The Mount (novel)
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 Cover of first edition (paperback) |
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| Author | Carol Emshwiller |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Small Beer Press |
| Released | 2002 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 232 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 1-931-52003-8 |
The Mount is a 2002 science fantasy novel by Carol Emshwiller. It won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2002, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2003.
The author was inspired to write The Mount after she took a class in the psychology of prey animals. After the class, Emshwiller wondered what it would be like if a smart prey animal rode a predator, and she saw no way to express that idea except as science fiction.[citation needed]
[edit] Plot summary
The title character and first-person narrator, Charley, is a young man who like all humans is impressed into service as riding mounts (e.g. horses) for the physically dimunitive Hoots. Humans in Charley's world, a pastoral Earth, have existed in a master-slave relationship with the Hoots for centuries. The Hoots, who have no way to return to their home planet, maintain the natural systems that keep the world running. Escaped mounts like Charley's father, formerly the Guards' Mount known as Heron, lead assaults on the stables where humans are kept and seek to unify their own people against the Hoots.
When Charley (mount name Smiley) meets his father for the first time (Heron and Merry Mary were mated and separated by the Hoots soon after Charley was born), he resists betraying either his Master, the Hoot heir apparent, or anything that might help the resisting humans because his life as a mount (breed Seattle) is the only one he's ever known.
The story culminates when the unidentified power source the Hoots use to maintain dominance over humans begins to wear down. After his father's death, Charley becomes de facto leader of the Free Humans and, in open negotiations with his former Master, now leader of the Hoots on Earth, agrees for humans and Hoots to work together rather than kill one another.
