Cat-A-Lyst

by Alan Dean Foster

While on vacation in Peru, movie star Jason Carter discovers a lost civilization of extra-dimensional Incas intent on conquering the entire world. By the author of For Love of Mother-Not.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Humor, Aliens, Cats

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.

Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.

Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.

Reviews

[Cynnamon · Rating 2 out of 5]

An extremely silly story with scifi elements. In the course of the book the sillyness became so prevalent, that it became hard for me not to abandon the book.

2 stars for this are generous.

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Ein alberner SciFi-Roman mit außerirdischen Indios, Däniken-Fantasien peruanischen Möchtegern-Geschäftemachern und diversen Katzen, der in der ersten Hälfte als lustiger anspruchsloser Lesestoff durchgehen würde.

In der zweiten Hälfte des Buches steigern sich die Blödsinnigkeiten jedoch zu einem für mich nicht mehr erträglichen Maße.

Daher 2 Sterne und ab in den öffentlichen Bücherschrank.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very fun and funny adventure of the old-school wacky variety. Reading a summary of the plot, which involves an Amazon, an actor, and assorted scientists, intelligent alien vegetables, thieves, and Hollywood types, makes you think it's a Ron Goulart satire, but it's really a cosmic quest for lost civilizations. Anyone who doesn't understand that cats are really in charge doesn't live with one.

[Bukittyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing tale where the situation is much more comedic than the dialogue. I laughed aloud at some of the scenes, particularly later in the book, but mostly was mildly amused. I prefer books with more character development and because of how the story developed, there wasn't much of that. In fact, even the main character barely had anything more than a sketch of a personality. Still, the idea was cute, and I certainly would read it again.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still not sure what to make of this book. I liked it - the story, the characters, the great references to Lewis Carroll and one of my favourite poems - but something about the tone of the whole thing got me pondering! Was it supposed to be a comedy...or serious...or a strange mixture of both?

I also loved the idea that wherever sentient beings evolve, cats will be found - and I always thought our cats used to disappear for too long to still be on this earth!!

[Michelle]

Cat-A-Lyst
Alan Dean Foster
Science Fiction
325 pages
copyright: 1991
isbn: 0-441-64661-1

I am not a big fan of Science Fiction, but this was very interesting, and kept pulling me in. I could not seem to put this book down at all.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An old favorite that seems a bit silly on reread, but entertained me greatly in my teens.

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 5 out of 5]

CAT-A-LYST is a most delightful blend of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical reference, Humor, and Contemporary Culture, including many gentle pokes at the film industry and its emphasis on appearance and stereotypes. From its beginning on a Georgia film set, the adventure is rip-roaring at bullet train speed as a handsome "leading man" (whose greatest desire is serious acting, but is stereotyped into roles because he is blessed with good looks) and an aging Hollywood Wardrobe Mistress from Texas with a special background all her own (Bonnie and Clyde, anyone?) set out on a treasure hunt of potentiality, into the Amazon rainforest of Peru. From Cusco to deep jungle, to Nazca, and beyond [WAY beyond], with excursions to another planet, Nazca, New York City, rural Scotland, then Brazil, there's not a spare moment to breathe. Add in three different Felines, each of whom play a major essential role throughout the story (in delightful ways), a trio of sentient superintelligent alien veggies with advanced (but obsolescing) technology, and you have an adventure only very prolific author and screenwriter Alan Dean Foster could conceive.

Addendum: Although the author is American, by far the majority of the novel is set in South America [Peru, Brazil] and the focus of the story stems from Pizarro's 16th century invasion of the Inca Empire (in modern-day Peru) and on the far-flung Incan descendants determined to achieve revenge for their murdered ancestors.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago now, I just ran into a copy while cleaning and sorting my Uncle's collection. I could not for the life of me remember its odd name, go figure. It was terrible, I was hoping for an adventure story but no it isn't. I think it tries to be a satire or have satirical elements and on top of that has direct references to classical works of satire but all of that comes off as outlandishly sudden and irrelevant thus utterly failing. I do not and would not recommend this book ever. I felt it a waste of time and was angry after finishing though I think I read this one in about two days.

