The Ants

by Peter Tremayne

When Jane Sewell returns to the Brazilian jungle to help her anthropologist father in his work, it is not the happy reunion she is expecting. She doesn't find the thriving village she remembers. Just a pile of bones. Human bones. Picked clean.

And then the ancient steamboat Falcão chugs cheerfully into sight, carrying a ghastly cargo of grisly death. And, for Jane, the horror really begins.

Somewhere, out in the seething jungle, a remorseless army is on the move. And it seems as though nothing can stop its savage, merciless drive.

Relentlessly, inexorably, tearing, rending and consuming everything in their path... The Ants are coming! It's everyone's creeping nightmare—when the ant millions teem in for the kill...

Genres: Horror, Fiction

185 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Peter Berresford Ellis (born 10 March 1943) is a historian, literary biographer, and novelist who has published over 90 books to date either under his own name or his pseudonyms Peter Tremayne and Peter MacAlan. He has also published 95 short stories. His non-fiction books, articles and academic papers have made him acknowledged as an authority on Celtic history and culture. As Peter Tremayne, he is the author of the international bestselling Sister Fidelma mystery series. His work has appeared in 25 languages.

Reviews

[T. Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so excited to find a copy of this book. I brought me back to my youth and the excited exuberance that I had for these kind of stories. The book doesn't disappoint with a strong start that is a joy to read. It does fall apart at the end a bit, but hey, its a ride I have been on many times.

[Chris Greensmith · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The hungry hordes are on the march...the Ants are coming!"

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

More nature runs amuck mayhem from Signet books, circa 1980. This is the same publisher that let loose a plethora of books in this genre. Everything from spiders to rats. Snakes and bees. Cats, bats and killer crabs. Those were the days. This time around, we are treated to an army of mutated ants. Transformed by a B-52 loaded with bombs that crashes in the Brazilian Mato Grosso region. These ants are capable of rending flesh in a matter of moments. As tribes begin to disappear from their villages, it's up to female archaeologist who has lost her father to the ant army and a pilot who crashes a smaller aircraft in the same vicinity to figure out a way to stop the horde. They join up with a plantation owner and his workers. Throw in some natives that think the ants are a curse from the white man and think they can stop it with a few sacrifices, and you have a winner in my book.

The only problem with this is that it comes in to short at only 185 pages. Granted, if it were drawn out more it might of lost a little kick. The way they take care of the rampaging ants is a nice touch. I did not see that way out. Very well done. If you are into this kind of horror genre, animals/mother nature on the loose, this is a prime example of how to do it.

[Taylor - Muse Ignited Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars - a solid, entertaining action adventure featuring some creature terror. I love South American jungle settings, so combine that with some 80’s creature feature horror and I’m pretty set. Millions of marching radioactively altered killer soldier ants is definitely high on my list of things not to run into in this lifetime.

Good varied cast of characters, a nice and dangerous/challenging setting, a creepy man vs. nature/animal threat along with some other more human threats and you’ve got a nice little adventure terror cocktail.

The only thing I will say was odd about this book for me (other than the radioactive ants 🐜 of course) was the time/era/setting. Something about the two main characters, including their speech and internal thoughts really felt like a novel from the 40’s-60’s, so I had to keep reminding myself it was taking place in the early 80’s (the other characters and their sections felt more contemporary, or at least had that 70’s/80’s soap drama rama thing going that was popular for the time). I dunno - it almost felt like a book written in the late 40’s or 50’s that someone then updated for the 80’s...

[Beauregard Shagnasty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing earth shattering here, but it is a decent enough "nature runs amok" tale. It very much reminded me of "Leiningen Versus the Ants" by Carl Stephenson, which was filmed in 1954 as "The Naked Jungle' with Chuck Heston.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com
Look at that cover! The promise of giant marauding ants roaming the land like Guy N Smith’s crabs, devouring any unfortunates in their way. Sadly, my friends and fellow horror fans, the cover lies. The ants are big, but big by the standards of common or garden ants, not huge freakish monsters like those in the movie ‘Them!’. They are, in fact, about an inch long. To be fair there are a lot of them, and they do swarm over people and eat them and stuff, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed.
What makes this even worse is that when I was looking at books to read for 1979, I could have picked ‘Lair’, James Herbert’s sequel to ‘The Rats’, or ‘Origin of the Crabs’, the third of Guy N Smith’s Crabs books. But both those choices seemed a bit redundant, as I’ve already covered previous books in their respective series. So instead I plumped for ‘The Ants’, partly because of that giant-ant-promising-cover. I’m pretty sure I’d have had more fun with the rats or crabs.
‘The Ants’ is barely a horror novel at all, it’s much more like a jungle adventure story from the 30s. It’s set in Brazil (making it the first book I’ve done for Carry on Screaming with no UK locations) and features a Lara Croft-esque English heroine, a dashing American pilot and a supporting cast of stereotyped locals. The horror is low-key to the point of being kind of dull and even the adventure scenes aren’t that great. To be fair to Peter Tremayne though, the fault might lay partly with the cover artist. Once I realised the ants weren’t giant, I found myself rushing through the book wanting it to end so I may have missed some good bits.
Tremayne is someone I’ve never read before despite the fact that he was so prolific in the horror genre in the 70s and 80s. He published Dracula and Frankenstein related novels before starting to write more original works. Many of his books have attention grabbing exclamation marks – ‘The Morgow Rises!’, ‘Snowbeast!’, ‘Swamp!’. Having read ‘The Ants’, I can’t help wondering if the over enthusiastic punctuation is there to compensate for a lack of real talent on his part. Maybe I’m being unfair, but on the basis of ‘The Ants’ he feels like a Carry on Screaming also ran.

