Happy Birthday, Wallace; Please Accept This Kreechur

The same day I discovered Steffie Can't Come Out to Play, I stumbled across a "limited $1.99 edition" of a treasure called On Basilisk Station. The cover depicts a sassy spaceship commander cradling a small, appalling space-cat.


Two words: DIABEETUS


MONSTER.


Now, even I am not devoted enough to actually read a book described as "militaristic sci-fi space opera," but I did page through it long enough to encounter this paragraph:

The fluffy ball of fur in Honor Harrington's lap stirred and put forth a round, prick-eared head as the steady pulse of the shuttle's thrusters died. A delicate mouth of needle-sharp fangs yawned, and then the treecat turned its head to regard her with wide, grass-green eyes. "Bleek?" it asked, and Honor chuckled softly. "Bleek yourself," she said, rubbing the ridge of its muzzle. The green eyes blinked, and four of the treecat's six limbs reached out to grip her wrist in feather-gentle handpaws. She chuckled again, pulling back to initiate a playful tussle, and the treecat uncoiled to its full sixty-five centimeters (discounting its tail) and buried its true-feet in her midriff with the deep, buzzing hum of its purr. The handpaws tightened their grip, but the murderous claws--a full centimeter of curved, knife-sharp ivory, were sheathed. Honor had once seen similar claws used to rip apart the face of a human foolish enough to threaten a treecat's companion, but she felt no concern.

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Oh, I'm sorry, did you want me to say something else? Why? The author himself describes the creature as having, of all things, a prick-eared head. My work here was finished before it began.