Reasonably coherent anthology in the form of a novelette. Some stories more interesting than others. ( )

An uneven effort at world-building by multiple authors, Exiled: Clan of the Claw imagines a world where the dinosaurs weren't wiped out, but continued to evolve into the Lishkash, mind-controlling kinglet/gods. Meanwhile, felines evolved into the clan-based society called Mrem, deadly enemies to the Lishkash. After an inland plain is inundated by rising seawater, the Mrem are cut off from their kin in the North and must trek around the new sea in order to survive.

Of the four novellas that make up the book, the second, authored by S. M. Stirling, is the best, closely followed by the fourth, authored by Jody Lynn Nye and John Ringo. I thought the other two focused on action and military tactics to the detriment of character development. ( )

The Stirling story was as ever excellent. It falls off from there. My biggest gripe is that it badly needed a continuity editor - the key mcguffins changed in power from story to story. Shared world are a problem that way. Thus the final story from Nye and Ringo [which might have been fine on its own] kept giving me whiplash in terms of how the world worked so that it lost that willful suspension of disbelief that makes genre work. I will buy anything Stirling writes and normally like the others. This book is for completist fans of the particular authors. ( )