[Ami Morrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on the book blog Creature From the Book Lagoon.

"When Jane Sewell returns to the Braxilian jungle to help her anthropologist father in his work, it is not the happy reunion she is expecting. She doesn’t find the thriving village she remembers. Just a pile of bones. Human bones. Picked clean. And then the ancient steamboat Galcao chugs cheerfully into sight, carrying a ghastly cargo of grisly death. And, for Jane, the horror really begins. Somewhere, out in the seething jungle, a remorseless army is on the move. And it seems as though nothing can stop its savage, merciless drive. "

The plot was great! You have thousands of thousands radioactive mutant ants cutting a bloody path through the Amazon. Everyone that gets near them gets eaten. Whole villages are getting wiped out. How can you possible stop so many killer ants?? The setting is also a plus. You have the isolation and seclusion of the Amazon. How will you be able to find these ants in this dense, remote location? I didn’t have a problem with the plot or the setting. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the book…

Oh boy. The characters. Omg they were pretty stupid a majority of the time. Like, it took them forEVER to figure out about the ants, even though they kept seeing the ants leaving the scene of grisly deaths. I don’t understand how they couldn’t figure out what was going on sooner. They had other problems. The main female character was a little bit more with it, but any time she had a suggestion or advice or any kind of information to give, the main male character would just brushed her off, flat out would disagree / do the exact opposite, or would chuckle at her and say something basically along the lines of “lol I don’t think that is what is happening.” Then, instead of standing her ground or trying to defend how she was right, she’d just shrug her shoulders and take it. I’m not saying she had to be aggressively assertive or anything, but the way it was written just had a very submissive vibe to it that was just off putting.

The Ants seemed a little too sexist for the late 70s early 80s. The way the 2 main characters talked and acted felt very outdated for this time. The author sets up the female main character as a strong, smart individual who is a great shot, but as soon as the chiseled, handsome white man shows up, she just starts to become “hysterical” and cowers behind him, being submissive to what he says and does, even if it’s not going to work. She’s a great shot, but he takes the big rifle because he’s the man. She becomes weak and does the “woman job” of just taking care of the kid and let the man do man things. Oooooooookay. Also, the ants had the power to hypnotize people and lure people to them… but the only people who ever get hypnotized by the ants are the 2 women and the lowly tribal native bad guy. Uhhh huh. Innnnnteresting. Hey, I get when a story is from a different era and “that’s just the way things were back then”. But like I said, at the time this book came out, this kind of BS was more outdated and left behind in the 1950s.

Another problem with the story was just that it was super inconsistent! If the ants were telepathic, why aren’t the ants using that ability all the flipping time or everyone they come across? And the author tells us how the ants are eating every living thing they come across, but more then once these ants (and remember there are a LOT of ants) leave bodies only slightly mutilated or half eaten. Why? It didn’t match up with what the pattern the author had already established. AND. The ants are just walking around without any real destination in mind and the author kind of just makes it sound like the ants path of destruction is just random and that they just roll over everything and just keep on a going… yet, for some reason, at the end, the ants get OCD about eating the handful of people left in this plantation in the Amazon. It gets to the point where the ants stop their march of death and just wait outside the plantation, waiting out the people inside. But. Again… that’s not the pattern the author has already established for the ants. The book was filled with stuff like that. I have no problems with a story that gets ridiculous and crazy, but please, have some form of consistence!

