What is Stray Cat Strut?
In the year 2057, the world has become a corporate-run utopia for the super-rich, and a hellhole for all the rest. Catherine ‘Cat’ Leblanc is an orphan that is about as far from super-rich as one can be. When the Incursion alarms start blaring and the sky starts raining hungry xenos, it’s just another blemish on an already piss-poor afternoon.
A cyberpunk magical-girl alien-invasion LitRPG.
It’s exactly as wild as it sounds.
Review
STRAY CAT STRUT by Raven’s Dagger is a cyberpunk progression fantasy LitRPG. It’s a Royal Road published web serial that has since made the transition to ebook and paperback. It is the story of Catherine “Cat” Leblanc as she lives in a cyberpunk dystopia where the world is regularly invaded by the Antithesis, a bunch of Zerg-like aliens that consume biomass and turn them into horrifying monsters.
Thankfully, for humanity, the humans have the patronage of a race of aliens called the Protectors. The Protectors have a very strange way of trying to help humanity. Rather than just evacuating the planet or arming humanity with technology capable of protecting them, they instead come up with an elaborate scheme to arm humans with technology they can download off a catalog with “points.” They only get these points for killing aliens.
Only a small handful of individuals get chosen to be able to kill for points but they rapidly become the richest, most powerful people in the world. Furthermore, they are able fo generate technology that can transform human society. Fortunately, these individuals, called “Samurai” are mostly selfless sorts who want to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, they’re also people with the morality of violent video game protagonists. They kill aliens just fine but aren’t very good at solving Earth’s many social ills.
Cat finds herself struggling to balance the dangers of her new position as a samurai with the responsibilities of her job running an orphanage with her lover, Lucy. Cat is a lesbian and in a committed relationship, which is something that I think is rare enough in fiction that it deserves commentary. She is somewhat uneducated and has to be led by her AI through a lot of the implication of the technology that she finds herself in possession of.
The first book is basically a video game crossed with Die Hard. Cat and her orphans, “The Kittens” are visiting a museum downtown when the city is attacked by the Antithesis. She’s empowered by the Protectors as a samurai and has to up her cybernetics, armor, and weapons while trying to keep everyone alive for as long as possible.
This was my first book choice for Pride month in 2026 because of the aforementioned relationship but also because of the complete lack of drama with it. Cat loves Lucy and they’re raising a bunch of kids with nothing really challenging that. They have a healthy sex life and aren’t facing any real condemnation of society. It’s a source of comfort the character and could be used as a good example of superheroes with “civilian” love interests regardless of gender.
Saying this is just brainless fun isn’t a good description of the book. There’s actually a lot of clever cyberpunk social commentary on the world and some really funny satire too. It is a lot of action and funny jokes, however, like a pyromaniac nun. I don’t much care for how the Kindle version of the book is formatted and recommend the audiobook version over it. Still, I had a lot of fun with this book and will be picking up the sequel.
