The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper

by A.J. Fitzwater

Dapper. Lesbian. Capybara. Pirate.

Cinrak the Dapper is a keeper of secrets, a righter of wrongs, the saltiest capybara on the sea and a rider of both falling stars and a great glass whale. Join her, her beloveds, the rat Queen Orvilia and the marmot diva Loquolchi, lead soprano of the Theatre Rat-oyal, her loyal cabin kit, Benj the chinchilla, and Agnes, last of the great krakens, as they hunt for treasures of all kinds and find adventures beyond their wildest dreams. Let Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning storyteller A.J. Fitzwater take you on a glorious journey about finding yourself, discovering true love and found family, and exploring the greatest secrets of the deep. Also, dapperness.

CURATOR'S NOTE (The 2020 Pride Month Bundle)
«A.J. and I also met through the Outer Alliance, then met in person for the first time at Au Contraire. I've enjoyed reading A.J.'s short stories over the years, then fell madly in love with the Cinrak story that they sent me for Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space). I asked if there could be more Cinrak stories and this lovely, joyous collection is the result. Reading Cinrak is like getting a big, fuzzy hug and I think these will be on my comfort read list forever.» – Catherine Lundoff

Genres: Fantasy, Queer, Short Stories, LGBT, Pirates, Fiction, Lesbian

147 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 6, 2020

About the author

AJ Fitzwater is 1000 tiny dragons flapping furiously inside a meat suit, living between two fault lines in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Their short stories have been published in Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer Magazine, Giganotosaurus, and other venues and anthologies of repute. Their capybara pirate collection "The Voyages of Cinrak The Dapper" is available from Queen of Swords Press April 2020, and their WW2 Land Girls shapeshifter novella "No Man's Land" is available from Paper Road Press May 2020.

Two Sir Julius Vogel Awards hunker on their shelf, and the Clarion Class of 2014 hunkers in their history.

Reviews

[Allison Hurd · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very cute collection of queer and poly friendly short stories involving a capybara pirate, her rat queen and primadonna marmoset lovers and their various friends. I wanted more time with the crow, too!

I think they were sweet and showed a lot of joy in life, but they were a bit too vague for me to get a sense of the extraordinary or picture what was happening.

[Jukaschar · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun, whimsical and positive book! I didn't know I needed all those awesome characters in my life, now I would really enjoy for A.J. Fitzwater to delight us with more stories about Cinrak and the pirates!

This is one of those books that are really elevated by the foreword. The author makes an excellent point about the joy of changing things for the better. There's already so much emphasis on conflict and negativity in our world, I think we do really need books like this to remind us that perspective matters a lot.

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

How about a fun tale of a pirate who is a talking capybara? It’s a delightfully joyous and progressive tale of seven linked stories in a world where animals talk, stars are alive and adventure can be found

Will bring a smile to your face


https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

['Nathan Burgoine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joyful, queer, and magical. More thorough reviews of the stories to come.

(When they're up, you'll be able to find them at this link.)

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely collection of stories about a delightful character and her lovers, crews and friends. I think that if you enjoy Ursula Vernon’s works, like “Digger,” you’re certain to enjoy this. Deeply caring, kind and ultimately, hopeful, this is like a much needed warm hug of a collection.

[Rook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was SO FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!! This had such BEAUTIFULLY written representation!!!!!! And a positive polyamorous relationship, which is Really rare to see!!!!! This had better diversity than Half of the other books I've read, and this didn't have a Single human in it!!!!!! Cinrak really is a Lovable character, and I would deeply DEEPLY love to hear more stories about her and her family!!!!!!! HIGHLY recommend to anyone looking for a diverse High-fantasy story!!!!!!

[A.C. Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joy is a form of resistance. A.J Fitzwater reminds us as much in the introduction to their delightful debut collection, The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper, which is currently available for pre-order and will be published in April by Queen of Swords Press.

We first meet Cinrak as a young orphan, dreaming of sailing the high seas, whispering her desires to the sturdy oak that serves as her ship until she can get to the real thing. It’s impossible not to fall in love with her the moment she sets paw on page. In short order, Cinrak sees her dreams come true, proving her salt and not only becoming a pirate, but a captain and an extremely dapper one at that.

The best way to describe this collection of intertwined short stories is joyous. It’s fun, it’s charming, it’s packed full of adventure and glittering prose. The voice is perfectly suited to a rollicking sea adventure, with a rhythm and music all of its own. Honestly, the collection had me at dapper lesbian capybara pirate. I can’t imagine a more promising or intriguing combination of words to lure one into picking up a book, and the collection lives up to that promise. There are pirates and queens, mer-people and sea-beasties. There’s queer love and found family and swashbuckling. What more could you want? Cinrak sails the high seas, uncovers dastardly plots, and rides a star, and that just covers a few of her adventures. Grimdark, anger, and grief, all have their place, but so does happiness. Especially when it comes to queer characters, it’s important to see them being brash and triumphant and resplendent, reveling in who they are and winning the day. Cinrak does all that and more, and it’s a pleasure to follow this lesbian pirate cabybara on her adventures.

