Mort(E)

Locations
Call Number: Science Fiction / Repino, Robert
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Science Fiction / Repino, Robert	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"The 'war with no name' has begun, with human extinction as its goal. The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, [has] been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony's watchful eye, this utopia will be free of the humans' penchant for violence, exploitation, and religious superstition. The final step in the Colony's war effort is transforming the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters"--Amazon.com.

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Except for one massively silly plot point, this was quite good. submitted by eknapp on February 21, 2015, 9:13pm An ancient colony of intelligent giant ants wages war on humanity, driving them to the brink of extinction. The Ant Queen creates an army of allies by transforming the animals of the world into speaking, thinking, vengeful bipeds. A war hero, a former housecat by the name of Mort(e), searches endlessly for his friend Sheba, who fled on the day of Mort(e)'s transformation.

I found Mort(e) frustrating, initially. It purports to be science fiction...humans use advanced weaponry, ants communicate chemically and technologically, etc. But a "hormone" is used to change all of animal-kind into reading, talking bipeds with opposable thumbs? In one night? A hormone that works on mammals, and amphibians, and birds, and reptiles? Without causing a global ecological cataclysm? Better to just call it "ant magic".

Once I accepted that one premise, everything else fell into place and I was able to appreciate the story. The pre-transformation animal perspectives are excellent. Repino's descriptions of how a house cat or an abused pit bull might experience their lives are utterly believable.

There's a lot of Animal Farm here, I think. The animals are enraged at the way they've been treated as possessions or toys, often mutilated--neutered, declawed, cropped--simply for style or convenience. They rise up, intending to create a better society, but end up behaving more or less just like the humans.

Woah submitted by ann arbor air on June 12, 2021, 6:22pm Wow this was incredible great to see a great thing for this summer! I needed this thanks for making it 10/10 H