Rider at the Gate, by C.J. Cherryh. 4.5

Rider at the Gate

(but first things first: Sheri S. Tepper's premise for Grass (1998) sounds a whole hell of a lot like the basic premise of Rider at the Gate (1995)---"horses" and all! the two are very very dissimiliar in the writing styles etc, and the stories are different too. but my god the basic premise of the planetary situation is not an original of Tepper's at all. boo on Tepper.)

ok, now, Rider at the Gate. it's rather like an old-fashioned western, really, only on a far-away planet with telepathic, bacon-eating "horses". lol. (in fact I jut referenced something from Hank the Cowdog, and it fit right in ;) ) of course they're not horses at all, but the human population just seems to have named the native creatures after the familiar, Earth creatures they most resemble. and the spook-bears, goblin-cats, and nighthorses (as well as all the other native creatures) are different from Earth creatures in a very substantial way: they are telepathic, and use mind games both to protect themselves and to lure unwitting prey to their doom. it's a good thing that the powerful nighthorses are also rather curious, because if they hadn't investigated the human colonists and found them rather compelling, then the colonists wouldn't have had any defense against the other predators. entire villages went insane or were killed off with the help of telepathic manipulation before the nighthorses chose human companions called Riders. the Riders protect the villages, but the people's fear of the beasts outside the village walls includes the Riders themselves, beast-influenced as they are.

the story is about, in short, a late convoy trying to make through the mountains and to a village before winter; a nighthorse gone Rogue- insane- murdering people; a Rider who will stop at nothing to take down the Rogue who killed his partner; history between him and the other Riders converging on the same territory; a kid in way over his head trying to be of help. about not quite ever knowing what is truth, what is a trick, and what is just a dream.

it's a very good read. on a side note, I've been craving (bacon) and thinking in (brackets) for the past few days too lol.

quotes for me:

100- Humans had a need to know the connections of things, and human minds made them up if they didn't get them.

183- You could blame practically any craziness on the fact they didn't know, never knew, only guessed what another man wanted, or what he was about to do.

Hell of a way to live.

294- Burn's rider crossed the last gap above the rocks and mountainside and tottered to a rock-sheltered spot to sit down, dizzy, dry-mouthed with exertion, and feeling his skull trying to explode.

Which wasn't something he'd regret at the moment.