Going back to the classics: LARRY NIVEN, a notable SF writer has created the KZINTI, berserker “felinoids” of upright eight-feet-tall tigers.
SURVIVOR is a reverse My Fair Lady story. A rejected Kzin, unable to compete with other males, finally succeeds in neurochemically modifying a human slave into a semblance of a female kzin, a kzinrett. Very sweet, unless you know that that the kzinretti are subsapient and can speak only a few hundred words.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN, much lighter, is the story of Lawrence Halloran, a telepath who infiltrates a kzin ship by impersonating a dead kzin, Fixer-of-Weapons. Halloran can convince anyone they're seeing anything, as when he portrayed his headmaster parading around nude. He muses, “(Kzinti) could be dominant, vicious, and competitive. THEY were allowed to have fun.” If only the ship's own Telepath doesn't find him.
He defeats a challenger by projecting damaging blows through the strong claws he doesn't have. Yow! As the Halloran/Fixer personalities intertwine, Fixer jerks his hand back from data with a Shame/Disgrace sigil, or Top Secret. Halloran forces it forward. Likewise, a puzzled Fixer tells Halloran that screaming fights are normal greetings.
When Halloran finally drives the crew insane, the Halloran/Fixer entity battle Telepath for control of his body and mind. And Telepath has always been weak. It's a wonderful story about masquerade and reality.
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