The Mark of the Cat

by Andre Norton

In the five queendoms, the kotti is a sacred animal, believed to possess magical powers. To young Hynkkel, the kotti Mieu is his treasured companion, his friend, his kin…until she is cruelly taken from him in a drunken rage by his violent brother, leaving Hynkkel’s heart as barren as the deserts of his homeland.

Commanded by his father to Solo—to travel into the unknown in a test of survival—Hynkkel sets out with little more than the red-gold sandcat pendant, bestowed upon him by a woman, worn around his neck as a reminder of his loss. He begins his journey with nothing…

But his trek will bring him to a cave where he will enter the secret world of the cat…

And to a trial that will mark his destiny.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Cats

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Andre Norton, born Alice Mary Norton, was a pioneering American author of science fiction and fantasy, widely regarded as the Grande Dame of those genres. She also wrote historical and contemporary fiction, publishing under the pen names Andre Alice Norton, Andrew North, and Allen Weston. She launched her career in 1934 with The Prince Commands, adopting the name “Andre” to appeal to a male readership. After working for the Cleveland Library System and the Library of Congress, she began publishing science fiction under “Andrew North” and fantasy under her own name. She became a full-time writer in 1958 and was known for her prolific output, including Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. and Witch World, the latter spawning a long-running series and shared universe. Norton was a founding member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America and authored Quag Keep, the first novel based on the Dungeons & Dragons game. She influenced generations of writers, including Lois McMaster Bujold and Mercedes Lackey. Among her many honors were being the first woman named Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master. In her later years, she established the High Hallack Library to support research in genre fiction. Her legacy continues with the Andre Norton Award for young adult science fiction and fantasy.

Reviews

[Michelle F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some spoilers, I think. Be warned

This one caught me up and carried me along quite marvellously.

The story of Hynkel, the non-favoured son who is all but cast out for his 'solo' – a trial of adulthood – and is not expected to survive. A merchant at the local market mysteriously bestows a pendant to him, and he is ridden out to the arid wastelands and knocked unconscious. His task is to survive the heat, the sandstorms, the scarcity of sustenance and danger of vicious ROUS's and wild Sandcats. But his brother has killed his beloved Kotti companion Mieu, and despite hard work in his youth he is seen as a disgrace to his family, so Hynkel is not even sure he wants to return home.

Early on, he protects and forms a bond with an injured Sandcat – unheard of between natural enemies – and he is welcomed by the furred creatures. Together with the cub Murri, he sets out to find a new path, and fate steps in. Eventually, Hynkkel is forced to reluctantly take part in a new test – the trials from which the entire empire's new leader is chosen. His disgrace makes him unwelcome by the kingdoms as a contender, though he is aided by his friend Murri, and helped and perhaps manipulated by the strange merchant Ravinga.

This is book one of a two part series, and the story is not completed within it. Apparently The Year of the Rat is hard to track down.

I really really liked this tale. The dangerous land is vividly built and revealed, and although sometimes seeming a bit too aloof, the main character is one to root for.
I love the cat worship and the foreignness of the entire thing – even Norton's language conveys a strangeness, a formality, that heightens the sense of being immersed...once you get the hang of it.

The two POVs were a bit jarring, especially as the first switch comes on suddenly and isn't well marked.

My biggest complaints are that I wish there was more:
more about the Kottis
More about human interactions and perhaps the inclusion of some additional sympathetic people
more about Allitta's story
more actual trial, in the trials
more reason for Hynkkel to accept his path, and not just go where he is pulled

I loved that the conflict wasn't man-battle-y. Although there were physical tests, the only heavy violence was from predator/prey type scenarios. That was refreshing.

[Linda Karchmar (Cameron) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book - I loved it! I would love to see a sequel to this book!

[Valerie]

I really don't care for the world this story is set in. It's harsh, basically not fit for human habitation, and the humans make it worse, generally, by their determined cruelty.

That said, there are interesting elements, like the algae pools, and the artistic traditions. The story focuses on what amounts to an initation ordeal, which seems to be a compilation of adulthood ordeals, worked together into a shamanic quest.

The monstra ex machina in this book are the 'rats'. It might be interesting sometime to trace the roots of the idea of large, ravening, essentially mindless monsters. It seems remarkably persistent, despite the fact that such creatures would rapidly starve to death, particularly in such a stark and mostly lifeless world as this. If the energy coming in is less than that put out...'result: misery', as Mr Micawber put it.

And even when it's proven that the rats CAN be modified for more intelligence (and, frankly, less violence, since the 'superrats' often call off their followers when faced with insurmountable odds), nobody seems to realize that this is (at least potentially) an opportunity to make peace. Instead, they fear their 'inherent' enemies even more.

