Carol Emshwiller's novel, The Mount, is a curious yet insightful study of slave mentality. Perhaps “curious” is not the correct word, for the scientific and socio-historical background in the novel seems tenuous and at times ridiculous. The narrator, an adolescent boy who writes the story within the context of growing up a willing slave, is more interesting than the surrounding plot elements. This boy is trained as a mount, functioning like a horse to alien invaders with atrophied legs and small stature, who have taken over Earth and ride humans around in the neo-primitive remains. These alien riders are called Hoots, for the loud method in which they communicate, and they appear to have conquered earth with no overwhelming technology, but rather by their powerful sonic voice and the ability to strangle humans with quick and powerful hands.

Generations after the conquest, humans exist only to serve the Hoots, and have been bred specifically for their running and load-carrying ability. Hoots and humans live in small, scattered compounds, and most travel appears to be relegated to human feet. The two main human breeds are the sturdy, powerful Seattles and the endurance trained Tennesseeans. A few wild humans exist in the mountains, mainly ignored by the Hoots. Given biological constraints, the breeding program outlined by Emshwiller seems impossible. Instead, it's purely a construct upon which to hang her plot, though often it detracts from the overall feel of the novel.

These objections aside, what makes the story readable is how she handles the absolute acceptance of the narrator's role and servitude. All the time while reading the novel I wondered at the tipping point: when would the narrator realize the difference between liberty and servitude, and what then would he attempt?

How did the Hoots create a society of willing slaves, content to exist in the role with just a few gaudy incentives? Perhaps this is no different from human societies with slavery or under totalitarian regimes? People have the almost infinite capacity to reduce the inequities of life into personal growth charts, where they ponder and struggle to advance through social or party ranks to achieve privilege for themselves within existing bounds, rather than freedom from those bounds. Charly, the young narrator, yearns to become a great and renowned Seattle, and this becomes his life, at the cost of personal relationships with his estranged father, a former thoroughbred racing Seattle.

Emshwiller introduces chaos and doubt in the form of Charly's father, who returns to break him out of captivity. Now leading a band of free men in the mountains (who believe freedom means voting on virtually everything), they see as their goal the liberation of all humans from the Hoots. When they liberate Charly they also capture Charly's rider, a young Hoot destined to rule all Hoots, and by extension all humans. Charly reacts poorly to his freedom, but as he and the young Hoot deal with the loss of their former life and the changing nature of their roles as master and servant to that of friends, they absorb qualities from each other. After the inevitable confrontation between Hoots and humans on a grander scale takes place, both Charly and his rider must choose the future, and life for both races hangs in the balance. Whether the solution is optional or not, Emshwiller does raise some interesting questions. I don't see any fully thought-out sense of political freedom or philosophy in the book, but rather as Walter Mosley's 47 dealt with a few years ago, this novel is about the mentality of slaves and masters, and how that can change.

At times the suspension of disbelief required by the reader takes this novel out of the realm of sf and into fantasy, or even gonzo fiction. As the book is told from Charly's perspective, the narrative appears deliberately unsophisticated and rough, as befitting a poorly educated slave. This style detracted from my experience as a reader, but The Mount managed to present a unique coming-of-age tale amidst alien invaders. I just wish those invaders had not appeared as silly as in this story. For a more powerful tale of humans used as beast-like slaves, I'd turn to Neal Barrett Jr.'s Through Darkest America.