The cat is on the floor, looking up at me and yelling as I type this. My original plan was for a piece on ‘Pets In Space’, but she’s threatened to vomit on my bed, under the covers, if I don’t focus solely on cats. Why? Because cats are better than dogs. I am typing this of my own free will. Please send salmon.
In all seriousness though, even dog lovers have to admit that cats would make better pets aboard a space craft: they don’t require as much food as any but the smallest dogs, unlike many dog breeds they don’t need a lot of space to run around, and they’re great at catching the rodents chewing on the cables of the life-support system.
Now, with that debate settled, let’s look at some of the best cats in space across literature, comics, film, and video games.
The Kilrathi from Wing Commander
Wing Commander is a series of classic, well-regarded space combat games, and one, well, poorly-regarded film. For comparison, 1994’s Wing Commander III featured Full Motion Video cutscenes with a cast that included Mark Hamill, Malcom McDowell, and John Rhys-Davies, while 1999’s Wing Commander film starred… Freddie Prinze Jr.
But we’re not here to talk about humans and their command of wings, we’re here to talk about cats. With Wing Commander we aren’t talking about cuddly-yet-vicious pets, no, we’re talking about the Kilrathi – a sentient race of glorious, bipedal cat people!
Just look at all that majesty! These warriors are 2 metres tall, with teeth and claws to match, and are far stronger – and fluffier – than humans. At this stage, I’m not sure if they poop in a box, but they sure as heck can develop interstellar travel, build a galaxy-spanning empire, and go to war against those pesky shaved apes (that’s us, BTW).
Lying Cat from Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
Saga is a fantastic science fiction comic written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples. It’s big, bold, colourful, weird, and well worth your time. Amongst Saga’s cast of characters is The Will, a freelance bounty hunter, with a sidekick cat – appropriately called Lying Cat – who can tell when a person is lying and isn’t shy about calling them out on it. While The Will makes good use of Lying Cat’s ability, half the fun of their interactions is when he’s caught out bluffing by his own pet.
Lying Cat is a unique and entertaining character in a comic full of great characters. Not only that, but some people, for some strange reason, say that Lying Cat is a perfect mascot for politics in 2017. 11/10, would scratch chin and tell truths.
Spot from Star Trek: The Next Generation
In Star Trek: TNG the crew of the Enterprise was a varied bunch. As well as the expected vanilla humans, you’ve also got Worf the Klingon, Deanna Troi the half-human, half-Betazoid counsellor, the android Data, and most importantly of all, Data’s pet cat Spot – the heroic feline who saved the crew from a devolution virus (sort of), and (kinda) taught Data how to feel. Beyond that though, I just find it heartening to know that far in the future, when mankind has joined a utopian Federation of alien races, people will still struggle with getting their cats to behave… and that cats will be just as fussy about their food as they are now.
Aineko from Accelerando by Charles Stross
Accelerando, by Charles Stross, is idea-dense, weird, brilliant, and encompasses so much about technology, politics, business, transhumanism and the future of humanity, whilst still telling a compelling story about family. Not only that, but Stross offers the ebook for free on his website.
I might be cheating somewhat with this entry, because Aineko isn’t a cat in the strictest sense, but rather, a cat-like robot… But if I can include sentient cat aliens in this list, then cat robots are fair game too.
Now, a robocat could be interesting enough on its own, but Stross doesn’t stop there. Hell, with the sheer creative madness on display in Accelerando, I don’t think Stross could have stopped there if he wanted to. See, whilst Aineko might start off as little more than a consumer-grade product, hacks and upgrades see the catbot growing increasingly more intelligent, eventually [SPOILER WARNING] becoming a sort of digital cat god. And really, isn’t godhood what every cat wants, nay, deserves?
I can’t remember if Aineko technically goes into space, but, like, when you’re a being of pure information what even is space, maaaan?
Jones from Alien
One of these creatures is an apex predator with razor-sharp claws and a complete disregard for humanity. The other is a xenomorph. The titular alien from the 1979 film Alien is a horrifying and agile parasitic beast with a tough carapace, a blade for a tail and acid for blood, which is born by literally tearing through a person’s ribcage… and yet it still wasn’t able to kill a cat. Why? Because cats are the best. Don’t @ me.
Even if you haven’t seen the film, I’m sure you can imagine that things don’t go well for the crew of the Nostromo when they cross paths with the xenomorph. But the alien critter didn’t count on the grit of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), or the survivability of your average house (ship?) cat. While Jones the cat might not be of much use to Ripley in outmaneuvering and [38 YEAR-OLD SPOILER WARNING] eventually dispatching the alien, just the fact that the cat survived one of the most terrifying and tense massacres in the history of science fiction cinema makes Jones the Official BEST CAT IN SPACE (Which Is Really A Real Award)™
Honourable mentions:
- Red Dwarf – The Cat: Honestly, I always thought he was some sort of greaser vampire.
