Cat Classics in Print: Space Cat Visits Venus

Today’s classic in print is the second slim volume in the Space Cats series, Space Cat Visits Venus, written by Ruthven Todd and illustrated by Paul Galdone. This particular book was first published in 1955 and has recently been republished by Dover. We probably enjoyed the story of Space Cat’s visit to Venus even more than the original Space Cat, which means we liked it quite a lot.

The plot

We first met the little tabby named Flyball as a kitten in his first book. Now he is grown up and no one tries to tell him anymore that he shouldn’t go into space. As if he would listen anyway. In a remarkably short period of time, people have built a whole city on the surface of the moon (we do have to wonder how they managed to get funding for that, but let’s not talk about money), and they’re preparing a mission to Venus. Once again astronaut Fred Stone and his sidekick Flyball will head off to explore.

Flyball has hopes that there will be lots of mice to chase on Venus, as there are none on the moon and that’s a real drag. Even if there don’t turn out to be mice on Venus, Flyball does have some improvements to enjoy. He has a brand-new hammock that has been built to be even more comfy than his original homemade one, and he and Fred have a new spaceship that has an actual name—Halley.

Not surprisingly, they find Venus to be a strange place with an ammonia atmosphere (at least at high altitudes), a beach of blue pebbles, and sentient plants that seem to be leading them in a certain direction. Oh, and the plants think at them. There is a certain type of moss that enables telepathic communication between plants and Earthlings and even between cat and human. All Flyball and Fred have to do is keep a bit of moss with them and they’ll be able to think at each other all the time. This is neat at first, but if you think about it, having someone be able to hear all your thoughts would get tiresome, not to mention embarrassing, after a while.

It turns out the Venus plants (and the little blue Venus mouse that Flyball is not supposed to chase!) need some help from the Earthlings. Soon Earth and Venus are off to an early promising relationship of mutual aid and cooperation. The cynic in old SoLT thinks that in reality humans would be overtaken by greed and ruin the whole planet while exploiting its amazing resources for profit. But this is supposed to be a fun and positive story, so check your cynicism at the door, please.

Our verdict

Space Cat Visits Venus is indeed a fun book. We read it in one evening and found the story and illustrations every bit as delightful as the original Space Cat. Once again Flyball goes off on a space adventure, discovering previously unknown life forms. He and Fred are brave and curious but also respectful and compassionate toward the life they meet—not a bad lesson for humans to learn, we think.

So if you’re looking for a light read for yourself or a great chapter book for the cat- or space-loving kid in your life, we highly recommend Space Cat Visits Venus.

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Cat Classics on Film: Alien (1979)

“In space, no one can hear you scream.” That is the famous tagline of the 1979 film Alien, which, in addition to being a cat classic, is a sci-fi horror classic that has an enduring place in modern popular culture. Alien was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Sigourney Weaver as tough heroine Ripley, who also featured in three subsequent related films: Aliens (1986), Aliens 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997).

The plot (contains spoilers)

The crew of the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo are on their way back to Earth when they’re suddenly awakened from hypersleep. They pick up a mystery signal coming from a strange planet, and they make a detour to investigate.  While on the surface of the planet, one of the crew (Kane, played by John Hurt) discovers a group of large egg-like things. Turns out they are in fact eggs, and Kane ends up with a, um, creature attached to his face. This is a problem. Kane, alive but unconscious, is taken back aboard the Nostromo, but there seems to be no way to remove the creature from his face. He does wake up eventually, after the creature detaches itself. It now appears to be dead and Kane seems no worse for wear, but we’re left wondering just what that thing was doing to him.

All of this has been a setup for one of the most famous scenes in sci-fi film. Even if you have never seen Alien, you probably have some familiarity with the scene in which the crew members are sharing a large meal when suddenly Kane starts coughing and choking, and then a whole new creature bursts through his chest, looks around, and jumps down and runs off, leaving Kane dead. At least now we know what that original creature was doing to him.

Things get even more horrific when another crew member, Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), goes searching for the ship’s cat, an orange tabby named Jones (more on him later). Brett finds Jones, but when the cat hisses at something over his shoulder, Brett turns around and finds himself face-to-face with the newly born creature, which has suddenly become much, much larger. Brett is killed, but Jones escapes.

There follows a lot of searching for the creature. Unfortunately, each time the search succeeds, someone else ends up dead. Eventually, only third officer Ripley and Jones are left. Knowing she has to destroy the alien, Ripley gets Jones into what looks like an industrial-strength cat carrier, and she sets the ship to self-destruct and heads for the escape shuttle. After some suspenseful moments with the alien as the destruct sequence counts down, Ripley and Jones get into the shuttle and they blast away from the main ship moments before it explodes. Safe, right? Well, no…because the alien has secreted itself in the shuttle. Hey, why would it want to stay on the exploding ship?

Ripley does get rid of the alien (there’s a pretty great alien-getting-sucked-into-space sequence), and now she and Jones are safe. Before she puts herself into hypersleep, Ripley records a log entry saying she is the only survivor of the Nostromo, but of course that is not true, because Jones survived too.

Jonesy the cat, at the moment Brett is attacked by the alien.

The cat

Jones, or Jonesy, is a pretty tough kitty cat. We see quite a lot of him throughout the film: hanging out with the crew, running to hide in inconvenient places so the crew can chase him and thus encounter the alien, being banged around in that industrial cat carrier. While he’s in the carrier, Jones also has a rather harrowing up-close encounter with the alien, and he does not flinch away (he survives, obviously). The film’s credits list Animals Unlimited as the cat actor’s trainer, but of course the actual cat (or cats—there were four of them, according to Cinema Cats) is uncredited. This is a shame, because those cats did an excellent job. Jones also appears in the follow-up Aliens (1986).

Our verdict

If you are not into sci-fi and horror things, Alien is probably not for you, even though there’s a cat in it. We don’t find it too terribly frightening, but there is something just creepy about this alien. And of course there is violence and blood—and alien slime. But it is all part of what we think is a pretty good story. There are parts we didn’t go into in the plot outline—such as, just why did these people knowingly bring the creature on board the Nostromo? (For the record, Ripley was against this, but she was overruled.) The answer to that question does come out as you get deeper into the movie and learn a few things about the science officer. The alien itself is quite a creation in every way, from its physical appearance to its life cycle. We like that Ripley is a smart, strong, and resourceful character. And of course we love Jonesy, the ship’s cat who faces down a horrific alien. 

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good movie; two paws is for a great movie. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the movie through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!