Kitty Cat Kill Sat
A review of: Kitty Cat Kill Sat, by Argus.
Audiobook by: Podium
Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
Length: 19 h 37 m
My rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: Kitty Cat Kill Sat is about a very smart cat who owns a space station. Taking place thousands of years in the future, Lily ad Alice uses her space station and its many guns to defend the remaining people of Earth from an invasion of alien eldritch horrors. Oh, and also, occasionally, from each other. But fortunately, she has a rail gun.
When we first encounter Lily, she is admirably and capably fighting a battle on many fronts: non-stop alien threats to planetary life, a massively cluttered field of orbiting detritus and live weapons, the frustration of operating a possibly-haunted space station with nothing but paws, and a bone-deep loneliness that cannot be cured with any amount of naps in full solar radiation. She is alone. She is determined. And she has been doing this for over 400 years.
How does a once-ordinary house cat come to own a space station with enough missiles to destroy multiple planets? Oh, and also, incidentally, become immortal? That is a question you will have to wait to find the answer to, because Lily is very busy responding to emergencies. As she self-narrates her existence, she takes us on a journey that is wondrous, humorous, uniquely feline, and ultimately—though she’d be loathe to admit it--recognizably human.
This book is not in a hurry to satisfy your many obvious questions, but that is part of its charm. As Lily finds out, for better or worse, that she is not as alone as she thought, she shares with us her joys and successes, her fears and failures, with an irrepressible energy that never quite goes in a straight line (and this is not just because she’s often rocketing through her space station, bouncing off of low-grav plates, hurrying to quench yet another alarm).
But this book is not just about the journey, delightful as it is to spend time with Lily. The climax is worthy of the best science fiction epics, with immense stakes, heroic sacrifices, and an emotional ending that had me gripping the edge of my seat (I listened to the audiobook, so that’s not just a metaphor).
Favorite quotes from Kitty Cat Kill Sat:
“Would you like to hear a joke? It’s not one meant to be spoken, really, so it loses something in the telling, but here we go anyway: Trying to manipulate late-Anthropocene era orbital technology… with paws.”
“…but for now I am a tiny and fierce rocket. And the emphasis there is on the tiny part.”
“I have both work to do and lunch to eat. I must keep my graceful form fueled.”
“I will now list things, in no particular order, that the space stations are not built for. Are you ready? Here we go: Cats. That is it. That is the extent of my list. I am a student of the real. I operate only with evidence and data that I have come to trust or I have gathered myself. There is nothing else on this station that is not designed to be on this station.”
“Well, you know what they say about cats and curiosity: It’s a clear path to immortality, if you’re smug enough.”
“I am a genius. I am an idiot. I am a chaotic formation of problem-solving power, wrapped up in an anxiety-ridden and possibly haunted body, suffering from an incomplete and possibly decaying uplift, using tools of unimaginable power to solve problems they weren’t built for.”
“I am great at the idea and bad at the execution. To explain this plan, we’re going to need to go on a tangent. ‘Wait,’ you say, no longer so foolish that you think you can talk to me, but still reflectively talking to yourself. ‘Lily, you just started. Is it really time for a tangent?’ You fool. You lack vision. It is always time for a tangent.”
“Normal cats chase the red dot. I chase the floating fusion core that makes the red dot.”