I'm not sure which one was written first, Avatar (James Cameron's) or these books "The Lodestone Trilogy" by Mark Whiteway but....

[[The following are not really spoilers if you read book covers....]]

The Lodestone books involve an indigenous, humanoid race with cat like tails who end up fighting the visiting, and more advanced, humans who are there for a rare mineral, lodestone, that is found only on that planet. There is also a giant 'tree of life' type scenario as it moves on. Sound familiar?

Again, I'm not sure which was written first and there are certainly lots of difference as well but the similarities are hard to avoid. To it's credit, the Lodestone books involve much more complex plots, but then again, Avatar was written as a blockbuster movie, not a trilogy. I don't want to compare them too heavily. They are very different writings.

I think I found it via a review on Wired.com. Pretty good sci-fi if you can get over the similarities to Avatar. The mineral is much better explained and the imagined physics of how it works is central to the storyline. Worth my $7.00 for the whole three books for sure.

With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.