Tales from the Guild: Blood and Water by The Furry Writer's Guild

Topics: Family, Queerness, Disability

Genre: Short Story Anthology

Age Rating: PG-13 for some intense themes

Available in Print and PDF

You might enjoy this book if you like:

-Stories about found family

-A variety of genres and subgenres

-A mix of heavy and lighthearted themes

-Discovering new furry writers

-Yelling at dead people

Family is a difficult topic for furries. As a queer community, many of us have our hangups, and found family has become a common theme because of it. So when I saw that the Furry Writer's Guild was putting together an anthology about family, I had my worries that it was going to be a dark one. And indeed, some of the stories in here have their dark moments, but I'm impressed by the variety of tones the anthology manages to achieve. Not to mention the diverse genres and subgenres that the stories manage to bring the theme into. It's a fantastic anthology because of how different every story manages to be. Here's my rundown of them all!

Don't Be Late by Renee Carter Hall

I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of melancholy in this anthology. Don't Be Late begins with two rabbit brothers, Ethan and Bain. Bain has just attempted suicide and has woken up in the hospital. Heck of a way to start the anthology. A third brother, Alex, is mentioned. It's also mentioned that they were all once in a pop group together singing top 40s hits and oh my God this is Alvin and the Chipmunks, isn't it?

Except in this case they're three rabbits, and instead of having a decent father figure they had a deadbeat dad who kept them in a cage in a basement for their entire childhood and abused them into becoming pop stars for personal gain. Again, a heck of a way to start the anthology.

It's pretty well written though. Well-paced, exploring this newest tragedy of attempted suicide so many years after they escaped that situation and settled into normal lives. Their reunion is melancholic, but ultimately hopeful, as I'm sure many of the stories in this anthology are bound to be.

The Prince and the Mage by Chase Anderson

Short, sweet, and not too complicated. This was a cute story about a young vulpine prince, Basile, who is soon the be king. He notices that his sister, Alexandra, has been acting strangely for weeks, and when he tries to tell someone about it, he is told that as king he must practice his assertiveness by solving his own problems. And so begins Basile's short quest to find out why his sister is so withdrawn and unkempt lately.

I think my favorite part of the story is how Basile frets over his obligations to keep appearances in order. There's a suggestion that their family is suffering from some unspecified nasty rumors, and so Basile feels pressured to forego doing the right thing to instead be a jerk and scold people in order to appear capable and keep his servants in line. It was also kind of humorous how he attempted to start doing this immediately after being told to by his uncle, so everyone he was mean to was just plain confused about why the usually good-tempered prince was suddenly acting all snooty.

Needless to say, he eventually finds out what his sister's deal is, and I loved the answer. A very sweet story.

Theodore Has A Boyfriend Now by Cardigan

And we get our first parent and child story! This one is about Theo, a father in his 50s who has just recently come out and gotten a boyfriend, Anton. Theo is recently retired, but to do so by his 50s he had to give most of his life to his career, which means he and his son, Jason, are more distant than he'd like. When Jason starts acting standoffish toward Anton, Theo has to find out why, and perhaps acknowledge the strain of their father-son relationship.

It's a short and sweet story. Sort of slice of life, and not overly dramatic. I really liked Theo's pondering over his relationship with his son, and the choices he made that led to a doomed marriage and his distant fatherly relationship. There's also a talk that Theo has with his brother that I think is a nice exploration of all that.

The story did confuse me a little. There's a part toward the end where some feelings about Theo trying his best as a father are expressed, but the topic of that important conversation suddenly changes. I'd think a chunk of the story was missed in editing if I hadn't also heard it on The Voice of Dog. But luckily, the story still has some interesting stuff about Anton to explore, and has enough charm to carry it through to the end.

Marek's Run by Sky McKinnon

Marek's Run is a bit different than what I've seen so far on this anthology. There's a bit more world building going on, and I feel like it's just enough to make the story interesting and give it a unique flavor without overdoing it.

The story follows Marek, a horse from the herds in the hills of Star's Cradle, as he hires a Cougar named Crag to help track down his missing brother. This is a big risk, as it's made clear there is a lot of hostility between predator and prey in this prehistoric world, and bringing a predator into the lands of the herds is a banishable offense. But Marek needs to find his brother, and he's willing to sacrifice a lot to do it.

