In Darrel Bain's version of the future vast areas of the world are controlled by genetically altered intelligent versions of common animals - dogs, cats, rabbits, rats - their genetic manipulations having bred true and enabling them to have quickly replaced the natural breeds.

Time for the enclaves is running out. Trade between them is dwindling due to the problems of transporting goods between them. And with communication lessening the chance to spread and develop ideas and technology is also becoming more rare.

Jamie Da Cruz is a genetic engineer in the Houston Enclave. His job is to develop more advanced food crops to support the population of his enclave. When one morning he discovers a feral dog (one from outside the enclave) has broken through the Enclave defences and was waiting for him in his home Jamie's life changes.

The feral dog, Conan, carries a device around it's neck that transmits a message from an alien recently arrived on Earth, to whoever touches it. Da Cruz is chosen to go on an expedition to find the alien creature who sent the message and see what technologies can be obtained from him. So Da Cruz and his enhanced pets (Woggly & Fuzzy Britches) set out with a company of soldiers as guard to follow the feral dog back to where they might find the alien.

The feel of this book is reminiscent in ways of a lot of the pulp writers and does feel a little out of time. There is little or no over-embellishment (descriptions are short and to the point), there is a lot of plot fitted (crowbarred) in to the book and the style verges on the clumsy form time to time. But these pulpish tendencies shouldn't put you off, for it does like a lot of pulp stories contain a fast moving story that keeps you reading.

One main way that this book does differ from the majority of pulp writers though is that sex plays a significant part in the story. It's not graphically described in any way though and there is no excessive use of adult language (which depending on your liking/disliking for it is a good or bad thing). Da Cruz is involved with a woman (Jeannie Bostick) who, unlike the accepted mores of the society they are in, is very much a one on one relationship woman. One of the soldiers accompanying Jamie Da Cruz (Kristi Carson) is obviously attracted to Jamie (and he to her) so we have a certain sexual tension included in the book. Although this tension is not great and the subplot does seem to suggest that the author may have prefered the free love feel of the sixties than today's AIDS ridden world.

A lot of human future tales written in recent years follow the Cyberpunk ideal of vast corporations controlling a polluted planet with governments very much out of the picture. This is quite different - in this future society the mistakes made in the tales history have moved the human population into smaller and smaller fragmented little islands of civilisation, with the trend being that more of these enclaves are failing.

It's an enjoyable book, it does have a few flaws but they are minor and providing you don't like your fiction to have six hundred pages of detail explaining the most in depth minutiae without actually managing to get any story in then give this a try.

Synopsis
In an erotic future society, genetically engineered animals have become nearly as intelligent as humans. Enhanced animals have escaped and overrun Earth to the point where the only safe havens are vast Enclaves, where social and sexual mores have undergone vast changes. When an alien spaceship crashes on earth two competing Enclave expeditions dare the wilds in a rush to claim the advanced technology--but before fighting each other they must first make their way through a wilderness where enhanced animals rule supreme.