Exclusively Cat Who... Links
Cat Who... Fanfiction
Cat Who...-Related Links
Off-Site Reviews
Cat Links
Assorted Cat Who...-Related Miscellanea
(Addendum to the above: an ULJBFC member called acatlover made the very wise decision to create a spin-off mailing list devoted exclusively to discussing casting a hypothetical Cat Who... movie. For some reason, YahooGroups isn't registering a page for this group yet, but you can subscribe to the list by sending an e-mail to TCWmovie@yahoogroups.com.)
(Addendum to the Addendum: Good Lord, there's another Cat Who... movie mailing list! Send an e-mail to TheCatWhoMadeAMovie@yahoogroups.com.)
The Unofficial LJB Fan Club also hosts a message board on Delphi (you need a Delphi I.D. to get in). Chat's pretty good - not great, but more on-topic than the mailing list often is. I don't believe that you need to join the LJB Club to get in...
The Cat Who Series by Lilian Jackson Braun is a fun, friendly, excellent primer on the series with good character information and an *extensive* character archive.
Qwill's Barn has an introduction to the series as well as a message board and (another) fan club, with a great biweekly (with extra editions) newsletter available if you join. Also, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that this was the first Cat Who... page ever up on the Net.
The "Cat Who" Clubhouse is becoming (has become!) a formidable presence in Cat Who fandom. The layout (a virtual tour of Qwill's barn occupied by the Cat Who... cast) is appealing and charming, and the idea of providing a collection of links pertaining to various subjects Qwill has explored in the past interesting. Since its inception, a mailing list and the start of an collection of extensive reviews of the books have been added. (This site also has an extensive, floor-by-floor description of Qwill's barn, for those interested.)
The under-construction but still neato Qwill's Qwizz is the newest Cat Who... site out there in the happily growing Cat Who... web. It focuses on visitor participation - it has a message board, a quiz, a poll, and a feline-related cat game.
The Cat Who Club is not so much a club as a nascent fan site. It's in its development stages, but it does play host to a new Cat Who... webring.
A Cat Who... fan named Jan has created the best darn possible Cat Who... timeline one could envision. Wonderful layout, exhaustive research.
The Cat Who Click with Mouse is a li'l Japanese site dedicated to Cat Who... fandom in Nippon. It's all (sasuga) in Japanese, but I can tell you that it does feature a Japanese book list, a (active!) message board, and a Japanese translation of The Cat Who... Companion's interview chapter.
De Kat Die Online Was is a new, sleekly-designed site from the Netherlands. I unfortunately can't read Dutch, but it seems to contain a good, solid foundation of book and series information.
MysteryNet hosts a small Cat Who... discussion board. It's small and not very active, though.
Ye gods! There are now four Cat Who... clubs on Yahoo:
Lycos is also venturing into the club arena, hence the Lycos Cat Who... club. As with Yahoo, you need an I.D. to join.
"The Cat Who Went to Friday Evening Services", by Enigma - The very first entry in this category - a short fic about Qwilleran and Onoosh's efforts to capture a WWII Nazi war criminal.
"The Cat Who... Wrote His Own Story", by the Cat Who... Unofficial Fan Club mailing list - A pass-around chain-story (where one person writes a little bit and then passes it on to someone else, who writes the next scene, etc.) by the mailing list that starts with Qwill's barn all in disarray. (You may have heard of this project under its original name, "The Cat Who Came in Parts".)
"The Cat Who Gave Thanks, A Thanksgiving Fantasy" and "A Catmass Countdown" - Two about the Cat Who... gang gathering together for Thanksgiving and Qwilleran and the cats settling in for Christmas, respectively; both were originally published in serial form on the Qwill's Barn mailing list. They're not immediately available on the Net; you must e-mail Didi-Sprite to get them.
Braun's second chat was held in January 1999, for the release of Saw Stars. (Argh! All this time, and I've never noted that daribus was the one who got this document assembled - I just put the transcript in order. Thanks, daribus!)
Bookwire tracks the performance of the Cat Who... series in the publishing marketplace and bestseller lists and has more statistics than you can go "Ummm...what?" at.
Putnam, the publisher of the Cat Who... books, also boasts their own webpage. You can go to their "mystery newsletter" section to find Cat Who... related news, but it's generally slim pickin's unless they're gearing up to release a new book.
Amazon.com solicits reader reviews, so there are quite a few lil' Cat Who.. articles on tap here. (Just type "Lilian Jackson Braun" into their search engine to come up with a list of titles, then click on the title whose reviews you wish to read.) Unfortunately, Amazon limits reviews to 1,000 words, so the critiques tend to be somewhat short. Still, Amazon makes for an interesting browse - even though they no longer have anything approaching their formerly lightning-quick delivery.