I like this story a lot. It's well written, with great pacing and tension. You feel the gravity of what Marek is doing to find his brother, and the stewing it puts on his reputation with the rest of the herd. What happened to his brother isn't all that shocking. Heck, it's even expected. But I think that works thematically in this case because of how Marek ends up reacting to the cause of his brother's disappearance. There's a lot to say about brotherhood, family, and tradition in that reaction, and I appreciated that aspect of the story a lot.

There are a few disconnected elements here and there. Crag being necessary to find the brother didn't seem all that justified, as finding him didn't come off as all that difficult. And there's little said about any deeper reason for the brothers disappearance past a very surface level explanation. But I still enjoyed the story quite a bit, and only really came across these as I was writing this review anyhow.

Unbreakable Bonds by Ty Fox

Another brotherly tale. This one seems to take place in a medieval time period. Possibly in Spain judging by the names. Although after a quick Wikipedia trip it looks like those names came From earlier German forms...oh whatever, point is its sword and sandal.

Alonso is an albino ferret recently captured and imprisoned for thievery. Unfortunately the band of thieves he was with committed murder during the heist, and so Alonso is set to be executed soon by association. After a horrific few weeks in a dungeon, a priest comes to give him his last Confession, and it turns out to be Alonso's long lost brother, Diego, who ran off to be a priest and left Diego and his mother alone with an abusive father.

What follows is an understandably frustrated and emotional conversation as the two brothers attempt to understand each other and test if there is any bond left between them. It's a great conversation. The story is mostly that conversation in the dungeon, so it isn't the most active of stories, but I'm a sucker for good dialogue, and this dove into some very interesting brotherly woes. It's a much shorter and more straightforward story than I've seen before from Ty Fox, so it's neat to see how much character he can pack into a shorter format.

Snowshoes by A. Kita and Aldous Husky

And here we have the story that the cover of the book is from! It follows a school team of blind snowboarders who have recently had a disastrous meet, losing most of their events. Bramble, a blind snow hare, fell during one of his races due to a bad call made by his spotter, Ash. Ash is an amputee husky who feels terrible about the mistake and has grown distant and angry with himself ever since making it. When the two finally talk about it, Ash unexpectedly kisses Bramble, which Bramble is alarmed by, and that reaction scares Ash away, leading Bramble with a lot of confusing feelings to work out.

The highlight of this story for me is the sensory description. Scents, sounds, tastes, and feelings are used to describe everything in the story rather than appearances, because the main character is blind. This obviously makes the story stand out in the anthology, and I haven't run into something like it before, so it was really cool to read.

Bramble and Ash, meanwhile, are interesting characters because of how utterly conflicted they are over one another. Ash is racked with fear and guilt that is strongly suggested to tie into past traumas, and Bramble has been thrown into a situation where he now must question his sexuality and his feelings for his friend and spotter. It all coalesces into a very touching ending scene between the two that I particularly enjoyed.

Brewed out of Blood by Rob MacWolf

Oh hell yeah, a Rob MacWolf story. And it's about Fenrir too, with an classical prose style on top of it. Off to a good start with this one.

This story takes the myth of Odin's sacrifice to himself and expands upon it. The god of poetry, Bragi, reveals to the bound Fenrir that he may escape his bindings by undergoing the same self-sacrifice, which for complex reasons creates a new version of himself, unchained, so he can just head out. You might think this has some wild implications for Norse mythology, and you would be correct about that. It's one of the best parts.

Fenrir and Bragi then go searching for answers about, what else, Ragnarok, and what they find is pretty dang fascinating. So much so that I really don't want to spoil it here. You should go find out for yourself.

My favorite part is how this story goes about answering some questions that are famously left unanswered in Norse mythology. The utility of the self-sacrifice kind of ties a few things together with one neat trick, and I loved how cleanly it did so. Almost as much as I loved the strong implication of Fenrir doing gay puppy play for Tyr. It is a Rob MacWolf story, after all.

The Casket of Brent Lyles by Pip the Badger

This story is mostly a rant, and it's great. It follows Randall, the son of the titular Brent Lyles, who is in an empty funeral home looking down at the dead body of his father in a casket. What follows is Randall talking out loud to the corpse and letting out a whole lot of pent up anger in the process.

His dad was gentle and kind and patient, but he was also homophobic, and because of that Randall kept the fact that he was gay from his father all his life. Now in his 30s, Randall spends the story in a frustrated monologue, grappling with the injustice of his father having been pretty great except for the fact that he would have turned into a monster had he known his son was gay.

