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  "path": "/articles/review-travels/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-22T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://giants-club.net",
  "tags": [
    "Print Edition",
    "Ebook Edition"
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  "textContent": "  \n\n_**Travels**_\nErin Lee\n\nTranscendent Fiction\nApril 2026\n\nPrint Edition A$20.00\nEbook Edition A$5.99\n\nIt’s common—especially in macrophile circles, furry or otherwise—for sci-fi stories to postulate meeting aliens of wildly different sizes. _Travels_ is unusual in making the Terrans the universe’s giants: the other major races in known space range from about house pet-sized down to insect-sized. In this alternate universe, Terrans are all furries (there are no humans), and first contact with aliens happened in the early twenty-first century. Several generations have passed, and Terrans are still adjusting to being thrust all at once into a post-scarcity, multi-sophont universe. (_Sophont_ is a term for all intelligent interstellar species.)\n\nLess novel than fictional travelogue, the book chronicles a months-long grand trip through known space started on a whim by Terran fox woman Erin Lee. (Yes, the author of the book.) In her foreword, she writes,\n\n> I was bored, so I decided that if all I was going to do with my life was smoking weed and playing video games, I’d at least do it in some of the most incredible places beyond my imagining.\n\nErin becomes our amiable, chatty and self-deprecating guide to the universe, each chapter taking her to a new planet and new set of sophonts. She starts, of all places, on Earth: while she was born there, she grew up on a different planet, All Hallows, and has no real memories of her birth planet. She visits Rio, then Dadaab in Kenya (or “former Kenya,” as apparently Earth has no countries anymore), which has a large population of Odst, the second most common sophonts in the universe and the second largest. They’re described as “about as tall as most of the formerly domestic dogs of Earth on four long spindly legs, [with] four long arms underneath their torsos.” This is another striking aspect of _Travels._ Unlike settings where the aliens are basically all furries, Lee’s aliens are genuinely alien, if still comprehensible and often cute. This section also clues you in to how woefully unprepared Erin is for the adventure she’s embarking on. She’s not in danger from exotic alien threats as much as from poor sleep, forgetting to eat, and heat stroke. She’ll do multiple things throughout her tale that will make you facepalm, even as she remains painfully relatable.\n\nHer post-Earth adventures take her to the cosmopolitan multi-sophont Wolfram, where she meets up with her dog girlfriend Jay and maned wolf friend (boyfriend?) Phox; back through Terran settlements All Hallows, Socotra’s Child, and New Danube; then into more alien space. Aanteg is the homeworld of the Pael, the oldest and far and away most populous species in the universe. They’re centimeter-high insectoids, functionally immortal, and the effective rulers of known space, although their “rule” is, most of the time, a light touch. Erin’s entry into Pael territory is an introduction to just how advanced the Pael are past Terrans. (Other sophonts are as well, but the Pael operate at another technology-indistinguishable-from-magic level.) Past Aanteg, Erin visits Rrqash, the home of the Dyelmen (“six-legged mouse-sized ferret-shaped obligate omnivores with many eyes and many truths”), and finally to Odst space and a planet known as The Oldest Place, with its capital city, Undefeated Forever.\n\nA narrative constructed like a travel memoir lives or dies on its descriptions—the ability to paint vivid images with words—and the personality of its narrator. _Travels_ delivers on both counts. Erin is a tourist with a knack for going off the beaten path, finding both typical sightseeing spots and local hangouts, and her successes and, perhaps even more, her failures along the way give her journey a realistic grounding. The story marries the scope and imagination of golden age science fiction worldbuilding with a modern, queer sensibility. _Travels_ is a trip worth going out of your way for.",
  "title": "Review: Travels",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-22T00:00:00.000Z"
}