Time after time, people write to me and say, “Edie, where I can I go to find spectacularly written stories about hamsters?” Okay, nobody has ever actually asked me that, but if they did, I would have to tell them: Tooty Nolan.
Tooty Nolan is the pen name of the eccentric and exceedingly funny author of 4 separate series of wildly entertaining stories, all featuring a world where humans never evolved, but rodents did. Chapter 1 of his Fanfare for the Common Hamster series, begins:
As a hamster Felicity Bugler wasn’t much of a looker. She was too short to begin with. And her buttocks just didn’t seem to have that tapering effect that so pleased a male hamster’s eye.
These stories take place at locations like “The Institute of Highly Important Studies” and are filled with whitty phrases like “Who the fluff is that?”
You can find all 4 of his series on Tooty Nolan’s blog The Bucktooth Times:
I could see these being published, and Nolan is currently looking into doing just that. Be among the first to discover this author and read them now while they’re free.
(Edit: Tooty has moved blogs and I’ve updated the links in this post to reflect that. Also, these stories are now available for purchase, and you can read extracts on the blog.)
You can also find out more about Tooty Nolan on his About the Author Page which features various photos, across the decades, of his werewolf-like hairiness, including one of him with his (thankfully non-hairy) child. (He’s actually kind of goodlooking underneath all that hair.)
A Bunch of Wordz 