Life gets weird when you’re adopted by an alien. One million years in the future, young human Antaska and her psychic cat are adopted as pets by a gigantic alien. Traveling in outer space, she becomes telepathic in a world where that’s dangerous. Then she gets into a love triangle that’s even more dangerous. Her cat tries to tell Antaska what she’s doing wrong, but will she listen?“This is a fun … listen?
“This is a fun read you’ll enjoy.” – Mensa Bulletin
Formerly Pets and Masters in Space. An all-new ending has been added to this version (10/2018), and the first chapters of hypnoSnatch and Bonded in Space are included.
hypnoSnatch – Is it love, or is it alien abduction? Things keep getting weirder when Antaska travels in outer space with an alien and her psychic cat. Mischievous but evil part-reptile humanoids team up with Antaska’s nemesis, a genetically enhanced fitness instructor, to take revenge on her to the ends of the universe. Her unexpected alien abduction spoils their plans.
Bonded in Space – Strange things happen when a crazy alien can’t get you out of his mind.
Just out of space school, Pweet can’t wait to take off from Earth. But she runs into problems with the giant aliens who take Earthlings into space. Marroo the slave hunter wants to forget about Antaska. So he comes up with the perfect plan. He’ll kidnap another Earth female, experience her love, and then move on. But it’s not working out like he expected. Now he’s got feisty, high-maintenance Pweet on his hands. Antaska wants to forget about Marroo too, but can she? Two more psychic cats show up to adopt humanoids and read their minds when they feel like it.
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Whose pet is whose?
Good question. Especially since The Cat believes the alien and the Human to be her pets!
(Just to warn you. This book is NOT a romance novel. At least not one you’d find interesting to read. Maybe there might be a romantic plot line in future books, but not in this one.)
Antaska the Earther thinks M. Hoyvil of the telepathic Verdante race chose her to be his assistant, her chance to go into space to explore it! Little does she know that the HUGE green-skinned extraterrestrial picked her to become his first pet. After all, he’s 650 years old, just barely Verdante-legal to own a pet Human. But Antaska thinks he’s pretty old at 650 to be exploring space. Yes, she knows his race prefers to communicate telepathically to each other though the Verdantes could not “read” the traditional Earther mind. She brings her pet cat Potat (NOT Potato!!) who happens to be telepathic, something not known to Humans though the onboard Verdante physician (technically veterinarian, but don’t tell Antaska that!!) knows that.
Got that?
This is your typical intro book of what is so far a three-book series. We are introduced to Antaska the female Human who is ecstatic to get a chance to assist in exploring space, her only chance to do so as Humans haven’t developed interstellar travel. M. Hoyvil is just a few hundred years from being a Verdante adult and is now about to have his chance in space exploration in which having a Human pet is required for his own mental health. (More is explained in the book.) He’s done the reading. He’s taken the classes on proper Human care, but on Day One, he realizes he has a lot more to learn about the care and feeding of a Human pet. This makes for a decent story line for this series’ introductory book.
The world-crafting is quite interesting and in-depth. But just like M. Hoyvil’s knowledge in Human husbandry, I know there’s a ton more info I want to know about this intriguing universe. I am finding a disturbing disconnect in what is the true status of Humans. Are they therapy companion animals or are they just pets to be bred for interesting eye coloration? Up until the last fifth of the book, I felt the symbiosis between Antaska and M. Hoyvil, the development of a true interspecies’ bond… THEN it’s like all that hard work as been towed away with Humans being nothing but candidates for the pet show ring. So which is it? I was completely buying the therapy companion spiel, and I get hit with this alternative. A big disappointment to be left in such a lurch.
Editing was decent, but it could have used a few out-loud verbal read-throughs as I saw quite a few misspellings that would not had been caught by a spellchecker. The world-crafting was within the realm of reason. (In other words, nothing way too outlandish!) I had a decent visual description of the primary and secondary characters in my mind’s eye, and I appreciate the fact that Trisha McNary didn’t fall back on plot templates. (I’ve been reading more Human Pet stories lately and noted the various patterns out there.) My only complaint is that I keep getting this weird feeling that this first book should had been longer, a major disappointment.
I am definitely looking forward to the next two books. Even though I was provided the book via StoryOrigin for free in return for a honest, from-the-gut review, I am planning to buy this book as I deemed it definitely worth a few repeat reads. I am definitely going to explore the next two books to see where this all goes because the blurbs on Amazon are confusing to say the least. Someone needs to rework them, especially if sales seem to be faltering.
received a free copy of this book and am leaving a voluntary review.This is the very beginning of this story and introduces us to Antaska, M. Hoyvil (and Potat). This has a great development of the characters and how their relationship with each other starts out. I was caught up in the story when it ended and am looking forward to the next part of the story. Even though this stops right where the adventure is about to begin, it is a great set-up for the continuing storyline.
Alien Pets by Trisha McNary is a book that is part of the Xeno Relations series. In this book, a human named Antaska and her pet cat Potat are planning to get hired by a Verdante alien to take them into space as his or her human assistant. They end up getting picked by a shorter male Verdante named M. Hoyvil and the board the Verdante’s alien spaceship. This is the beginning of a very interesting discourse on who and or what a pet might or might not be. This book was a very entertaining and fun to read. The characters were all very well written and the interactions between them very realistic. I think that this book also has an excellent moral for anyone who is paying attention. This is the perfect book for anyone who enjoys a great story. Alien Pets is a great story about the amazing and interesting reality of pet ownership.
**** SPOILER ALERT ****
“Alien Pets” was my first Introduction to McNary’s writing. I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining and thought provoking story. I’ll definitely be reading more of the author’s work.
McNary does a fine job of world building ( world building that is integral to the story ) in this tale about growing up and accepting responsibility for your actions. In addition the author did a superb job of weaving Antaska’s, Potat’s, and M. Hoyvil’s, the three main viewpoint characters, threads within the story into an entertaining tapestry that draws in the reader.
Q: Will Antaska survive Gym class?
Q: What secret does Antaska hold in her head that could alter the future of Human/Feline/Verdante relations?
A: Pick up this book, read it and find out!! You won’t regret it!
In the interest of transparency: I was given a free review copy of this book. I am voluntarily sharing this review which is my own honest opinion.
A great read for sci fy
This is an interesting take on the alien invasion genre. I like the characters human, Verdante and feline. They are very well written with well developed behaviors both good and bad. The plot was a bit repetitive gym, school, eat rinse & repeat. I also think the target audience is young teens or tweens. Other than that you’re probably going to find the story lacking. Lastly not a fan of the ending. It seemed like the author just stopped right as the plot was getting interesting. There wasn’t even a cliff hanger it just stopped. Was rather odd way to end a book.
I recieved this book for free from eBook Discovery. I voluntarily review this book. This is my honest review.
I like the idea for this book, but found it a bit confusing. I’m sure younger folks would thoroughly enjoy it but not being young, I had a hard time getting my head around it.