[Parker Sparks · Rating 1 out of 5]

The plot has some wild and entertaining turns. I thought there was supposed to be a big twist, but it was pretty obvious pretty early on. The writing is my main issue. It feels like the author wanted to show off his fancy vocabulary, maybe even some words from AI. There are way too many characters, and they’re not really developed at all. I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t. The only funny part was the crazy situations the book took us to. Honestly, I’d skip it.

[Michael Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange book that only gets stranger as it goes along, and I really enjoyed it! Just when you think you've gotten a grip on what's going on, another weird out of this world factor is added to the plot. Not what I expected but very enjoyable. A unique and interesting book, worth a read for sure!

[Dustin · Rating 1 out of 5]

As per my personal rule if the book doesn't hook me in the first hundred pages I move on to something else. This was just supremely uninteresting, from the generic protagonist, to the cardboard supporting characters, to the wooden dialogue, almost everything about this was lifeless. The most interesting part, the alien cats, is the briefest part of the first 40% of the book, just a single chapter and a few paragraphs while Bland MacProtag wanders through the jungle.
Skip this one.

[Glenn Armstrong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cat-A-Lyst was a fun book to read. It was quirky, funny and unique. I have read a couple of Foster’s other books and greatly admire his incredible imagination in the sci fi genre. I note that some readers have said how silly the book is. My advice to prospective readers is to not expect anything and just go along for the crazy ride that this book will take you on. It’s different in a good way. 3.5 stars for this book from a genius author.

[Ivan Zarea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is so bad it’s good. It’s like watching a B-movie, all with the special effects and random encounters.

Here’s the plot, so you can appreciate the madness:

It’s the early 90s. A movie star (Carter) finds a disk and gives it to his friend the costume designer (Ashwood). It’s encrypted, but she used to be a hacker (and a bank robber) and they track the owner — an archaeologist whos motivation is to prove to his parents that he’s not a failure. He wants to get on the cover of Nature, you see. What’s on the disk? A treasure map.
So they go to Peru, get a local guide, Igor (!!!), find a lost city and adopt a cat. The archaeologist ambushes them (he brought his own cat) and they are all caught by an Amazon named Francesca da Rimini (her parents had a good radio and listened to opera) and the Fernandez brothers who dream of creating a soft drink brand that would bring the long lost glory of the Inca empire.

There’s more.

One of the cats scratches a giant egg-like thing and they all end up transported to a different planet, where Incas have been living since the time of Pizarro. They got access to weird alien tech and aren’t afraid of using it. Apparently, the cat activated a portal that has been dormant for a long time and now the Incas are about to wage war on the Spaniards. So they move back to Earth with their Inca gold, losing the original group (Carter, Ashwood and Igor) somewhere along the way. Oh, and one of their military ships gets accidentally transported to an island in the Pacific, so they have almost no army as well. 🤷‍♂️

Back on Earth, the villains—the Incas, the archaeologist, the amazon and the IncaCola entrepreneurs, together with a gossip reporter—are thinking of ways to wipe out Spain and the best way to do this is... drumroll... A SOAP OPERA. THAT IS SHOT LIVE. IN EDINBURGH. Yes, they are going to film a soap opera that will send subliminal messages to all the Europe. When is Spain going to crumble? That’s right, at a football match — Barcelona is playing Liverpool soon. Of course!

While this happens, our heroes meet three giant space carrots who apparently left all that tech the Incas were using. The carrots are a super species, and have been on Earth several times, befriending and inspiring Lewis Caroll (they are the Boojums). Oh, and these Boojums subsist on anchovies. So yeah, they want to infiltrate the movie set and send their own subliminal messages to counter the Incan ones.

In the end, there’s a confrontation between the two cats, who are controlling the planet all along, and a giant set of explosions. <3



Thank you, thrift book shop for this experience. It’s unforgettable, but I’m not sure I want it again soon.

[Leila Anani · Rating 2 out of 5]

What the hell did I just read? Ummmmm

So we begin with a sci-fi B-Movie actor Jason Carter who finds a disc belonging to some archaologist dropped on his film set. He takes it to his wardrobe mistress, a mouthy, 50 something ex-gangster on the lam. She copies the disc and then they take it to the professor for the reward. Then using the data from the disc they head to Peru to find a lost city full of treasure. They encounter the professor and his men who take them prisoner. Both groups are further taken prisoner by an amazonian mercinary and her inca descended henchmen - She just wants the money and her men want to punish the spanish, creating a theme park called Inca World and making Inca Cola the top selling drink in the world. In a lost temple they find a Stargate style portal (in the shape of an egg) that is activated by cats.