You can pre-order the book now and I highly recommend doing so. This is a collection you don’t want to miss.

[Matthew Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this! Badass in a kind, queer, joyful way, without ever once being trite, and with an underlying sense of wonder at the strange magic of nature. I would dearly love to read further adventures of Cinrak and her crew. (Perfect timing for a comfort read, too.)

[Queen of Swords Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our forthcoming title - April, 2020!

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll do a longer review on my blog but this was delightful. It holds together very well as a mosaic novel and collection, and is so much fun. Queer found family, anthropomorphic animals, pirates and sea "monsters." All the stories are adventurous romps and the cast is amazing. Would read more. 5/5!

[Cade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot express how absolutely LOVELY this little book is. The characters, the worldbuilding, the beautiful, woven QUEERNESS of it all. Bless you, A.J. Fitzwater.

[Wonko · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s about a lesbian pirate capybara. Five stars, no notes.

[Alien · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most beautiful and joyful books I’ve read in a long time.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must again apologize for the wait on this to the author and the publisher Queen of Swords - I was given a ARC around February of 2020 after reading and reviewing Scourge of the Seas of Time (a problem I had found my phone wouldn't let me read epub docs or keep my place in them so couldn't use the ARC; but I didn't know what could be done and told no one this trouble). I had much enjoyed the short story with Cinrak the Capybara within it ("Search for the Heart of the Ocean"). So much so I bought my ebook copy later on.

'The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper' put me in mind or Tanith Lee's Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl's Adventure Upon the High Seas or Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy although more fantastic than either with mers and magic and animals who speak and reason like out of Aesop's Fables.

'The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper' is made up of seven short stories, I'll not soon forget Loquolchi or rat Queen Orvillia, Cinrak's beloveds, or their son Benj. Nor the mysteries between a (space) krakan Agnes- or their glass whale love Xolotli. Between the mysteries of sea and stars are many for this fascinating voyager, religions and royal and conspiracy of many kinds.

I hope for more stories someday, I'm sure they'll be Epics.

[Jassmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bird collapsed into a pile of steaming ashes.
The capybara captain and her marmot lover stared at the remains of the phoenix for a moment.
“Menopause ain’t treating Muriel well.” Cinrak fetched the brush and pan.
“How does a bird go through menopause anyway,” said Loquolchi, standing cross armed in her flannel nighty. “Not evolutionar-re-rarily possible.”

This book was a super wholesome cozy read and as such doesn't require much of a review. All you need to know is that this book follows lesbian polyamorous capybara pirate captain on her many adventures through the sea, her diva marmot lover, her other lover queen Orvilla the rat, chinchilla trans cabin boy, Agnes the giant octopus, Muriel the menopausal phoenix and so on. The author in the introduction says this:

Joy is political.
(...)
We tell joyful stories in times of fear to light the way in the dark, to document that history, to model the voices that need to be heard and the bodies that need to be seen, and to simply say no, you will not take our joy from us.

Which totally won me over, because YES that is why we need stories like these! I will be definitely reading more from Fitzwater, I hope to get to No Man's Land this year 🤞🏽

BRed at WBtM: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Octavia Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, after seemingly endless avalanches of nothing but miserable fantasy, all that grimdark why-do-you-even-bother-being-alive shite, it's really nice to have a fantasy that's all about finding happiness and doing good. Fitting, then, that the main character is a capybara, famed as they are for their laid-back attitude and willingness to make friends with any number of species. This particular capybara is a pirate, which is ridiculous but just plain fun. The author notes in the introduction that people would light up when told about pirate capybaras, and that's been my own experience when telling others about this book. It's an idea that just makes people smile.

There's no wider story here. Rather, it's a collection of loosely connected short stories, all set in the same universe and with the same characters, and they are all likeable. My particular favourite is Agnes the kraken, because I will never not like tentacular monsters. Agnes is only one of a wider cast, however, and the whole thing is just imaginative and original and relentlessly positive. I really appreciate that.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

In many ways, this book was charming, and full of whimsy. I really wanted to love it. However, it just failed to grab me, which made reading it a drawn out chore for me. I stuck with it to the end, hoping that I would gel with it more, but I never did. It seemed to lack everything that makes me want to return to a story -- characters experiencing an arc, a sense of urgency, cause and effect, some sort of comprehensible trajectory. The short stories are all momentary snapshots. The resolutions all have the feeling of Deus ex Machina. Often there's no conflict at all, and the characters do little more than sightsee as wonders happen around them. The writing has a strong style, but one that obscures what's happening as often as it elucidates. The plots are liked those children tell -- full of random events with no rhyme or reason. In the end, I feel less like the book is faulty and more like I'm just entirely the wrong target market. I'm sure many others will love this book. I'm a little sad that I'm not among them.

