Reading the North

By Sue Ann Bowling (iUniverse, $19.95)

The blurb: In the Alaska author's first science fiction novel, set in a world where a genetics board determines who can procreate, while the protagonist is the lone survivor of a race that hybridized with advanced primates on Earth long ago to produce what we now know as the human race.

Excerpt: "As a party, it was low key to the point of boredom. Fine. Lai had avoided social functions since his father had died years before, leaving him the last survivor of the R'il'nai, and he had no desire to host a party in the usual sense. A casual gathering of a few of his and his partner Elrya's R'il'noid relatives, however, he could tolerate and even enjoy. He leaned back against the angle of the pool walls, letting his legs float while he sent his mind beyond the weather shielding over the enclosed patio. Good, his weather sense was accurate as usual; the clouds were lifting and the sunset should be magnificent."

Predator and Prey

By Wayne L. Vance (Grey Creek Books, $9.98)

The blurb: The Willow-based author's latest adventure novel depicts a wealthy Western settler with a cattle empire and a secret past.

Excerpt: "The elusive nature of a man's most basic emotions and instincts, coupled with darkness of night, laid nerves raw for the group of men around the fire. Then, without warning, a howl from a wandering puma broke the still air and several men hastily stood up to peer into the blackness toward the sound of the beast.

" 'Relax men' he said from under the Stetson hat which lay over his face. The calmer man was stretched out next to the fire on his back and covered by a saddle blanket. 'The cattle would be his prey this night, not you.' "

A Life Aloft: From Montana Roots to Pan Am Wings

By Jack W. Burke (Glid Path Pass, $24.99)

The blurb: The pilot's memoir spans service in the Aleutians in World War II, a stint in the Navy during the Korean and Vietnam wars and a 40-year career flying over the Alaska bush for Pan Am.

Excerpt: "I never got tired of looking at the scenery flying over Alaska. In the summertime it was beautiful, with daylight all night. The moon would be out shining on those glaciers. In the wintertime you looked down on the Northern Lights. And they were just going back and forth, all different colors.

"We went over the North Pole all the time on a lot of our flights from London to Seattle. It was really a kick, because we still had the old liquid compass up there -- the old magnetic compass. But we had an electronic compass, too. It's hooked to a gyro, so that it doesn't wiggle around.

"But it was funny with that big old ball compass: as you approached the North Pole -- twenty or thirty miles out -- the thing would start turning and tipping. And it would point down."

-- Compiled by Matt Sullivan, Anchorage Daily News