It’s a doggie dog world out there. Especially when you’re a temperamental tabby cat trying to get by as a second class citizen in a world run by a canine elite. In Otters in Space, by Mary E. Lowd, we join Kipper, a red tabby cat, on her odyssey to outer space, and her search for a cat paradise free from the oppression of dogs. In this delightful tail Mary E. Lowd fantastically combines elements of fury and science fiction genres that appeals to a wide and varied audience. It also sheds light on the lines we use to divide ourselves into class and categories and how petty many of those differences really are.

I especially liked what Lowd uses as an explanation for a world where animals are all walking, talking and wearing clothes, a unique aspect in the fury genre. The plausible science fiction aspects, such as the otter run space elevator in Ecuador, and the Oxo-agua, a highly oxygenated liquid atmosphere, that some otter spaceships are equipped with, had my interest from the very beginning and kept it throughout the book. Though I predicted what Kipper would find at her “Cat Havana” early on, this did not deter me from turning page after page in order to see what kind of trouble Kipper would find herself in next. It was also very entertaining what finally happened to Kipper’s sister, Petra, whose disappearance initiated Kipper’s race to space in the first place.

Otters in Space is a fast, engaging read that is suitable for all ages. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel and discovering what other mysteries otter space has to reveal and what adventures await Kipper and the mostly otter crew of the Jolly Barracuda.