SF CLASSIC OF LOST VALLEYS. INTELLIGENT ANIMALS AND ALIEN INTERVENTION

In The Valley of Creation, where Eric Nelson is one of a desperate band of soldiers-of-fortune who have fought on the loosing side in a war and eagerly take on a mysterious assignment deep in the borderlands of Tibet. There, in a legendary valley, Shan Kar, the man who has hired them, tells Nelson and the other mercenaries that their weapons are humankind's last ditch defense against the valley's intelligent animals, who plan to take over the world. If they are successful, the mercenaries' reward is to be a fabulous treasure in platinum not far from the city of the animals. But after an encounter with a warrior-maid who fights along side the animals, and an encounter with a telepathic wolf, Nelson wonders if he has been told the whole story. To find out he will have to enter the city of the animals, have his own personality transferred into the body of a wolf and run with the pack. Little does this cynical soldier realize that this will be an experience which will change him forever. No wonder The Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls The Valley of Creation, "A strongly-written sword-and-sorcery story with an sf denouement ... carefully composed and dark in texture."