Cats are monitors of intelligent races - and a renegade cat (manipulating the professor) wants to spread chaos - whilst the good cats have to stop him. So the portal leads to another planet where some incas live in a sort of time bubble - and once the portal is activated they decide to send an invasion force through to conquer the spanish and the rest of Europe by defaukt. When this plot is foiled, they decide to achieve the same objective sending subliminal messages through a soap opera that they finance - hoping to use the anti spanish sentiment to provoke a riot at a football match.

The aliens who built the portals, the Boojums turn up - they are plants who eat anchovies through their feet - and they influenced Lewis Carroll on their last visit to Earth, but he got it wrong. They are the Boojums and Cats are actually Snarks.

I think my poor little head just exploded on the WTF scale.
I'm giving this 2 stars which is insanely generous - because I'm a massive Hunting of the Snark fan and I love cats. It's wildly entertaining in a madcap kind of way. Writing is breakneck pulp pace - and this misses a lot of line breaks - especially in the second half where things go off the rails - we shift character perspective with no break to indicate the shift which is somewhat confusing.

This is absolutely terrible and insane, but for some reason crazily readable.

[Chris Branch · Rating 3 out of 5]

About 40 years ago, Alan Dean Foster was my favorite author, and while my tastes have evolved since middle school, I’d like to think the books I remember fondly from that time would still stand up to a re-read today. Turns out Foster has written around a hundred books, of which I’ve only read about 20, not many after 1990, when this one came out, so it was one that I didn’t get to (until now).

To put it mildly, this book is somewhat less serious than what I remember of his other work. To be charitable, I’d say it’s a decent attempt at humorous SF, most similar in style to his fantasy Spellsinger series, and for me, never rising to the level of laugh out loud funny. To be a bit more critical, I would describe it as cartoonish at best. The characters are clichéd and the plot is really more of a outline, with events roughly sketched out and then filled in with enough detail to go through the motions; background info is largely just dumped on the reader inline with the relevant happenings. It’s a quick read, and not bad for a bit of fun as far as it goes, which isn’t very far.

But as I said, I retain a soft spot for the author’s earlier work, so this gets three stars on the strength of his reputation with me, and the books I do recommend of his include Icerigger and its sequels, Midworld, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and the early Flinx books. Wasn’t writing reviews back then, but if I go back and read them again sometime, we’ll see what I have to say about them.

[Bruno Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engraçado livro de extraterrestres disfarçados de gatos, no qual um deles tem como missão proteger os humanos, em especial a estrela de cinema Jason Carter, por quem se afeiçoou e o outro que tem por missão disromper o equilíbrio presente na terra.
Tudo se vai focar quando a estrela de cinema shakespeareana frustrada (por fazer apenas filmes série B) é tentada pela responsável guarda roupa a ir tentar descobrir o tesouro perdido dos Incas. Acabam na América do Sul no meio de Incas que viajam entre dimensões, e que foram visitados pelos "Os que vieram antes" e que lhes deixaram um ovo que é um meio de transporte inter-dimensional que apenas consegue ser ativado pelos gatos extra-terrestres (de loucos não é).
Ainda se mete no meio disto uma Amazona louca, um arquelogista com delírios de grandeza, um ladrão de bancos, 3 vegetais alienígenas, uma repórter asiática-americana de um pasquim de impossibilidades.
Mas o herói improvável é Macha, a gata de Jason Carter. Uma leitura engraçada

[Heather Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pure silliness and entertainment and just made me smile! It is a completely ridiculous story that somehow works! I absolutely enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun sci-fi(ish) read! Plus…….CATS!! One of my favorites of the year!

From the book blurb: “A game of cat...and cat?
Movie star Jason Carter is on vacation in Peru. All he wants is a break, but what he finds is a lost civilization of extradimensional Incas bent on conquest of the entire world!
Nor is Carter alone. His allies include a bloodthirsty Amazon, an archaeologist, a bank robber, three alien vegetables, a scoop-crazed gossip reporter - and not one of them knows what to do next.
Only Carter's cat seemms unruffled by the growing danger. In true feline fashion, she acts like she's in charge of the planet.
Maybe she is.”

