Sci fi book hunt for someone else

[Danny McG]

Hello Mes Amis

This question was inadvertently posted in 'profile posts' by a new member (Dlop88) I've had a look but no idea. As suggested by The Judge it'll probably fare better in here where we can all see it ..

looking for this book had humans genetically engineered with different animals genes to withstand harsh planets after leaving earth one race was mixed with black bears and were called bors.
there were races mixed with otter a race called tarbek which had poisonus breath.
races mixed with polar bears for harsher colder planets

 

[Danny McG]

I got answered elsewhere.
(Thanks to Raj and Valorum on Stack Exchange)

Quoted below...

This seems to be Stepwater by L. Warren Douglas. According to goodreads:

In a time when genengineered humans inhabit alien worlds, the bors, humans with bear genes, and the mantee, a human/otter mix, reach the brink of war when a man and a woman break the strongest taboo of their clans--and only the Arbiter has the answer.

From the book:

Tarbeks' sulphurous metabolisms seemed unearthly, but who knew what genes they owed to bacteria that lived in undersea volcanic vents?

And:

There lay a city, Nort, occupied by wends, mantees, fards, and the occasional tarbek.