I think it's something a lot of us queer folk deal with. The knowledge that some people can seem to be the kindest among us, and then the instant they find out you're queer they turn into a demon. That frustration is very tangible in this story. A rant well delivered.

A Below-Ground Sort of Animal by Frances Pauli

Winnie-The Pooh would fit right in with this story's world. It has that delightful mix of animal and anthro traits where animals live in burrows and have lifestyles similar to their wild counterparts, but nonetheless still cook and write and have front doors and tea time. It's like... cottagecore? Burrowcore?

Anyway this story follows a mole named Nancy who is very much an introvert. She values her solitude and the work she does maintaining her burrow. That all changes when Dora, her bunny sister in law, starts stopping by and insisting on long tea times. She even starts bringing uninvited guests. It makes Nancy desperate for solitude, to the point that she plugs up every entrance to her burrow to prevent anyone from getting in and forcing her to be social. Relatable.

Now what I really love about this story is its message. Any other story like this would have ended with Nancy realizing how much she needs other people and closing out with a big birthday party or something to show how much better off she is surrounded by loved ones. But no, instead this is a story about the importance of enforcing boundaries when people don't respect your needs. It was such a refreshing subversion to see, and I think that subversion is what makes this story brilliant.

Small Business by Juan C. Moreno

This story moves a mile a minute. It features a pretty interesting urban fantasy setting, with magic power used as currency and guns that fire spells. This is a big shake up from the other stories in the anthology, so I'm on board.

It opens with a bank heist being foiled by a witch's familiar, a ferret named Martin, who is trying to withdraw the witch's savings so she can repay her debts to the IRS - the Infernal Revenue Service. In thwarting the heist, he also steals a few insanely valuable magic-infused bars from the vault and skips back to his witchy master, who promptly uses the magic to... swap places with someone on Earth, thus abandoning the familiar and isekaiing this girl, Vera, in her place.

This is where the story gets a bit odd. Vera adapts to the situation and teams up with the Martin absurdly quickly, even fighting off some magic police with him. And since she's a self-aware isekai character, she's using Earth lingo and sarcasm the entire time. It's very jarring.

The story also doesn't have much to do with the anthology's theme, other than Martin at one point mentioning that he thought of the witch like family. So the story feels kind of out of place in this anthology. Fun magic world, but I wish it had gone a different direction.

System Damage by Bast Andrews

Oh this story is wild. It's about an android who, at what appears to be the end of human civilization, finally breaks down and becomes a mind trapped in a body that doesn't work. Luckily her emotions aren't functioning correctly either, so it isn't as torturous as it could be when thousands and thousands, if not millions and millions, of years start to pass by. Eventually, anthropomorphic animal people evolve, and a fox finds the broken android and promises to get her working again.

What follows is the android observing as generations upon generations of this family of foxes live and die, forget and rediscover her, and try to "fulfill the family promise" of fixing her more and more as their society's technology evolves, regresses, and evolves again. That is the coolest premise for a story I've seen in a minute, and is a wildly creative use of the theme of the anthology.

Immortality is very unnerving to me. It's downright scary. So stories concerning immortality like this one tend to have a big effect on me. This one is no exception. It's profound as it is terrifying, but also deeply touching, imagining this family so dedicated to saving this android's trapped consciousness over the centuries, and carrying out that promise while many of them know they won't live to see it come to fruition.

Hands down one of my favorite stories in this anthology, if not of my entire reading year.

The Guild by J.S. Hawthorne

As someone who once religiously played World of Warcraft, this story takes me back. It's set in a world that functions like an MMO, complete with quests, character classes, a leveling system, unlocked zones, and more. Whether it actually is a videogame or not, I really can't tell. I think that's just the way this world works.

The story follows Micca, a coyote whose blue jay boyfriend, Tarr, is having him join his guild. But as he is being warmly welcomed by the guild, a Jackal named Chacol inexplicably objects to his recruitment. Though Micca is still able to join the guild. Chacol's objection and bullying over the next few weeks begin to eat away at Micca's confidence of whether he belongs in the guild, or even if he should be an adventurer at all.

It's a story about a crisis of faith in oneself. I thought I knew where it was going at first, but the way things pan out is actually a lot more nuanced than expected. I'm still not sure why Chacol was such a jerk other than a vague dislike of people of a lower level than him. I would have liked to see his reason play into Micca's feelings about himself a bit more, but in the end I think the story still accomplished a great sense of self-doubt and self-discovery.