The Mount (novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Mount
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of first edition (paperback)
author = Carol Emshwiller
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Science fantasy novel
publisher = Small Beer Press
release_date = 2002
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 232 pp
isbn = ISBN 1-931-52003-8
preceded_by =
followed_by = "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.Fact|date=February 2007

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.