The book ends with the end of the initiation, but it's clear there was intended to be a followup, and there may be--but I haven't seen it.

[Ozsaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hynkkel is a young man who is hardworking, kind, and thoughtful, yet gets no respect from his family or anyone else. This holds true throughout the book, even after he succeeds in completing many difficult tasks. That's my biggest complaint, that no amount of courage, cleverness, or endurance is enough. It got really tiresome to see Hynkkel be the underdog for an entire book. He does end up with a couple of allies, but I'm not going to include any spoilers here.

One of the strengths of the book is the descriptions of the many landscapes that Hynkkel visits. I was particularly captured by Hynkkel's homeland, its desolation with hidden pockets of life. The algae pools are the backbone supporting life in this world. I got the sense that the world had been much more robust until some long forgotten calamity.

I also liked Hynkkel very much. He was stronger than he gave himself credit for. But in spite of his self doubts, he always soldiered on to complete his tasks. I also liked his kindness, which was seen as a weakness by others, but turned out to be another strength.

My only other problem with the book was the stilted, overly formal language, not just in the dialog. I will still read the second book, though.

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andre Norton is hit or miss with me, although I've loved at least one of her books. This book is cat fantasy. I really enjoyed the world--a harsh desert world comprised of five loosely related kingdoms ruled by one Emperor. I liked the main character and had fun reading. But Norton's language feels awfully stilted to me, in that sort of very formal old school fantasy kind of way (think early McKillip, like Riddlemaster of Hed, or LeGuin's first Earthsea book as compared to her later ones--like that only more so). And by the end of the book I was getting really annoyed at the fact that our hero has gone through so much and still gets no recognition. Norton kind of beats us over the head with that. Otherwise, though, I really enjoyed the story, and will likely look up the sequel. (I will be utterly shocked if there is not a sequel.)

[Mark White · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I have some old favourites by Andre Norton. This isn’t one of them. The faux olde timey language and circumlocution was a major turn off and the completely unbelievable world did the rest. The story dispenses with any consistency of time and distance, cause and effect. I don’t know what she was thinking when she wrote this one. It looks like an air of mystery was intended but by half way I just didn’t care anymore.

[Kristeen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I once had the tarot deck upon which this book is based so it was a great surprise to discover that. I just picked up the book because Andre Norton is such a reliably good author. Now I have to find Year of the Rat.

[Fran Santiago]

Very good reading...very different from what I normally read, but worth trying :) The author just writes with such depth of emotions/actions....You can actually visualize every detail with clarity :)

[Cindy Tomamichel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fine cat centred book from Andre norton. Some interesting world building and some great descriptions. Some of the plot was hard to follow with multiple first person viewpoints and some threads of plot left undone.

[Joe Murphy]

This ended up being a rather excellent book although initially the strange language and telling method were hard to get into. Once the story got moving it was an easy read.

[Kay Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked this book a lot. i synced to the writing style nicely, and enjoyed the details of the world and inhabitants. there's a sequel i'll have to read (the year of the rat).

[Myra · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay read, but the pacing was a bit off. The first half often dragged while the second half went so fast you were wanting more.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Norton is an excellent world builder, and I enjoyed the story, but the writing was at times hard to get through.

She chose to write the entire thing in a style that portrays the setting and character - at least, I assume that's what she's done. I can't tell if supposed to mimic an archaic style, or if she's tried to mimic the sentence structure of another language but in English. I found myself constantly rereading chunks and reordering sentences to try and understand what was meant, though the moments of action and world building were quite clear.

In fact, the moments of world building that we got were my favourite parts. The explanations of how important the algae pools were and how they were tended, the way the animals mattered to people, or even how the society was structured, were really interesting.

The way the plot was drip fed through story, though, was a bit boring. It felt like too much was being kept hidden for it to be actually interesting, yet it was constantly stressed as being important. When bits were explained, it was never fully to make things feel secretive...Or nonsensical, to me. If we'd only followed Hynkkel I think the moments that showed something more important was just around the corner would have been much more impactful, without being made confusing by Allitta's perspective. The last 50 pages were by far the most exciting...And it ends on a cliffhanger. The sequel was only ever published in an omnibus edition 10 years after this was written.

If you're a Norton fan, or just really like older fantasy books (the older mass market paperback for the UK has an excellent cover), then it's still enjoyable enough to pick up, but I think this is one of those classic fantasies that has stopped being in print for a reason.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, generally speaking, I loved the book. The relationships between people and cats, as well as the world building were awesome, however, I wish that more of the description of the world had been merged into the story instead of in that lengthy Introduction. The second book Year of the Rat, published much later, is available in paperback so I'll be getting it.

That being said, I had a couple of other problems. The horrible transitions between the two points of view left me floundering for a sentence or two each time. Huh? Who?