- Samurai Pizza Cats: They’re samurai cats in super-armour who fight evil, break through the fourth wall, AND make pizza – what’s not to love? Sadly, they spend most of their time on the ground… because in space, no one can smell you cooking pizza.
Top image: Paul Galdone’s cover art for Space Cat by Ruthven Todd (1952)
Corey J. White is a writer of science fiction, horror, and LIES. He really thinks the best space cat is Seven from his debut book, Killing Gravity, but obviously he’s biased. Find him at coreyjwhite.com and on Twitter at @cjwhite.
Kilrathi but no Kzinti?
What, no Treecats?
I like the cheshire-cats from Bear and Monette’s Boojum-verse.
Also, a cat in space can substitute when the powdered eggs become tiresome…
How about C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur series with its various spacefaring cat clans?
How about the Aslan from the Traveller Universe. :)
CATACOMBS: A TALE OF THE BARQUE CATS, Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborouch.
CATALYST, Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborouch.
Heinlein and Andre Norton also used cats extensively.
more cat sci-fi:
Future Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
(technically superhero genre) Chewie from Captain Marvel
Cat-a-lyst by Alan Dean Foster
What about the cats from Tuf Voyaging?
What, no Laser Cats?
The Liaden Universe of Steve Miller and Sharon Lee is pretty much wall to wall cat territory.
What, no Pixel from ‘The Cat Who Walks Through Walls’ and ‘To Sail Beyond The Sunset’?
RK and the other Makahomian Temple Cats.
Salmon is in the mail.
Both incarnations of the Thundercats count; the originals were spacefarers before they crash-landed on Third Earth, and the newer series has a sustained flashback to Leo I’s rebellion against intergalactic conqueror Mumm-Ra (said rebellion ended with the ship crashing and society regressing back to a pre-industrial level).
There’s also Luna, Artemis, and Diana from Sailor Moon.
Star Trek has M’Ress, who appears in both the animated series and Peter David’s New Frontiers novels.
Star Wars has Togorians, Trianii, Horansi, Tinnell, Srrors’tok, and Zygerrians, among others.
In Banner of the Stars, the Abriel family has a fondness for cats, to the point where Lafiel’s father tells her that she is half-cat (not impossible, given Abh genetic engineering).
I’ll admit no such thing. Cats would be hell on a spaceship. They’d get in the vents and machinery, leave their turds in the food supplies, and piss in the escape pods and bunks.Furthermore whenever we got wherever we were spaceshiping to then we’d be bringing a guaranteed ecological disaster with us. Every time we’ve taken cats with us somewhere, extinctions have followed in their wake. I’d take a dog with me, if you don’t mind. An otterhound, perhaps, r maybe a Tibetan terrier.
In a more space-cat related vein, I remember a short story about a man who got into a small spacepod of some sort and thought it was haunted, recycled from an accident where the previous occupant copped his packet, but it turned out the “ghost” was the space station’s cat which had crawled in on its own unnoticed. If anyone knows which short story it was, I’d be grateful. I think it was definitely vintage, possibly 50s, golden age SF.
While you’re on Star Trek, don’t forget the Eeiauans and the Sivaouans from the Kagan novel ‘Uhura’s Song’… Which is actually a bloody good book, and would be better still if the Mary Sue were left out of it. (Sorry, Janet…)
The Partners in Cordwainer Smith’s Game of Rat and Dragon. The cats here are “regular” domestic cats, not “uplifted” or brain-boosted or any such malarkey – but their relationship with the human fighters is close enough for the protagonist at least to think of them pretty much as equals.
I don’t know if terriers or cats will be better on ships for critter disposal and companionship. Cats would be hell on off planet birds and rodent species because they are killing machines. Other space cats are Hhurbans from Crisis on Doona by Mccaffrey and in later books she added bears.
How is “The Cat From Outer Space” not #1 on this list?! Go Disney!
Come on, you can’t use Space Cat as the teaser illustration and NOT EVEN MENTION HIM?!??
@@@@@ 15
Can’t give you the title (it’s been decades) but the story you’re thinking of was by Arthur C. Clarke, one of a short series of short stories that he wrote about the building of the first space station. Sorry I can’t be of more help than that, but at least you’ve got an author now.
Oh, and it wasn’t the station’s cat – it was her kittens infesting the spacesuit. Nobody noticed that she’d had a litter in there. How she got pregnant in orbit was not, as I recall, dealt with.
@@@@@ 15, 21
I googled — it’s called “Who’s There?”, by Arthur C. Clarke. Thanks, Raskos, for the author!
An article called “Cats In Spaaaaace” and no mention of the Space Cats? I know it’s set on Earth (with a base “in a location so secret, even the Space Cats don’t know where they are”) but I still feel this is a missed opportunity.