[Minerva · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything I've always wanted. Pirate adventures, talking animals, diverse queer representation, magic, kindness, and beautiful descriptions that often feel like poetry but still make you laugh. I hope this will turn into an animated TV series one day and reach lots of new fans. And if time travel were to be invented, this would definitely be a book I'd like to send to my teenage self.

[G. Deyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is cute, fun, silly, whimsical, and full of queer joy, just as advertised.

Unfortunately, it's also confusing and difficult to read, both on a line level and more broadly, for these reasons:
- the proofreading feels sloppy, though it's hard to tell just how sloppy, because:
- there's a lot of eye dialect. Can't have pirates without eye dialect! This particular pirate dialect feels very homebrew, speaking as someone who isn't a linguist.
- there's a lot of maybe-figurative-maybe-not language, with weather phenomena or bits of ships being personified: things that feel like whimsical figures of speech, until the next sentence treats it as actual literal fact. This adds to the fun whimsical feel of the worldbuilding, but also makes it a lot more confusing to know what's actually going on.
- it is very difficult to keep track of who is present in a scene and who is not. On a basic "who and what is where at what time and how are they moving" level, there are enough breaks in continuity that I pretty much gave up on keeping an overview and just had to go with the flow.

I haven't read much furry fiction since I was a child, so I may just be reaching for the most obvious point of comparison, but The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper felt a lot like the Redwall books minus the feasting and warmongering. Not just because of the anthropomorphic animals having adventures, but the basic style of storytelling: dialogue-heavy, with immersive details and awesome images that kind of fall flat on me today (probably because these days I care a lot more about the effect of the language itself versus the semantic content of each sentence, compared with when I was young) but might well have captivated me as a child.

Another thing which struck me, which might be inherent to furry fiction over human characters: aggressive body neutrality. Cinrak is barrel-chested with an underbite and prominent front teeth because she is a capybara. These traits - any physical traits of any characters, with the possible exception of beards - are presented as absolutely neutral, not only without value judgements attached, but with no gendering component. In this respect, the book was a breath of fresh air.

Selling points: fun; low-stakes; queer joy; there's a lesbian capybara pirate captain.

Warnings: one instance of misgendering, promptly cracked down on; dubious continuity; confusing and difficult-to-read use of language.

[GuineaPigFalconer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected this book to be full of fun stories, and while one might think that a chinchilla bonding with an ancient sea kraken is nothing but a bit of a laugh, these stories showed that such lighthearted tales could be woven throughout with intense moments of discovery- both of the world and of oneself. The writing was a well-crafted combination of pirate-speak and eloquent prose, which reflected the lighthearted yet serious tone of this book. Probably 3.5 stars from me, just cause I found myself confused from time to time.

[Michael Miele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know that I can add anything new to what's been said about this collection of wonderfully queer short stories but I felt a certain giddiness in reading each of them that was infectious throughout. Cinrak's exuberance for adventure was refreshing to experience and I fell in love with all the other members of her crew during their exploits. It's also a good collection of stories for folks who are looking for some pirate adventures on the high seas. Full of whimsy and action, it was worth checking out to me!

[Kahlia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad that I didn’t like this collection more because the author set out to write about queer joy and there are definitely some sweet moments. But overall it feels like a first draft of stories that don’t really hang together as a collection: the world-building is very vague even after seven stories and the random time skips between entries made it impossible to connect to the characters and removed any impact… slice of life stories with no plot only work if you care about the people (or capybaras) involved.

[Andrew Peters]

I had some fun playing around with a sharp, concise opening summary for this title. Watership Down meets Sinbad the Sailor? If The Tale of Despereaux was directed by Ilene Chaiken? Neither captures entirely Fitzwater’s unusual undertaking, which features a plucky, skirt-eschewing, female-loving capybara who’s destined to find love and adventure on the high seas.

Read the rest of my review at Out in Print

[Carro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set of long short stories covering episodes in the life of Cinrak the Capybara, collected in one volume, they've been previously published in magazines.

Loved this book for its warmth, amazing imagination and humour. The author does a wonderful job of writing tales of adventure with an element of kindness and grand sweeping gestures. They work in tales of falling stars, Kraken, fairies and magical whales. Enjoyed it immensely.

Note that while Cinrak describes herself as a pirate there is no instance of actual piracy - no robbing people. She is more of an adventurer and explorer.

The world is populated with marmosets, capybaras, rats and cats, not a human in sight.

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author says in the introduction to this linked collection of short stories that joy is political, and they certainly set out to prove that here. Cinrak is a dapper, lesbian, poly, pirate, unionised capybara. She's kind and understands the importance of family, especially family that you choose.

