I'm a librarian who loves anime, manga, and reading a wide variety of genres.
Andre Norton just gave the psychic cat-man a light saber. Or maybe a Star Trek-style phaser, it's tough to tell from the description.
I'm enjoying this more, now that Norton's gotten most of the background info out of the way. The history of the cat (and other animal) people in this world reminds me of M.C.A. Hogarth's Pelted Universe (which I recommend) and the cat and dog people in Mary E. Lowd's Otters in Space (which I unfortunately don't recommend). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that both of them had read this book and were influenced by it.