Feline aliens: let me second the Treecats (particularly the First Contact story “A Beautiful Friendship”) and the cat people of Uhura’s Song and Cherryh’s Chanur series.
Terrestrial cats: My two favorite “girls in spaaaace” books also involve cats. In Vonda McIntyre’s Barbary, the 12-year-old Barbary smuggles her cat Mickey aboard the spaceship. And in Annette Curtis Klause’s Alien Secrets, the 12-year-old Puck gets to know the two cats who live aboard the spaceship “Cat’s Cradle” where she befriends a young alien.
And in comics…more Star Trek cat-aliens (the Grond) in Diane Duane’s delightfully funny two-parter in the 1985/6 DC Star Trek #s 24 & 25, and cats terrestrial and alien in Ellise Heiskell and Maarte Laiho’s “All Cats Are Quantum” in IDW’s Womanthology: Space #2.
Grackow in “The Gathering Edge” by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller — Come to that, most of the Liaden novels have cats lurking about.
And yes, Pyanfar and her cohorts from the Chanur novels by C. J. Cherryh. They are the ultimate cats with thumbs!
And whoever came up with the brilliant idea that Data would name his striped cat “Spot” was truly inspired. It’s just so perfectly perfect.
jmeltzer, #20: “Come on, you can’t use Space Cat as the teaser illustration and NOT EVEN MENTION HIM?!?? “
I would like this comment a thousand times if I could.
Ruthven Todd’s SPACE CAT (1952) has a special place in my heart; it’s the very first book I remember reading, and it’s been science fiction and cats for me ever since,
FLYBALL FOREVER!
@21 @22
Thanks! I’ve been trying to remember it for ages, thank you.
27 et al:
The Clarke story was also published as “The Haunted Space Suit.”
I, too, am offended that you used an illustration of Space Cat without mentioning the Ruthven Todd books. Space Cat; Space Cat and Kittens; Space Cat Meets Mars; and Space Cat Visits Venus were formative books for me. I even own a Space Cat t-shirt.
I’d think that a Dachshund would be the ideal pet for a space vessel or habitat. A cat will chew your wiring to pieces even as it keeps pests down, but a Dachshund is bred for hunting in tight quarters and is great in a fight with things that you’d expect to wipe the floor with them. Anything that can go into a badger hole and win the inevitable battle has to be respected.
@6 MByerly – there’s a trilogy that came first: Powers That Be, Power Lines, and Power Play, and the cats play an important role in those, too!
Actually, Anne McCaffrey has cats in her various series. There’s the Barque cats in the “Tower and Hive” series, the Makahomian Temple Cats in the Acorna series, the short novel “No One Noticed the Cat”, and of course the Hrrubans of Rrala, humanoid felines in the Doona trilogy.
“Decision at Doona” is great – humans starting their first colony on another planet, only to find there is another intelligent species there, when the planet was supposed to be empty! The main character’s six-year-old son, who was WAY too hyper for the cramped hallways of Earth, is of course fascinated that his new friends’ tails don’t come off when yanked, and feeling deprived is forced to improvise a rope tail to fit in. On such connections can peace be negotiated… If Earth would quit interfering!
Mercedes Lackey’s SKitty and SCat and friends.
The cats in ‘Tuf Voyaging’ by George R.R. Martin!
Obligatory mention of CatStronauts.
Don’t forget the anthology _Cats In Space And Other Places_, edited by Bill Fawcett. Dean Morrissey’s cover is classic!
@20. jmeltzer Yes yes yes. Space Cat Meets Mars is engraved on my memory, from ca. age 6 in the mid-fifties.
almost forgot: Lao She’s 1932 novel Cat Country
There are LOTS of felines and felinoids in SF! I was happy to see McCaffrey’s Doona/Rrala stories mentioned and praised, and the SKitty stories from the Catfantastic anthology series were fun. Lee & Miller’s Liaden Universe is one of my faves, with Clan Korval definite supporters of Liad’s Feline Appreciation Society. Treecats are great, but not really sufficiently *cats*, IMHO. One example that came to mind as not having been mentioned yet is Linnea Sinclair (queen of SFR)’s furzels. I’m sure more will occur to me later.
I do have to admit, though, that the cats-as-environmental-(and-wiring)-disasters-waiting-to-happen people have a point. :-( Have you read the statistics? And they don’t even EAT half the wildlife they kill, since they’re often already well-fed at home.
Yes to all the comments supporting Space Cat! I thought I was the only one who remembered Space Cat and it’s so great to see others who love Space Cat. Also, what about Andre Norton?! She practically invented cats in science fiction/fantasy.
What about Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander? Well, I mean, if you’re counting space-time….(tbc as “cats in speculative fiction: an 800-page dedication to the feline fantastic”)
Lovecrafts’ Dreamworld cats could travel to the moon without a ship and had no problem dealing with the Eldritch creatures there. The only thing Earth’s Dreamworld cats feared was the cats from Saturn.