Book 1 of the Smilodon trilogy

Imagine re-creating the saber-toothed cat for fun? The possibility sounds exciting, but the reality could be nightmarish. In James Paddock's new novel, Smilodon, the main character is drawn into in a world where man becomes the hunted. It is fast-paced fiction, where cats change the rules and people run for their lives.

Tigers in the wild and a lucrative fee lure freelance writer Zechariah Price into the frozen mountains of Montana. The assignment drops him into a world of Bengal tigers, illegal aliens, prehistoric saber-toothed cats, and psychic premonitions. As the possibility of death by man and animal surrounds him, he quickly learns that he, too, is destined to become food for the cats. Trapped between man and beast, his assignment turns into that of survival.

Smilodon intertwines the exciting possibility and nightmarish reality of cloning in an age in which advanced genetic engineering is rapidly evolving.

"Consider the very real possibility of cloning your recently deceased pet," says the author. "We are on the brink of just such a thing. If after your pet, what about your child, or an entire genetically engineered perfect society?" Smilodon will send one back to thinking, "What if?"