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had this book for probably something like 15 years and I finally got around to reading it. I didn't remember the plot or characters AT ALL, but it's very possible I read this in high school because I totally remember the cover of the paperback and that they had it in our high school library.

The premise of the story is pretty cool, and despite some skimming I stuck with it through the end. There are some mildly entertaining ties to Lewis Carroll. That said, some of the characters used terms like "colored" and "orientals" and that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn't the *author* using them to describe people, but people in the story using them to describe others and I'm sure it was meant to peg what sort of people the term-users were.

Anyway.... it's now getting donated.

[Tikhon Jelvis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly and pulpy sci-fi story, just like I expected from the cover and title. If anything, less silly than expected: the pun in the title aside, the story was mostly played straight—cats and all—with its fair share of sardonic commentary about the world. Which is to say: the plot and situations were totally silly, but Foster did not make the common sci-fi-humor mistake of trying too hard.

Cat-a-Lyst was another one of my random pickups from a Little Free Library. I couldn't resist the stupid cat pun in the title. It's the best sort of pun that isn't even trying to be clever! The book was ultimately nothing earth-shattering but still fun, certainly more fun than I expected up-front.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our across the street neighbors had a Little Free Library-sunset sips on the porch enlivened by watching people stop and peruse... and a GREAT place to put books as I TRY to whittle down my collection... but of COURSE, when one brings a book over...Didn't know the author, but the title --and the cats in the mysterious image caught my eye. It's an imaginative tongue-in-cheek scifi adventure, odd loopy twists, and o, the coda is purfect. looked up author's bio: he ghostwrote the Star Wars novels, has written PASSELS of books, often in series. delighted to have discovered a new writer to delve into!

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly and entertaining light novel. Time for a reread?

OK, Dave nailed it (below):
"The evolution of Earth's cats is being watched over by a highly-intelligent alien race of super-cats who take pity on humans and try to help them out too. " But wait, there's more!

If you like cats in SF, you'll like this! 3.5 stars.

[Christine Kostrubala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan did a great job of bringing his readers to Inca South America where we'd not be going just to see what the locals and their home are like when we find traveling to be expensive. The novel was mostly caricature in that the characters would be greatly exaggerated just to make the story more funny which is great when I needed to escape into his world.

[Billerskine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this on my shelf when going through my books to add to GoodReads and realized that I never read it. I think I've had it since 1991. Well, I finally read it... and it was a bit of a slog. The concepts in the book are sufficiently weird that it should have been interesting science fiction, but I found myself bored. I really had to make myself sit down and finish it.

[Diann · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unexpectedly fun light read that I'd give 3.5 stars if I could. While coincidences pile on coincidences, in the nature of this book they work. Long lost Incans, sentient cats from other worlds, the Peruvian jungles to the east of the Andes, the Nazca plains, a plot to take over the world, or at least Europe. Enjoyed this.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very entertaining, silly book. The evolution of Earth's cats is being watched over by a highly-intelligent alien race of super-cats who take pity on humans and try to help them out too. But there's much more!

[Richard Bush · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revisiting a classic

First read this book many years ago and loved the humour and high adventure of it. From Atlanta, Georgia to Peru to Scotland a heady mix of Alice in Wonderland, Lost Civilizations and an attempt to invade earth. Oh and cats, especially cats.

[S Seaberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Read

I remember the author’s name from what seems like a long time ago. Since it was a good feeling, I decided to try this book. I was pleasantly surprised when the story unfolded and it was easy to follow with a great storyline. Highly recommended.

[LinHigley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A twisted tail with pets and scratches.

Reads like a fun bedtime story. Good versus evil in the form of mysterious and mischievous cat like forms. It explains a lot of unanswered questions about cat behavior.

[Dana Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, but exactly the quality I expected. If anything, wish it had been more farcical.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking the time to go back and re-read some of my older collection allowed me that chance to again enjoy Foster's fine Sci-Fi. Highly recommend folks to try some of his works.