Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by reasie
Catseye by Andre Norton
4.0
This book was quite delightful, though there is one triggering use of "yellow" to describe a villainous character. I mean ... I assumed the first two times that he was an alien and not a human color, then they reveal that while most people are from a mix of terran races, Zul was a pure-blood Earth tribesman ... eeeeew, Norton, I expected better from you.
He's kinda written like Peter Lorre too.
Fortunately the majority of the novel deals with psychic cats in outer space (plus two foxes and a marsupial). The main character is a day laborer, Troy, and you really feel the constraints of his social position and poverty. He befriends the psychic animals and treats them as equals, asking their opinions rather than ordering them about. I really liked that about him.
In the town that Troy lives the default honorifics are Gentle Fem and Gentle Homo - which made me build up an alternate reading in my mind where everyone in the town is gay and genderqueer. I'm not sure what the terminology was like when this was published in 1961, buuuut our hero DOES give off some very powerful simp vibes when he meets Manly Hunter Man Reren, and there is more than one touching each other's face and they go from gruff mutual respect to enemies to saving each other .. yeah. This is clearly a romance.
The ending is maybe a little open, this is the first book in a series and Norton clearly knew that, but over all, my favorite recent read of an older pulp novel.
He's kinda written like Peter Lorre too.
Fortunately the majority of the novel deals with psychic cats in outer space (plus two foxes and a marsupial). The main character is a day laborer, Troy, and you really feel the constraints of his social position and poverty. He befriends the psychic animals and treats them as equals, asking their opinions rather than ordering them about. I really liked that about him.
In the town that Troy lives the default honorifics are Gentle Fem and Gentle Homo - which made me build up an alternate reading in my mind where everyone in the town is gay and genderqueer. I'm not sure what the terminology was like when this was published in 1961, buuuut our hero DOES give off some very powerful simp vibes when he meets Manly Hunter Man Reren, and there is more than one touching each other's face and they go from gruff mutual respect to enemies to saving each other .. yeah. This is clearly a romance.
The ending is maybe a little open, this is the first book in a series and Norton clearly knew that, but over all, my favorite recent read of an older pulp novel.