It’s been a week, which means it’s time for another installment of Whippets In Spaaaaaace, the continuing mission of four puppies named after some of the greatest sci-fi authors of our day: to seek out new food and OM NOM NOM NOM. (sorry, that’s about as far as the puppies can go before they get distracted by eating)

There are actually some big changes going on, and not just in their size. The puppies are definitely more interested in the world around them. The plastic tub can still mostly contain them – well, except for Tepper when she’s feeling particularly motivated. This motivation often kicks in when someone is holding any other puppy than her, because Tepper has decided that she is the rightful owner of ALL THE CUDDLES. And as the largest puppy, she’s got an edge over the others. (and, let’s face it, she’s also the cutest. Her big brown eyes pierce my soul!)

Another interesting development is that now all of the puppies are showing an interest in human cuddling. They were fine with being picked up last week, but mostly it seemed to confuse them. They would kind of lie on your lap with little thought-bubbles like, “Wait, what’s going on? Why is my head being rubbed? Is there something to eat around here?” The whole situation seemed confusing to them. That’s changing – now when they see a human approaching, their activity level picks up and they scamper over to sniff hands and get head-rubs. Also a new development – they can scamper. During the last week some of that tricky giant belly/stubby legs issue got ironed out, and you’ll notice in the pictures that their legs seem a bit more in line with their general body size. It’s not a great scamper, mind you (there’s a lot of scamper-scamper-PLOP going on), but it’s impressive.

The last big development this week was that they are now actively playing with each other. Previously they would sometimes sit on each other, but it was hard to say exactly how deliberate that was. Things have moved into the realm of hopping onto each other, nipping, and kind of rolling around in a puppy pile. It’s pretty fun to watch.

And that’s pretty much it for this week of whippet development! In non-puppy news, there’s a giveaway for three copies of Iron Night, so you can enter to win one of those. I’ll also be signing the copies, so that’s kind of fun. Iron Night was also reviewed recently at Fantasy Book Café and All Things Urban Fantasy, and there’s also a fantastic review of Generation V over at Bibliotropic that I strongly recommend checking out. Finally, for those puppy-philes in the Rhode Island area – I’ll be doing a signing and reception at Books On The Square on February 28th. Since I’ve been told very specifically that they are “taking a chance on [me]”, spread the word if you live in Rhode Island and let’s see if we can change this bookstore’s mind about out-of-state speculative fiction authors!