Although I'm generally pretty casual about a few loose ends, this book is positively bristling with them. I would have guessed that it was intended to be the first book of at least a trilogy. Allitta seems to have so much back story that she could have gotten a book of her own.

My pet peeve: One of my pet peeves is cover art that doesn't match the characters in the book. Cover artists should be locked in a room with the book manuscript and not allowed out until they come up with cover art that matches the characters. In this case, I have the same problem with the cover art (curse you Joe Burleson) but I would even take it to the next level.

It is stated, both on the title page and in the Introduction, that this book is based on the art of Karen Kuykendall, artist and creator of The Cat People tarot deck. SO WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S HOLY didn't the publishers use Karen Kuykendall's art on any of the dust jackets or book covers?!?!

[Alison Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andre Norton's imagined worlds are wonderful - so imaginative, mysterious and uniquely hers. Hynkkel the shepherd is forever changed when he is abandoned for his solo coming of age challenge, in a harsh desert landscape. But her prose, in this book anyway, is sometimes tortuous. I guess she wanted the voice to be Olde Worlde, but it frequently obstructs the storytelling with sentences like this: 'He felt always deprived because the days of war when one family or clan turned against another in open battle had passed, listening eagerly and with close attention to my father's stories of close engagements.' Her editor apparently fell victim to the desert rat hordes before the story started. I was also disappointed that the end of the novel is the opening of a new set of challenges for Hynkkel, not a real resolution. 'Mark of the Cat' is more of a series starter than a standalone novel. I haven't read the follow-up book and I'm not sure I will.

[Wilson E. Stevens Sr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of a young man who over comes a lot of trials to become king. Good plot, good story line, and typical Andre Norton story of the underdog. Recommend it to any one. Read it in 1992 when it first came out, and again this week. Enjoyed it both times.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite reads when I was a girl.

[Michael Nalbone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult book to set down once started.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is interesting and compelling. For me, the pacing of the story was slow and that made it less enjoyable for me.

[Abby 🍳 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[Aelvana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hynkkel is no warrior, though he comes from a House of warriors---to the eternal disappointment of his father. So while his strong and skilled brother gains all the honor, Hynkkel is little better than a servant. When his father finally allows him to solo (a wilderness survival test that bestows the status of an adult), he encounters some of his world's largest predators, the sand cats. But rather than perish beneath their claws, he strikes up a friendship . . .

This is an interesting bit of worldbuilding. Hynkkel lives in a very dry land, so most of the terrain is desert or similarly inhospitable. There's a prologue that sets up some very basic information about how the world works, though if you skip it much of that information does come eventually in the story. In some ways it feels a bit shallow, as there are very few species which occupy this place (I think there are more strains of algae than types of creatures), and the existence of so many sand cats without similarly large herds of prey animals also strains the credulity a bit. But it does make for a different kind of world, hot and dry and harsh, where life must be chiseled from an unforgiving land.

The story is told in first person, but switches between Hynkkel and Allitta. Irritatingly, nothing marks these transitions other than a scene break---often the switch occurs within the same chapter, which was jarring the first time especially because Allitta doesn't narrate until quite a ways into the story, so I had no idea the point of view was going to change. I liked Hynkkel better anyway. Allitta's sections mostly serve to introduce a few additional pieces of information and show how certain forces are manipulating Hynkkel's path.

The only other real problem is that as the story winds to its obvious conclusion, it isn't really done yet. And the sequel is hard to find (and based on the reviews, may not be entirely worth tracking down either). It doesn't even leave off in a wonderful place, either: Hynkkel has achieved more than he ever set out to do, but the social circles now around him are mostly wanting to see him dead. Not to mention the never-seen mysterious magic-worker who has been sending hordes of rats against the land hasn't even surfaced, much less been stopped.

It leaves me with rather mixed feelings about the book. I enjoyed it well enough, but the lack of an actual ending is really annoying. And the reader will probably have guessed Hynkkel's destiny fairly early in the book, which makes some of the late middle a slog. Read it if the setting sounds interesting, because the plot's rather standard fare. I rate this book Neutral.

See my reviews and more at https://offtheshelfreviews.wordpress....

[Gail Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I thought that this book was going to bury me in details and end in a cliff-hanger and I would have to find the next book... but it quickly got down to the action of things and the adventure took off for the main character and his companion. They fought huge rats and crossed hot dry deserts and then Hynnkel is chosen to compete for the crown of Emperor along with 4 others from different queendoms... and then it really gets interesting.

[Karly Maddison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved Andre Norton growing up. This is probably the last book of hers that I read, though I went through many. She's the reason why I started to love sci-fi/fantasy to begin with.

[Nataliia Koliadenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very touching story. Recommend it to fantasy lovers.