Ultimately my conclusion for this book review is very simple: don’t judge the book before you’ve actually read it. It would be easy to disregard Amygdala as nothing but a rather distressing book for a very specific brand of furry if all you do is look at the character designs. But, I want to make it clear, it’s more than that.

In fact it’s not really that at all. Sure, characters talk about having sex, a lot, but the story is in no way geared around that. This is not p***, it’s a political thriller gushed up in a fantasy world. The fact that the players here are animalistic monsters just adds another aspect for the writer to explore.

How would creatures that are so different to us, who don’t die, or age past their point of maturity, whose bodies don’t rot in the ground, govern themselves? Where does the animal end and the civilised remember of society begin?

The answer, for some of these questions, is a hard society in which failure is not tolerated and children are not valued as anything besides food. And yet, what I found so fascinating is that the qualities of kindness, mercy, and compassion can still flourish in the members of this society. They are not uniform monsters; they have the ability to choose a different way of being. And so the reader is forced to wander, if maybe that choice – the choice between compassion and coldness, or good and evil – is the greatest asset any of us possesses. So if someone tries to take away that choice, even if they claim it’s for the best of reasons, how good can that person really be?

All fascinating questions and all things Sam Fennah has fun exploring throughout ‘Amygdala’. So pick up a copy today and start expanding your mind now.

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