Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu: book review

Of Ants and Dinosaurs: The Cautionary Tale of Earth’s First and Greatest Civilization (2010, this edition 2020) is set on Gondwana Land on Earth from an ordinary day in the Late Cretaceous period until the last day of the Cretaceous period.

On Earth’s 24-hour timeline, life appeared at about 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning, and humans appeared in the last tenth of the last second of the day. So, what was this ‘life’ doing before humans arrived?

At the equivalent time of twenty minutes to midnight, two very different life forms were present in the period called the Late Cretaceous period: the ‘social’ ant and the ‘ludicrously large’ dinosaur. Both had flaws in their design: ants could construct intricate architecture but had no richness of thought – depending on community communication rather than individual intelligence – and dinosaurs that lacked dexterous hands to undertake any elaborate work. Together, they formed a cooperative dinosaur-ant alliance.

They both thrived together for thousands and thousands of years until war broke out – first between two groups of dinosaurs – the Gondwanan Empire and the Laurasian Republic. Then war broke out between the dinosaurs and ants.

The dinosaurs and ants fought about the impending environmental destruction, overpopulation, and ecological collapse. The Dinosaur Dynasty refused to listen to the Ant Federation’s warning. What were the ants to do? Destroy the dinosaurs to save planet Earth, or perish with them?

Presenting both curiosity and imagination, this satirical story is timely, witty, funny, and scientifically serious.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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