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.
The title c...
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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.
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...
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