I quite enjoyed these gentle stories, but I didn't find them entirely satisfying. There was a lot of gaps between them, so we go straight from Cinrak stepping on a pirate ship for the first time to her being a captain in her own right, to her wooing the queen. I enjoyed the message of the book and its gentleness and insistence that love is love and that everyone deserves to be loved and respected for who they are. Oh, and that unions are a good thing.

And despite being called Cinrak the Dapper, we never really got much description of her wardrobe (other than her being fond of bow-ties). There's a lot of world-building in few words, but sometimes the stories felt a little vague. Enjoyable, fairly fluffy, and making an important statement, but it didn't gel quite as much as I'd hoped.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very positive three stars, may end up doing a full review.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved the characters. fast paced story

[Pamela Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet Tales of an Enchanting World

What do you get when you read about the many adventures of Cinrak the Dapper? A set of fairy tales in a world in which non-human mammals, merpeople, and sea creatures sail the salty seas and ride the very stars in the sky. This is a magical world unlike any other. I recommend it highly to anyone who enjoys fairy tales and stories in which animals talk. Lots of fun!

[Rakuen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review originally posted on Flayrah.
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The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper is a collection of seven short stories written by A. J. Fitzwater centred around Cinrak, a lesbian, capybara pirate. It has a couple of strong elements as well as several weak points. I struggled with my thoughts as I read it and, in the end, I would say that, overall, I found it frustrating.

I will start this review briefly talking about politics. It might seem like an unusual starting point but the introduction makes clear that the book is political and it touches on several hot button issues.

Come for handsome, huggable Cinrak in a dapper three-piece, stay for her becoming a house-ship Mother to an enormous found family, the ethical polyamory, trans boy chinchilla, genderqueer rat mentor, fairy, and whale, drag queen mer, democratic monarchy, socialist pirates, and strong unionization.

What I do like about the way politics is handled in this book, is that it is not set up as a conflict between opposing ideologies; the book presents its favoured way of seeing the world and just leaves it as that. Even the religious character (and there is a fascinating take on religion inside) is played off sympathetically. However, by taking the stances it does, the book is also going to be, though it has no regrets about it, alienating for certain readers. If you can not tolerate a heavy emphasis on, and I quote, LGBTQIA characters, then this book is definitely not for you and you may as well stop here. On the other hand, if that’s what you crave, it may be exactly what you want and you should read further.

Despite it being a story about a pirate, there is little of the drama that one might expect in a pirate story. Conflicts are rare, violence is almost entirely absent and even the times when we have proper antagonists, they remain hidden throughout the chapter. This is part of the emphasis on joy which the book mentions in the introduction. The downside is that the story becomes muted. When nothing bad happens, there is no real tension or contrast. With the notable exception of the first, which is the most pirate-like of them all, most chapters rely on building up to scenes of amazement and wonder. Fitzwater is certainly capable of delivering that but there are only so many times one can dip into the same pot and, even with the small number of chapters, we see similar scenes repeating.

The chapters have continuity but also present complete stories. The biggest problem with this is the jumps between chapters can disrupt the flow. This is most noticeable between chapter one and two where major events such as Cinrak becoming captain of a ship and meeting her two lovers are completely skipped. When we don’t know the characters or their relationships, it's hard to be invested in them. Interestingly, Agnes, a giant squid, and Benj, a transgender chinchilla, get the most character development (I would even say that Benj gets more development than Cinrak.) but are not Cinrak’s lovers. Her lovers get very little attention, despite serving as major motivating factors for Cinrak. This continues to be a source of frustration throughout the book as tensions regarding the IRATE union or between the rodent and feline kingdoms are brought up and then forgotten without any payoff.

Probably the strongest aspect of the book — for me — was the world itself. It felt like it was drawing on an older way of storytelling where the world itself was anthropomorphic. The moons, wind and stars all expressed their own emotions and intentions; particularly the stars which appear to be the source of magic in the world. Magic is infused into many creatures and objects and seemed to be more diffuse and alive than in many stories. Among the many beautiful mental images that the book brings forth, I do want to single out the glass whale as being particularly memorable. How we see the world is dependent on the language used. At its best, the language in The Voyages of Cinrak flows out to create imagery with a floating, dream-like quality. But, just as often, the language is overly complicated to the point that it becomes confusing and distracting.

In the end, this book has several good elements which are poorly assembled and too many promising avenues remain unexplored. If you are looking for something light-hearted and kind to relax with or if you want to read a book with no shortage of queer characters, then there is plenty to enjoy here. However, while there were occasionally parts where I was drawn into the story, there wasn’t enough to hold me there.

[Adri Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, as the subject matter would suggest, a very warm and fuzzy book in alll the senses. Cuddly krakens and star voyages and rodent-cat-fae-mer diplomacies!