We're about ten days away from the release of the Pets In
Space anthology, which also contains a new Sectors story from yours truly,
entitled "Star Cruise: Stowaway." I thought it’d be fun to put my
hero through a quiz on pets and see which one he ought to have, versus the two
in the story. Results at the end!
Here's the blurb for Star Cruise: Stowaway: Cargo Master
Owen Embersson is shocked when the Nebula
Zephyr’s ship’s cat and her alien sidekick, Midorri, alert him to the
presence of a stowaway. He has no idea of the dangerous complications to come –
nor does he anticipate falling hard for the woman whose life he now holds in
his hands. Life aboard the Nebula Zephyr
has just become more interesting – and deadly.
I went online and
found a variety of quizzes that claim to help a person determine which kind of
pet he should own, so I asked my character Owen an amalgamation of the typical questions:
Why do you want a
pet? I don’t but I couldn’t leave a helpless kitten being tormented by a
crowd of bullies at a backwater spaceport, so I waded in, handed those idiots
their asses and took her back to the ship with me. She was a cute little thing
when she got cleaned up! Not hurt bad, just scared. We’re just talking about
the cat here, right? We’re not discussing the Ship’s alien pet? Although she
kind of became mine too, somehow.
How much time do you
intend to spend with your pet? I work fulltime on the Nebula Zephyr as the cargo master, making sure we take on freight,
get it to its destination and offload it safely. I arrange contracts for
shipping, inspect the containers – well, you get the picture. I work long
hours. So I need an independent pet, which cats are. She keeps me company in my
office sometimes and in my quarters after my shift ends.
Do you want your pet
to ‘talk’ to you? Tell me how to get her to shut up?! She has a loud yowl
when she wants something and feels ignored. Of course her purr is nice.
Do you care what
gender your pet is? No. My cat is a lady, through and through.
What kind of a name
did you give your pet? She’s pure white, so I named her Moby, after Moby
Dick the whale in that old book from Earth. Not that I’ve read it, too long and
antiquated. I figured she’d enjoy eating a whale and she was going into the
ocean of space. I don’t know, seemed good at the time.
Where do you live?
In the Cargo Master’s assigned quarters on the Nebula Zephyr. But Moby has the run of the ship. Maeve, the ship’s
Artificial Intelligence, keeps a ganglion or two on her activities.
So no big yard? (Owen
laughs.) Don’t worry, she’s happy, chasing space rats in the hold. And the
Hydroponics crew grows grass for her to roll in, and catnip for her leisure
time.
Do you have a lot of knickknacks
in your quarters? I travel light. I do build scale models in my spare time –
of spacecraft, famous buildings, things like that. Moby knows to leave them
alone. She’s dainty.
Veronica sez: OK, so
I took the BuzzFeed website’s quiz on what animal a person should own,
answering all the questions the way a big, tough, ex-military guy like Owen
would and the recommendation was
-----drum roll------a ferret! Actually that’s pretty darn close to how
Midorri, the alien pet in the story, acts at times during the adventure so I
thought the result was amazingly accurate.
10% of the first month’s royalties from the book will be
donated to the Hero Dogs Charity (service animals for veterans). http://www.hero-dogs.org/
What kind of a pet
would you take into space?
Very fun post. Congrats on the upcoming release. Sounds like an interesting, unique read.
ReplyDeletesherry @ fundinmental
I love this! What a fun idea!
ReplyDeleteA ferret would probably make a great space pet. Fun article!
ReplyDelete