Sci-fi is one of my favorite genres to read. Two of my favorite authors are Dean Ing and Alan Dean Foster. Ing wrote a lot of stuff that I thoroughly enjoyed years ago and I dug some of his books out recently and re-read them. The last was "Cathouse" a great story about one human and a bunch of sentient cat like aliens that took him prisoner and sometimes eat their captives. Another of my favorite's is Foster's trilogy that starts with "Icerigger" and is about a human stranded on a frozen world that is inhabited by, you guessed it, sentient cat like creatures and I have them lined up to read after three of Sterling E. Lanier's novels. Lanier is the guy that persuaded a publishing company to publish "Dune" after it had been turned down by 20 publishers. Due to poor sales it's first year in print Lanier was fired from his job. Lanier does a very good job of story telling too.
