Tri-Galactic Trek, by Mary E. Lowd

Tri-Galactic Trek features ten short stories that are re-imaginings of a certain episodic science fiction television franchise. The diverse furry crew of the Initiative travels though space on scientific and diplomatic missions, seeking out first contact with new species and opportunities to explore and advance their own knowledge of their universe. Now all their adventures are collected into a single volume for the reader’s enjoyment.

Lowd’s Tri-Galactic Trek is equal parts love story to the original material and wildly original interpretation through a fully furry lens. It is an homage, both faithfully recognizable and delightfully original, and should appeal to any furry scifi reader, but most especially to those who are fans of the original material.

Somehow each character is clearly identifiable and yet brilliantly translated into a furry counterpart. The plots are familiar and yet creatively shifted so as to be new and exciting, and the whole world has a unified, fully developed feeling that makes it a solid, independent entity in its own right.

Though all the stories/episodes are well written and beautifully translated, a few that really stood out as spectacular to me were: "Fact and Myth," "Rapscallions," and "Encounter at Hoppalong." All the stories are expertly threaded together, referencing one another just enough to give continuity and a sense of a longer timeline. The only quibble I had with the whole collection was the story "Mewly" which felt incomplete and more like an opening scene than a full episode. Though the story’s resolution is mentioned in a later installment, the abrupt ending was jarring enough that I would have liked it to be its own complete episode.

I highly recommend Tri-Galactic Trek to any furry reader, any fan of science fiction or of Lowd’s other works, but most especially to all the furry trekkies out there, for whom I believe this book is an absolute must read.