Last week on Twitter, we asked you to recommend some of the best furry fiction that you’ve recently read. We’ve compiled these recommendations into one place, complete with links and information on how to buy these great books. We hope that you can find your next favourite in this list.
Note: In some circumstances, books were recommended that were later parts of a series. In these cases, we have linked to book 1.
Disbanded – Frances Pauli (Goal Publications).
Winner: Leo Awards (2020).
Finalist: Ursa Major Awards; Coyotl Awards (2020)
Come forth, for you are special.
Sookahr the architect is just one of many snakes within Serpentia, an underground society where snakes and their rodent companions have lived in peace for as long as anyone can remember. Their destinies are preordained at birth, when they are fit with skymetal bands to enhance the telekinetic powers that aid them everyday.
Given an opportunity unheard of for a snake of his caste, Sookahr and Kwirk, his mouse aid, venture to a recently-destroyed outpost at the far edges of Serpentia, hoping to redesign the structure and prove his skill as an architect. But something watches from the jungle, and whatever attacked the outpost is poised to strike again. Will Sookahr’s drive to rise above his station get his team killed? Or will he respond to the call he’s heard since birth, and be the hero who can save them all?
Purchase in print.
Purchase in ebook.
The Pride of Chanur – C.J. Cherryh
Finalist: Hugo Awards (1983)
No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company of humans―a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown―and he was a prisoner of his discoverers and captors―the sadistic, treacherous kif―until his escape onto the hani ship, The Pride of Chanur.
Little did he know when he threw himself upon the mercy of The Pride and her crew that he put the entire hani species in jeopardy and imperiled the peace of the Compact itself…for the information this fugitive held could be the ruin or glory of any of the species at Meetpoint Station.
Purchase in ebook.
Purchase in audiobook.
God of Clay – Ryan Campbell (Sofawolf Press)
Winner: Coyotl Awards (2013)
Driven to the borders of an unfamiliar forest by an ever-expanding drought, two rival brothers find their fortunes and that of their tribe entwined in a long-forgotten conflict between the old gods of the world. Clay’s fervent belief in devotion to the gods does nothing to prepare him for their true natures, while Laughing Dog’s self-assured insistence that his destiny is his own leads him on a very different journey. As battle lines are drawn, each brother must decide where his allegiance truly lies — a decision that will change each of them forever.
Meanwhile, Doto, the son of the sullen and wrathful forest god Kwaee sets out to capture a member of the brothers’ tribe and bring them back to his father for interrogation, believing the humans to be in league with the insatiable fire god Ogya. In the process, he begins to doubt the stories he has always heard from his father about the original conflict, and the mysterious places in the heart of the forest that he was forbidden to ever visit.
Purchase in print.
Purchase in ebook.
Traitors, Thieves, and Liars – Rick Griffin
Finalist: Leo Awards (2019)
Centuries ago, we lost our world. Planetary Acquisitions keeps us alive solely to maintain their vast fleet of gate ships in an endless quest to find them new worlds to settle—or to conquer. Years flutter by like a tree shedding its spring petals, and so we desperately cling to this chunk of dirt-and-machine we call home.And all those centuries since, we’ve been looking for a way out, risky as it might be. Are we fools?Traitors, Thieves and Liars is the first book in a trilogy retelling the events of Ten Thousand Miles Up in a grand epic.The geroo have been trapped in slavery for centuries, searching for useful planets for their krakun masters. And then one day, pirates contact Captain Ateri with an opportunity that may prove too good to be true.Includes the short story Whatever Happened To Commissioner Sarsuk? Which details the downfall of the former commissioner of the fleet.
Purchase in ebook.
Purchase in audiobook.
Entanglement Bound – Mary E. Lowd (Aethon Books)
Winner: Leo Awards (2020)
Finalist: Ursa Major Awards (2020)
Clarity’s home is her spaceship. Living on the move. Planet to planet.
When money trouble forces Clarity and her traveling companion, Irohann, to take on passengers, Irohann worries his secret identity will be revealed. He’s a canine alien on the run from an empire of sentient plants, and their queen has a personal vendetta against him.
