“Of Ants and Dinosaurs” by Liu Cixin

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Rating: 3/5 Stars

An interesting ‘fable’ based on the idea that in the past, two great civilisations arose among the ants and dinosaurs that rose to incredible heights before hubris and desperation to save the environment (and a ‘doomsday device’) bought it all crashing down.

The premise of the story is that at the beginning, the dinosaurs were fairly intelligent but their size and inability to handle tiny work crippled their abilities. At the other end, ants are collectively intelligent but their small size hampers their ability to shape the world. The two would come together through an accidental meeting between a dinosaur with dental problems and ants looking for a quick meal. From there, both civilisations would rise up in greatness together with the dinosaurs doing the heavy lifting and the ants doing the fine handy work holding technology together.

But all is not well as a religious rift cause them to go to war of attrition with one another. When it ends and peace is restored, their restored civilisations would go on to use more of the Earth resources, until the ants plead with the dinosaurs to rein in their consumption or risk ecological collapse. This causes another brief war but in the subsequent détente, the ants put forward a plan to stop the dinosaurs once and for all: not knowing that the dinosaurs already have another plan of their own.

On the face of it, the situation sounds a bit ridiculous and over the top, especially with the descriptions of huge transport vessels and buildings required to house dinosaurs which are much bigger then us. The ability of the ants also seen incredible especially in the field of micro engineering and surgery.

But what drives the story forward is the story of two contrasting civilisations that somehow work together to achieve even greater heights before it all comes tumbling down. The humour of the situations also comes through in the translation, making it accessible to an English audience.

Book read from 2020/08/11 to 2020/08/16