Mort(e) - To Find Religion? Or Discard It?

Mort(e) sounds like one of the most surrealist books you'll ever read. "Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH". Did someone slip acid into my catnip? But 30 pages later, I'm all in. Author Robert Repino does a great job, erm, humanizing his characters and establishing his world so as to make everything feel perfectly reasonable. A vengeful ant queen uses chemical signals to cause some kind of awakening in the world's creatures so that they can kill every human alive and build a world based on new principles of animal equality? Sure, I'll buy it.

For the first half or so of the book, it reads like a bit of a radical take on animal rights and the way humans treat animals. The story also follows a sort of cliche war story arc, an alienated soldier trying to return home and reconnect with what he's lost. It's chock full of interesting characters and vignettes dedicated to them, brilliant action, more than a little gore, and the kind of wartime comradery that wouldn't be out of place in a World War 2 novel. I've also got to give credit to Repino's writing ability. An editor by trade, he puts his money where his mouth is and writes a novel that is eminently readable. I'm jealous, and extremely engaged.

I think this kind of book would be worth reading on its own, in fact I'm excited to dive into his next book, Culdesac, which seems to expand on a secondary character and focus primarily on the wartime portion of the story. But Mort(e) takes a path I didn't expect at about its halfway point, and branches radically from there. Spoilers ahead.

In the story, Mort(e) - the titular housecat - comes across a human weapon the animals only know as EMSAH. It's supposedly some sort of airborne chemical which causes a variety of psychological and physical symptoms in its victims, eventually leading to death. The animals are terrified of it. There's an atmosphere of suspicion and cover-ups, and it's evident after a couple incidents involving EMSAH that Mort(e) isn't being told everything there is to know. Sure, some of these animals have obvious signs of chemical exposure (lesions, hair falling out, sores). But some of them just seem to have committed mass suicide. Is this a new form of EMSAH? Mort(e), after several years the soldier now playing the grizzled detective, tries to find out.

To make a long story short, Mort(e) eventually figures out that EMSAH is religion. The newly liberated animals are finding religion, and in their religion finding common cause with their former masters - the human. The ants - a hive mind with their queen at their head - have no use for religion. And they certainly have no use for humans. So the bioweapon is real, it's just the ants destroying every animal community which develops the symptoms of religious faith.

As a story, it's interesting. As an internal monologue Repino seems to be having with himself, it's fascinating. Two of Repino's characters, the Ant Queen and Mort(e), turn a critical eye towards religion. The Queen more due to her strange logic and her own species holding her in a sort of religious reverence (so much as a hive mind can experience reverence), Mort(e) more with the fairly typical atheist take on the hypocrisies and excesses of religious belief. Another character, the aforementioned Culdesac, also scoffs at religion, and the fact that it did nothing to save those of his victims who went to great lengths to enlist God's aide before they died.

Some of his characters, however, don't turn such a critical eye to religious belief. Wawa, a liberated fight ring dog who happens to be named after my favorite convenience store, eventually finds religion in her own right. And all of the humans in the second half of the story are strong religious types. Written as naive, perhaps, but also portrayed somewhat sympathetically. It's hard to tell exactly what message Repino is trying to send. I think it's one of contradictions. Religion, an inspiration and a curse. An inspiration to do great, brave things. A curse to justify stupid things in the name of God. Is religion good? Is it necessary? Repino leaves those questions unanswered. But religion endures, and I thought that was a cool sentiment.

Ultimately, I think Repino's story could have benefited from a bit more focus. It transitions awkwardly from its more cliche war and revolution story to its commentary on religion. The end feels sort of rushed, and I was a bit disappointed that we didn't see the transition of Sheba - Mort(e)'s lost canine friend - from pet to person at the end. But beyond those small complaints, I found the book relentlessly original, readable, and more than worth a recommendation. A brilliant first book by Robert Repino.