Cat Karina: Michael Coney

Cat Karina is one stanza in the epic poem, The Song of Earth, composed or at least narrated in part by the enigmatic Alan-Blue-Cloud. Set in the future where humans co-exist uneasily with the products of ancient genetic experiments, it tells of the felino Karina, with jaguar genes in her ancestry, whose destiny it is to bear the child of a true human, with deeply significant results. Her world is one of sailcars, giant land whales, of manifold near-human species and of Starquin, the strange imprisoned alien whose cosmic schemes to effect his release involve all the myriad and colourful denizens of the future. Cover art by Richard Hopkinson.