But Clarity believes his fears are unfounded and the Doraspians gave up on him long ago.
Heartsick at the idea of losing their ship, Clarity accepts an offer that’s clearly too good to be true, and they find themselves swept up in the crazy schemes of a rogue AI in a stolen robot body and her haphazardly assembled team of disparate aliens, including a hive-minded swarm, a giant insect, a rabbit-like alien, and a living spaceship who loves bunnies. Together the team must break into an abandoned science station, mangled by an entangled particle trying to destroy the universe.
When disaster strikes, Clarity steps up to pull the team together, but it may come at the cost of the very home and friendship she was trying to save.
Purchase in ebook.
Purchase in audiobook.
Eyrie – K. Vale Nagle
A bloody massacre. A looming civil war. Can two opposed gryphons work together to save their kind? Zeph thrills at the wind in his wings and the hunt for wild parrot. As a simple forest gryphon, he never thought much about his sophisticated city-dwelling cousins living in the lofty eyrie at the edge of the woods. But his carefree life turns upside down when he comes across a young city gryphon stunned by her discovery of a field littered with slaughtered animals. Kia always has her beak in a book. But when her best friend goes missing, she flies down to the woodland and gets tangled up with a wild country gryphon and a shocking conspiracy. With food in short supply and war on the horizon, Kia must choose between forsaking her own or allowing Zeph’s people to be wiped off the map. Forced to overcome their prejudice and misconceptions, the unlikely pair races against time to prevent an apocalypse. Can Zeph and Kia unite their species before a fiery conflict destroys them all? Eyrie is the first book in the high-flying Gryphon Insurrection epic fantasy series. If you like mythical creatures, graphic battles, and moral dilemmas, then you’ll love K. Vale Nagle’s darkly compassionate tale. Buy Eyrie to soar into action today!
Purchase in ebook.
Song of the Summer King – Jess E. Owen
Winner: Global Ebook Award for Fantasy (2013)
Winner: Ursa Major Award (2013) – for Skyfire, book 2.
Shard is a gryfon in danger. He and other young males of the Silver Isles are old enough to fly, hunt, and fight–old enough to be threats to their ruler, the red gryfon king. In the midst of the dangerous initiation hunt, Shard takes the unexpected advice of a strange she-wolf who seeks him out, and hints that Shard’s past isn’t all that it seems. To learn his past, Shard must abandon the future he wants and make allies of those the gryfons call enemies. When the gryfon king declares open war on the wolves, it throws Shard’s past and uncertain future into the turmoil between. Now with battle lines drawn, Shard must decide whether to fight beside his king . . .or against him.
Purchase as print or ebook.
Purchase in audiobook.
Shadow Cast – R.A. Meenan
All Matt ever wanted was to become a Golden Guardian, like his father before him. With decades of experience in battle and his powerful wind magic, Matt excels in every task given to him. Well, almost everything – Matt struggles to follow orders. But sometimes following the Guardian Oath means violating those orders when it’s important. However, Matt isn’t a Guardian yet – and he may never be if the Master Guardian has a say in it.
Izzy Gildspine, Matt’s partner, is also bidding for Guardianship, but she understands the Master Guardian’s worries. After all, how could Izzy be a proper Guardian anyway? Her healing powers can’t hold a candle to Matt’s wind powers. It didn’t matter how good she might be in battle – Making her a Guardian would just be a disgrace to the position if she didn’t have elemental magic.
But when their world is invaded, Matt and Izzy have one last chance to prove they deserve the Guardianship. Only their enemy is not what he seems…
Now they have a choice to make – save themselves, their home, and their final chance at Guardianship, or risk it all for the life of an enemy.
Purchase in ebook.
There are obviously so many more books we can recommend. We encourage readers to let us know which furry books they have enjoyed recently. We want to see that enthusiasm shared across our platforms, so if there are any other authors you want to see on lists like these, do let us know!
For now, we hope you support some of these authors and give their books a look. Leave reviews or ratings if possible. Happy reading!
Furry Writers’ Guild 