5. The Dog Master by W. Bruce Cameron - a story of the very first dog (ala Jean Auel's Valley of the Horses)
Like Auel's works, Cameron's is a nicely researched speculation on life 30,000 years ago when there weren't enough modern humans to fill a football stadium and humans were pretty decent eating for predators with big sharp teeth.
My note: I laugh when scholars claim they have no idea why modern humans won out over Neanderthals - even though said scholars had just run through a list of things that would have given modern humans a leg up on the competition (lower protein requirements, ranged weapons) - but they also always forget the one piece of disruptive technology some modern humans did have - four-legged hunting partners who had come to the conclusion that humans were useful for more that just eating. We call them dogs.
