Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer, Dean Wesley Smith published over two hundred novels and over seven hundred books, and hundreds and hundreds of short stories. He has over thirty million copies of his books in print.

At the moment he produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the cold case mystery series, Cold Poker Gang series, and the superhero series starring Poker Boy.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Kathryn Rusch sold more than 35 million books worldwide. She publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance.

Her novels made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction appeared in more than twenty best-of-the-year collections. She won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.

A Cat of a Different Color by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith

In A Cat of a Different Color, the first volume of WMG's The Year of the Cat series, editors Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch worked to find stories that featured cats that were just a little surprising (an impressive feat for cats, anyone would have to admit).

Just a little weird. A little different.

Which makes these stories amazingly fun to read. After all, for cat people, reading about cats equals the fun of being with one.

Almost. Just don't tell the cats.

Includes:
"Familiar Territory: A Winston and Ruby Story" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
"The Conscientious Cat" by Agnes A. Sandham
"The Mouth that Walked" by Dean Wesley Smith
"Do Not Resuscitate" by Dory Crowe
"Myrtle's Boxes" by Louisa Swann
"Ornamental Animals" by Ray Vukcevich
"Christmas, Interrupted" by Lisa Silverthorne
"Blame it on the Ghosts" by Annie Reed

CURATOR'S NOTE

In 2020, Dean Wesley Smith & I did a cat-oriented Kickstarter. We thought it would be great fun to publish 100 cat stories. This, A Cat of a Different Color, started the entire 12-book anthology series. I had a blast editing the Year of the Cat books. If you like this one, go to https://www.wmgpublishinginc.com/project/the-year-of-the-cat/ and pick up the volumes you've missed. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Introduction

Dean Wesley Smith

Kris and I are both cat people. We love cats. Period. All types, all sizes, all shapes.

In our 34 years together, there has never been one single moment we have not had cats. In fact, when we moved out to Oregon in our first few months together, we had Kris's Siamese named Buglet screaming in our ears the entire drive from Wisconsin to Oregon.

That's what cat people do.

We love them, feed them, clean up after them, and talk to them like they understand every word we are saying. And you know, sometimes I think they do.

And other times I am convinced they do, but just don't care.

At one point, when Kris and I first moved in together in a big house outside of Eugene, Oregon, we ended up with 14 cats. We had hers, mine, theirs, and ours. Kris had three, I had two, we inherited five starving cats from the previous owners of the house who had abandoned them, and then one of those cats had kittens in the first week we were there.

Fourteen cats. That was crazy. Now twenty-four years later we have only two in our condo in Las Vegas. But like all cat people, we are always on the lookout to rescue more.

Allyson Longueira, the publisher of WMG Publishing is also a cat person. As is Gwyneth Gibby, the associate publisher. So I have no memory of the exact origin of this idea to do one hundred cat stories in twelve books over an entire year. But the idea makes complete sense that Kris and I would edit the books and WMG Publishing would publish them.

The idea is to find one hundred cat stories that Kris and I would love to reprint in these nifty volumes over twelve months. Eight stories in some books, nine in others.

And what we can promise readers is that every story will be high quality and entertaining. We have no desire to try to pick the best one hundred cat stories of all time. I am not sure that would even be possible, any more than it would be to pick the best cats of all time.

We just want to create twelve books that contain one hundred cat stories we have loved to read.

And that we feel that readers will love to read as well.

In the order they will appear over the next year, the titles of the twelve books are:

--- Book One
A Cat of A Different Color
--- Book Two
A Cat of Perfect Taste
--- Book Three
A Cat of Disdainful Looks
--- Book Four
A Cat of Strange Lands
--- Book Five
A Cat of Cozy Situations
--- Book Six
A Cat of Space and Time
--- Book Seven
A Cat of Heroic Heart
--- Book Eight
A Cat of Roving Nature
--- Book Nine
A Cat of Artistic Sensibilities
--- Book Ten
A Cat of Fantastic Whims
--- Book Eleven
A Cat of Feral Instincts
--- Book Twelve
A Cat of Romantic Soul

In this volume, A Cat of a Different Color, Kris and I worked to get stories that had cats that were just a little surprising (which is going some for cats, we have to admit.) Just a little weird.

A little different.

We think we have achieved that and we hope you will enjoy the read. We sure did, putting this all together. After all, we are cat people, and reading about cats is almost as fun as being with one.

Almost. Just don't tell your cat I said that.

Dean Wesley Smith

LasVegas, Nevada