Epinions.com's raison d'être is soliciting user reviews on all kinds of products, and Cat Who... books are no exception. Just search as you would on Barnes & Noble - there you go.
Barnes & Noble also runs reader reviews, but there are precious few Cat Who... reviews available here. Seems that Amazon has gained the online world's fierce loyalty. (Unfortunately, Amazon's speed of service is inexplicably abysmal now - two-three weeks for each of my last few orders. Eeesh. I'd still go with them over Barnes & Noble, though.)
Psst! Wanna buy a first edition of The Cat Who Could Read Backwards? Try Bookpile - if you've got the bucks.
"The Bumbler and the Silken Sleuths", an article originally published in The North Carolina Literary Review, is an unusually prescient primer to the Cat Who... series.
A Hawaiian graphic-artist fan by the name of Lara has designed a few colorful Cat Who... pins, available for your perusal. Go see!
The Mystery Readers Journal printed a small autobiographical piece Braun penned about how she started writing about cats and Qwilleran for its 1990 "Beastly Murders" edition. Fans might enjoy reading about the series's origin in the author's own words.
The first chapter of The Cat Who Sang for the Birds is available online at USA Today's site.
Similarly, the first chapter of The Cat Who Saw Stars is available on Amazon.com.
Amazon.com also has the first The Cat Who Robbed a Bank chapter.
Ditto on Amazon.com for the first Smelled a Rat chapter.
Also, I don't know whether or not this is legal, but someone's posted the entire text of the Braun's excellent short story "Phut Phat Concentrates" from The Cat Who Had 14 Tales. If you like the story, though, you should really go out and buy the book. (You won't be sorry.)
Audible.com has several short audio clips from numerous Cat Who... audiobooks.
If you like the Cat Who... audiobooks and admire George Guidall's performances on the tapes, you might want to check out this review - a list of and commentary on all the books on tape for which Guidall has done voice work.
General Overviews of the Series:
The Cat Who Said Cheese:
Not all Siamese are as fortunate as Koko and Yum Yum, y'know - there're many out there that're homeless, and the Siamese Rescue Alliance is trying to match up these stranded cats with loving humans. You can also support this worthy endeavor by purchasing some of their stationery.
Koko and Yum Yum could tell you that humans are *so* inefficient when it comes to managing household affairs - after all, where would Qwilleran be without them? Peruse Rules for Cats Who Have a House to Run to pick up some life management secrets from a superior species.
CatChat CatChat CatChat! catchat.net, homepage of a popular IRC kittycat chat channel, features lots of kitty pics and stories from its members, as well as various cat info and trivia.
CatStuff Graphics has graciously supplied me with the nifty pawprint wallpaper you see everywhere around here, so go check them out if you need feline-related doodads to brighten up your web site. The Graphics page is just one section of a quite comprehensive kittycat website, so be sure to look around.
Of course, if one wishes to sample pasties presumably even closer to the real Moose County deal, one could also order from pasty.com. The pasties are made by senior residents of Calumet, Michigan, who've been making the meat pies for decades. Their business has received orders from all over the world, so they'd probably be the best bet for pasty newbies. (You also might want to check out this informative article on the company at the Detroit Free Press.) Also worth checking out on the site: the Pasty Cam, which is not a live webcam but a collection of photographs, one added daily, vividly depicting life in Michigan's upper peninsula, the probable setting for the country installments. A wonderful, informative photo essay for fans - and some of the photos are downright gorgeous. (Many thanks to Debbie for pointing the Pasty Cam out.)
More pasties: Ackroyd's also sells the little Scottish devils, as well as their illegitimate cousins, bridies. They also have a free weekly drawing for some of their merchandise. This's the last of the pasty links, dang it!
If you're Scotch - "Scottish. Scotch comes in -" yeah, yeah, sorry, Qwill. If you're Scottish (or have Scottish roots), you might want to check out Electric Scotland. The link goes to the page on the Clan Mackintosh (of course), but Electric Scotland carries information every clan, runs message boards, and even sells clan merchandise! (You know we're in the age of crass consumerism when we start merchandising surnames. Just a thought - you always hear about street punks getting attacked for wearing their "gang colors" on rival turf... Could a careless bad dresser get shot in a tragic drive-by because he thoughtlessly decided to wear a loud plaid tie with the MacThomas tartan in Mac Niven territory? Man, you can go off on some scaaaaaary tangents with this whole clan concept...but anyway.)
Fuel Injection? What's a site named that doing here? Well the link will take you to its very comprehensive section on Clan Mackintosh - they were the ones who had a pic of the image on Qwill's coat of arms.
