Fun but confusing
4 stars
I really enjoyed reading Bats of the Republic, but it's a very disorienting book. The story is told entirely through in-world documents, which is important to remember as two of those document sets are narrative fiction in the world and only one of them is open about it. The story hinges around a vault of documents and copies in a post-apocalyptic future, and Zeke Thomas's hunt for a letter which illegally was never copied for a government record, and is interspersed with letters written by Zeke's ancestor Zadock on his journey to deliver that same letter. The past and future very nearly mirror each other the entire time, such as with Zadock's horse Raison D'etre which runs away and abandons him in the wilderness, and Zeke's friend Raisin Dextra who wants to run away from their city with Zeke. The future tracks Zadock through his letters, and the past tracks …
I really enjoyed reading Bats of the Republic, but it's a very disorienting book. The story is told entirely through in-world documents, which is important to remember as two of those document sets are narrative fiction in the world and only one of them is open about it. The story hinges around a vault of documents and copies in a post-apocalyptic future, and Zeke Thomas's hunt for a letter which illegally was never copied for a government record, and is interspersed with letters written by Zeke's ancestor Zadock on his journey to deliver that same letter. The past and future very nearly mirror each other the entire time, such as with Zadock's horse Raison D'etre which runs away and abandons him in the wilderness, and Zeke's friend Raisin Dextra who wants to run away from their city with Zeke. The future tracks Zadock through his letters, and the past tracks Zeke through a story written by a fortune teller.
The book very effectively captures the feeling of being one of the workers in the Vault of Records, collecting and cross-referencing various documents to try to build up the truth of what happened. It even includes, at the very end, the mysterious letter that everything was revolving around. Unfortunately I'm more confused by it than anything else. I love when a story ends in a soft cliffhanger, with a satisfying conclusion but a strong sense that more is to come and you dream for days about what that might be. Bats of the Republic has that sense of mystery, but without the solidity of a conclusion. Things escalate to the very end and cut off in a literal ouroboros of past and future. I think I'm more likely to wonder for days about how this one actually ended than dream about what happens next.
