Culdesac - The War With No Name in Focus

When I finished writing my review on Mort(e), Robert Repino's book about the ant and animal revolution, I lamented lightly that it seemed to lack a certain amount of focus. The book moves swiftly from animal stories before the change through the war against humanity and to the after-war period in which Mort(e) overthrows the Queen. It was good, and even felt well paced, I just missed some of that war period which only had a portion of the book. Culdesac, a novella which someone aptly described as Repino's Book 1.5 in the series (followed by D'Arc, book 2 and the final book so far, which I'll be reading next) addresses that hole in my heart. And coming in at about 110 pages, it took me less than a day to read.

Culdesac follows the titular character, a liberated Bobcat who Captains a group of special forces cats who call themselves the Red Sphinx. The Red Sphinx are an irregular group of assassins and soldiers who perform the most dangerous missions in advance of the ant and animal armies. In Repino's novella, however, the Red Sphinx are tasked with occupying the town of Milton, which sounds like a pretty standard small US town. In Milton the Red Sphinx contend with an unruly populace led by a cat named Nox, who runs her own brothel, and a paralyzed Chihuahua named Maynard.

Again, the book offers amusing and interesting takes on some things humanity takes for granted - like coffee - from the perspective of the animal races. And again it spends some time roundly criticizing the way humanity has treated animals in the past. Mort(e)'s declawed hands and spayed genitals are described with a sense of repulsion and horror by the wild Culdesac that wasn't conveyed as effectively in the first book. Moreover, Culdesac's own upbringing as a wild Bobcat brings plenty of opportunity to criticize the encroachment of humanity into untamed nature, and the pressures that places on wild populations.

The novella offers more solid action and gore, and the way the reader is placed in Culdesac's head had me rooting for him as he tore through a group of human special forces and shot down a plane. You can almost smell the blood in the air as the bobcat rips into his prey (admittedly I do a job in EMS that lets me imagine that better than most). It's exhilarating stuff, in a sort of dark, primal way. And I enjoyed the simpler story of holding the line against a dying human race.

Also fascinating was the twist near the end of the book. As always, spoilers ahead. As it turns out, Nox and Maynard are protecting a group of humans that they rescued from the town - particularly those humans that lived in the nursing home in which the cat and Chihuahua grew up. There are some heavy-handed references to the underground railroad here, but overall the twist was interesting. It was cool to see something that had really only been mentioned in passing in the first book - some pets still felt loyalty to their former masters. The torn loyalties some of these animals hold provide a meaningful layer of complexity to a series which otherwise felt like a bit of an animal revenge story. It's good to see some layer of, erm, humanity, injected into Culdesac's character. And fitting with the bleak tone of Culdesac's life, Nox and Maynard fail, dying at the end. In the context of the first novel, this expanded characterization of Captain Culdesac helps explain a lot. Overall, a fun and easy read. I highly recommend.