Fornax Remix

Fornax: Remix is a novella by Matt J. McCullar, featuring his Fornax characters, in which the narrator and central character Trevor Sarnoff tells the story of his first meeting the Fornaxes during a business trip to their homeland of Saunim. The story was originally published as a five-part serial in APA Castlehome between 1995 and 1996, then later collected and released by SilverFox Publications in 1999 as a black-and-white digest-sized book titled Fornax: Remix. In 2002, the story was republished again, this time as a full-sized, comb-bound fanzine with color cover and interior art, by Fauxpaw Publications. This newer edition is referred to as Fornax Remix 1.1.

Story Synopsis:
Trevor Sarnoff, owner and proprietor of HMV Studios, travels to Saunim to attend VidiCon, an audiovisual professionals' conference. Having some spare time to kill before the convention begins, he explores the local shopping mall down the street from the hotel, where the sound of someone playing the piano draws him to Ursa's Music shop and to Pink Fornax, female ratel and virtuosa piano player. Despite her species' fearsome reputation, Trevor is instantly smitten with her and impulsively invites her to have lunch with him, and over lunch their friendship and romance begins to form. The next day, he drops by to meet her for lunch again; seeing a ratel he thinks is her, he comes up to whisper a romantic greeting in her ear... Unfortunately, this is not Pink, but one of her sisters; startled, she reacts in instinctive anger at this "stranger" taking such a liberty with her -- fortunately, the misunderstanding is cleared up before any real harm can be done and Yellow Fornax, in between apologies, explains that she is, obviously, not the ratel he was looking for -- she and Pink are, in fact, two of five identical quintuplets.

Later that night, Trevor meets the other three sisters -- Green, Blue, and Violet -- when he joins them at their den for dinner at Pink's invitation. There, he discovers that all five of them are extraordinarily talented musicians and tries to convince them to demonstrate that talent at VidiCon, but they resist the suggestion -- music is not highly valued in Saunim, and that plus the general prejudice against their species has them convinced that no one would want to listen to them. Before Trevor can convince them otherwise, their dinner and conversation is brought to an abrupt halt as Violet chokes on a piece of food and Trevor has to act quickly to save her life. In the process, Violet accidentally sprays him with her defensive musk, and he ends up spending the night on their couch while his clothes are washed and dried.

The next morning, he presses the point again over breakfast, and finally convinces them to perform during the VidiCon closing ceremonies. The result is the beginning of a new chapter in the sisters' lives as Yellow, Blue, Green, Violet, and Pink bring the house down in their first-ever public performance.

Artwork
Artwork was contributed to the project by:


 * Phil Bolton
 * Kishma Danielle
 * Ed "Pelzig" Dyer III
 * Jack Furlong
 * Zephery Hughes
 * Brian McPherson
 * Rommel Karlo Ignacio
 * Annette Miller
 * Bill Schmickle
 * Shannon Stuart
 * Ted Vollmer
 * Tanamin Wingate

Some of the art from the original Fornax Remix was revised for Fornax Remix 1.1, especially in the case of the cover artwork done by Brian McPherson.

Trivia:

 * The name of Trevor's business, HMV Studios, and Trevor's last name, Sarnoff, are in-jokes based on the history of the RCA company. David Sarnoff (1891-1971) was the prime mover behind much of RCA's successes in the radio and television fields during the 1930's and beyond, and one of RCA's most famous logos is the image of a dalmatian staring quizzically into the speaker horn of an old-style gramophone, listening to a recording of "His Master's Voice."


 * The name of the convention, VidiCon, is also an in-joke; the vidicon is a type of video-camera tube.