Beasts

In his opening chapters, Crowley sets several stories in motion that show little chance of coming together. But he pulls it off. His near future dystopia has benefited greatly from genetic modifications in agriculture (Sorry, all you anti GMO types), but genetic tampering with animal subjects has been less successful. The one triumph are the leos, a species everyone tends to describe as "half man, half lion." But as one human character makes clear

...there are no such things as half-beasts. Painter was not half-anything, but wholly leo, as complete as a rose or a deer.

Political intrigue and straight out adventure scenarios propel Crowley's plot, but his themes of the ethics of scientific experimentation and the necessity of taking on the responsibility of its results are what move his novel into classic status.