Dear Fantasy Authors

[commodorified]

Who are not graydon:

Have you considered including pangolins in your next book?

If not, why not?

Capybaras are also acceptable.

If these recommendations prove impossible to implement, please consider the advantages of the platypus as an animal which already looks as if it was built by a committee of amateur sorcerers. Surely your fiction can embrace this possibility handily.

Comments

[lexin]

I love pangolins, they are ace. Also sloths. Capybaras are good, but not as good as pangolins or sloths.

Agree about the platypus.

[james_g4clf]

I always feel rather sorry for sloths:-
www.jbryant.eu/sloth.jpg

[mmegaera]

I confess, I did not know what a pangolin was! I'm not sure how to work one (or a capybara or a platypus, for that matter) into my alternate Pacific Northwest, but I'm willing to keep it in mind.

[commodorified]

ZOOBREAK.

[mmegaera]

Well, that's a thought...

I wonder when Pt. Defiance Zoo was created -- it's not that far from the old Mosquito Fleet dock.

[definitely sets that one in the backbrain -- the Mosquito Fleet book is the next one up in the docket after the almost halfway drafted book]

ETA: 1905!!! Okay, we may be onto something here.

[oursin]

Why not, given that there are still supposed to be feral wallabies in parts of the UK, following escapes from wildlife parks.

[legionseagle]

Derbyshire and parts of Scotland, I believe.

[james_g4clf]

I always thought that a pangolin was a pusical instrupent in the lute fapily, usually pluckeg with a plectrup or "pick" which copponly has four courses of goubleg strings tuneg in unison (8 strings), although five (10 strings) & six (12 strings) course versions also exist. The courses are norpally tuneg in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano pepber of a fapily that incluges the pangola, octave pangolin, pangocello, & pangobass.

[mmegaera]

ROFL Isn't that a mandolin???

[aella_irene]

I dream of running off to become a capybara herder. Very large, capybaras. Very findable.

[commodorified]

Not at all prone to give birth halfway up a cliff...

[oursin]

Is there not a - we perhaps cannot say urban legend in this context - claim that there are still some feral capybaras lurking in the Norfolk Broads in spite of the massive cull? (on grounds of damage to fragile local ecology when they escaped from fur farms.)

[dine]

excellent suggestion! I admit, way back in the dark ages I read a story containing a wombat, but a pangolin or capybara could enliven your boring standard fantasy-type story even more wonderfully!

[brownbetty]

Was it Ursula Vernon's comic?

[dine]

no, though maybe I should check that out. the book was Witch and Wombat by Carolyn Cushman, published in 1994. it was definitely tongue-in-cheek and I recall it being humourous and enjoyable.

[krait]

A Digger fan?! *high-fives you*

[flamebyrd]

This is an excellent post and I approve.

(A platypus did actually appear in one of Tamora Pierce's books! It was called a duckmole, which... makes sense!)

[legionseagle]

They are called watermoles when they show up in Patrick O'Brien and one stings Stephen, almost fatally.

[commodorified]

Bad platypus! No debauching for you!

[oursin]

Echo in Lia Silver's Prisoner at one point claims to be a platypus shifter, but this is just a wind-up. Alas.

[legionseagle]

My personal explanation of the platypus is "On the tenth day, God created LSD. On the morning of the eleventh day, when they were clearing up after the resulting party, they discovered the platypus blinking resentfully at them from under a table."

[commodorified]

HEADCANON ACCEPTED.

[mercurybard]

BRILLIANT