Best new science fiction and fantasy

Mort(e), by Robert Repino (Soho, $26.95), catapults the reader into a wild, apocalyptic world where giant ants infect animals with a virus that causes them to become feral while also attaining a human-like intelligence. Questions of animal rights and environmental ethics play out as these newly enhanced creatures try to annihilate the human race, which had previously enslaved and domesticated them as pets and food sources. Caught up in the fray is Sebastian, an ordinary house cat who changes his...