Cluelass is the most comprehensive site devoted to the mystery genre I've run across, with reviews, bibliographies, an events calendar, a message board, an extensive link list, and the proverbial much, much more.
Mysteries.com, run by the A&E cable network, also is quite a comprehensive mystery site...
The Mystery Guide is also shaping up to be a respectable resource as well - games, author interviews, and the like. While it could benefit from just plain more material in each category, it's well thought-out and designed and holds promise.
Food for thought about the cat mystery genre from January magazine - a history, an overview of the most popular, and an examination of their clichés.
Were you inspired to name one of your own kittycats after one of Braun's feline sleuths? If so, please report in to Paw Prints Books, which is compiling a photo archive of cats who've taken Koko or Yum Yum for their namesake.
If you're interested in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs mentioned extensively throughout Wasn't There and Robbed a Bank, you might try The Rennie Mackintosh Store, which carries an extensive line of products featuring the man and his designs. The shop's located in Great Britain, but whatcha gonna do. (The site's a part of The Scotch Corner, ("Scotch" - I can see Qwill throwing a fit), a web of Scotland-related stores, so if you're looking for Scottish goods, here might be a place to start.)
And for more information on Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Scottish desinger whose work was visit the Glasgow School of Art.
If you'd like an inkling of what Lynette Duncan's Scottish wedding in Tailed a Thief was like, check out John and Wendy Watts's wedding photos (there're more here. Many thanks to John and Wendy for sharing their nuptuals for the edification of Cat Who... readers).
Exclusively Cat Who... Links
First off, if you're looking for the link to The Unofficial Lilian Jackson Braun Fan Club, it's gone bye-bye. The group is no longer a Lilian Jackson Braun fan club, but rather a list concerned with debates about the pros and cons of recent Star Trek series and various Protestant denominations - which are fine topics in themselves, but they're not, y'know, LJB or the Cat Who... series. Objections to the lack of pertinent discussion are frequent, but the objectors get rather rudely slapped down whenever any complaint is issued, so there's hence no reason for this site to continue to link to the misnomered ULJBFC. (I would advise said objectors, by the way, to break off and start their own list, with adherence to the proper topic strictly enforced. If you do, notify me, and I'll link you right up.)
Cat Who... Fanfiction
Only three links so far, but hopefully growing...
Cat Who...-Related Links
Gadzooks! Barnesandnoble.com has purged its site of its author-chat transcripts! Never fear, however - they're archived on-site. The first barnesandnoble.com interview/chat with Lilian Jackson Braun was conducted in February 1998, in conjunction with the Sang for the Birds release.
Off-Site Reviews
As noted above, both Epinions.com and The "Cat Who" Clubhouse host a number of Cat Who... book reviews.
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards:
The Cat Who Turned On and Off:
The Cat Who Saw Red:
The Cat Who Played Post Office:
The Cat Who Lived High:
Publishers Weekly, author unknown (another on-site review)
The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal:
The Cat Who Wasn't There:
The Cat Who Came to Breakfast:
The Cat Who Tailed a Thief:
The Cat Who Sang for the Birds:
The Cat Who Saw Stars:
The Cat Who Robbed a Bank:
The Cat Who Smelled a Rat:
The Cat Who Went Up the Creek:
The Cat Who Had 14 Tales:
Sharon Feaster's The Cat Who... Companion:
Julie Murphy & Sally Ann Stempinski's The Cat Who... Cookbook:
Cat Links
The Siamese Internet Cat Club has everything one could want to know about our favorite feline breed (including message boards, chat rooms, details about a Siamese rescue program, and an interview with a Thai ailurophile), as well as a link to the Siamese Webring (dealing with cats, not twins).
Assorted Cat Who...-Related Miscellanea
Wanna try a pasty, but aren't one of theose geographically advantaged folks who live in the northwest central US? Not a problem! Simply order from The Cornish Oven! Their page also hosts a history of the legends surrounding the pasty and (mostly, actually) a hit-up to start your own Cornish Pasty fast-food franchise.
The Cat Who... series (The Cat Who Could Read Backwards and its sequels) and all its characters, places, and what-have-yous therein are the copyrighted property of Lilian Jackson Braun. Ronald Frobnitz and Family is an unofficial Cat Who... fan site and is not endorsed by or affiliated with Lilian Jackson Braun, G. P. Putnam's Sons, or anyone else involved with the production and publication of the Cat Who... series. This site was created by Rebecca Capowski; please do not take any material from it without explicit permission. I generally don't like silky backgrounds, but this was nice, don'cha think?