating and remarkable. And the idea of using "intelligent" cats for such a purpose (small size, genetically evolved to include hands, and there agility in space) is probably the more ingenious idea I seen in an author in some time.

From the beginning, I was NOT disappointed in this book. This book was very well written and unless you are ridiculously critical of whether or not such-and-such a character fits the model-role of what a character should be, then I think you will enjoy this book immensely. There are many funny scenes involving the intelligent cats. Everything from them playing chess, and they would usually win :) To them battling the villians in the story. Very good book, and I look forward to reading more Lovejoy works involving these feline companions.

As a fan of the furry sub-genre, I was lured by the summary description of "Outworld Cats". The idea of a pair of cat-like telepathic aliens uncovering a sinister plot certainly has possibilities. But I was more than a little disappointed. Most of the characters are cliche from head to toe. Far from being good sci-fi, the villains seemed more the type you'd expect to find in comic books, and their plot had all the cheesiness of an Austin Powers movie without the humor. Tim and Verna, the two primary human protagonists, are boring, and they're the best human characters in the book. The only characters I really enjoyed reading about were the two cats, whose clever and amusing scenes were too few and far between. The plot has huge holes in it, and seems to have undertones critical of how science approaches paranormal phenomena. I'd recommend it only to readers who enjoy books that are so bad they're funny.

This book is not at all what I hoped for. With a title like "Outworld Cats," I thought it would be an interesting story about two alien cats figuring out how to deal with Earthlings. Sadly, no. Really, it's about an odd handful of humans who defeat a maniacal businessman. The alien cats just show up from time to time to help the action along.

The characterizations are all very flat. Even though potentially interesting (i.e., an occult investigator, a native American shaman in training, a bodybuilder MBA student, an Italian silent film actress), none of the characters have any depth or backstory (i.e., you now know as much about these characters as you will after finishing the book). The bad guys are brutish thugs who take pride in their lack of intelligence, and (joy) we get to follow them for a quarter of the book. I have no idea how thay managed to come "this close" to taking over the world. The alien cats are hyperintelligent but never communicate with the humans and thus spend the entire time bemusedly watching the main characters and generally having no idea what is going on. They never regale the reader with their interesting observations about human nature or culture from an alien viewpoint, but we do get to watch them smack the neighbor's cat around for being mean.

OK, so at least there's action, right? Well, yeah, stuff happens, but it's not an exiting action story - there are no space battles or car chases or anything. The bad guys are mean to everyone (including each other). The good guys escape by inviting all the body builders in California to a film festival. (Really!) Since it is hard to care about the main characters, it is hard to get interested in what they are doing. The capstone: the good guys barely scratch the surface of the big bad's nefarious plan, yet the cats manage to destroy the plan through actions that were apparently taken on a whim (as they have no idea what's going on overall but can repeat whatever they see someone type on a computer).

The best thing I can say is that the prose is pleasant enough to read. There's just not a lot of reason to do so.

I really enjoyed this book--the premise, the cats, and the other characters--and how they worked together. There was suspense and fun. I enjoyed it so much that I wrote the author, and I got a reply from him dated November 4,1996 (which I found in a collection of old papers and stuff today), wherein he said that he was working on "a sequel called The Slave of the Lamp, in which Domino and Dominique and their friends are pitted against a super computer and an Ifrit out of the Arabian Nights, and must return there to give battle. ..." So, I came to search on amazon.com to see if I could find it, but it's not here.