A Midwinter's Tale, by Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick is quite the stylist in SF literature, and he really seemed to dominate the '80s.  A Midwinter's Tale is a Hugo nominee for best novelette from 1984.  It's written in a jumpy voice, so that it's hard to tell who or what is speaking.  But at the core of it is hard SF speculation on a species that learns from its prey by eating their brains.  When they first eat a human, they get sucked in, though no one seems to have made this connection.  It's a fun story because the protagonist species is basically a big cat, and I'm a cat fan.  There's lots of other stuff kind of stirred in there, and it's mostly entertaining if jarring.  A good example of Swanwick, you will like it if you like him, or just for itself.  3 stars