It wasn’t a terrible book, but it was not the best killer bug book I’ve ever read. It was entertaining but the inconsistencies and the outdated why the 2 main characters acted just made this a meh book instead of something more fun.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a number of thrillers by Peter Tremayne, but this is certainly my favorite. The story of a South American plantation menaced by a seemingly limitless army of "legion ants," the novel moves briskly from a chilling prologue to a desperate climax with barely a slow spot in between. The jungle setting is managed just right with a suitable atmosphere of impending doom. The action unfolds from the perspective of several interesting characters, including our heroine Jane and the male lead Hugo, both of whom are extremely sympathetic and easy to identify with. Naturally, there are also a few less likable individuals, but they are also believable and mean something to the plot. The eponymous ants are a truly terrifying opponent, totally enigmatic and implacable and motivated by an insectile logic of cold ruthlessness. A touch of sci-fi explains why the ants are suddenly behaving so fantastically, and this element is likewise handled with a relative believability. All told, this is an exciting adventure with quite a bit of horror thrown in, and certainly the best such effort I've found from this author.

[Shardallinee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book for the very first time when I was a lot younger and it gave me the chills... I mean - I FELT these ants everywhere as I read it - and I still enjoy to read this book now every once in a while.



We have had an interesting discussion at our book club as one of our members picked it (this book) up for us to read. It has a lot of different topics to cover: romance, different languages, animal life, jungle, plantation, natives, and enviromental problems... After many reads the picture the book portrays gets bigger.

The author described personalities very well, in fact, I loved the whole style of writing. All of the events were smoothing into each other nicely, and it all felt real. I think by the time you finnish this book you get real nice with your backyard ants! ;)

To this day - one of my favorite books I can easily come back to read.

[Alan Smithee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ever read a book where the author insists on repeating everything twice? Well, I just did.

"Ants" is a mild example of a 'Novel Nasty' - a sub-sub-sub genre of easy reading British horror novels that began in the mid-1970s. Google "Garth Marenghi" and you'll see what I mean. This one involves most of the usual tropes - nature gone wild, monster mesmerism, '70s style sexism, etc. It's pretty unremarkable expect for Tremayne's penchant for repeating information two, sometime three times.

Definitely not recommended unless you're a fan of the genre.

[Holly Mcentee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up with a giggle from a Little Free Library and thought I knew what I was in for. Oh good grief. A great example of schlocky B-grade late 1970s horror/sci-fi. Totally predictable, flat characters (and be warned that the women characters are...problematic), and full-on colonialism towards indiginous peoples on display. Yikes. I'll find another Little Free Library to deposit it in and inflict it upon someone else.

[Globehugger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this book after reading Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix.

This book is fun. It's camp, full of silly tropes, and just entertaining. I was giggling the whole time. Half knowing what would happen- because it's so predictable that I felt in on the joke. And half genuinely wondering what they were gonna do about those damned ants.

[Sam Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good on the natural world and the environment. Not so good on human relationships. But a rip-roaring tale, and truth be told one wouldn't pick up this book expecting romance and an exploration of inter-personal relationships.

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mutated soldier ants caused by radiation hunt in legions and strip people of all their flesh leaving nothing but clean bones. Set in the jungle this is more of an adventure story lacking the schlock and gore.

[Shotgun · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little read! Many grisly deaths, which is what gets me going. Would recommend for an airplane ride or long train ride. Not four or five stars because it wasn’t exactly can’t-put-it-down material.

[Phade ThePlex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bloodless, sexless and generally disappointing. A few hints are made about the origin and ability of the ants that’s got something special but, nope, forget about it, they are mentioned once and dropped completely.

[Zach Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak and quite tense creepy crawly feature
Quite possibly contains the most irritating female character I’ve ever read. You just want her to die !!
Good if dated story

[Shea Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

中规中矩，大恐怖时代期间催生的“动物袭击”子类中的一员，也是蚂蚁类小说中经典的作品，节奏比较快，可以令读者一口气读完。简体中文版封面设计令人难以接受，太丑了！学学英文版封面好吧！另外译者翻译的也比较差，有时候很出戏……

[Deacon D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty standard (but entertaining) bugs vs. man tale.

The Kindle edition could use some serious editing.

[Ron]

"Jungle adventure insect horror, fun read as a kid."

[Danni The Girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so glad I picked this up almost straight away after buying it. I loved this story! You would never really consider ants to be scary at all, but low and behold they definitely are! Jane flies out to see her father in a distant land… I have forgotten the name already. She arrives there and finds a whole village just gone, apart from one little boy. It is only a short story, and I think I would have liked maybe a little more back story from some of the characters. I think, although this is a gruesome tale, I would have liked more gore, I am just greedy and love it. The detail of describing the events was fantastic and I was fully invested.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Tremayne’s earlier ‘nature runs amok’ novels, this is a pretty entertaining read that clocks in at only 182 pages, so it shouldn’t take longer than a week to finish for most readers. It’s a fast-moving adventure that does away with heavy characterisation or plotting; instead, this is a lean, mean and focused story that remains straightforward throughout. As is the case with many books by Tremayne, the strength of the book lies in the meticulous research that has been done to support it; not only are the titular menace realistically depicted, but the various native superstitions and gods also sound authentic and true to life.

Surprisingly, for a noted scholar, this book has quite a lot of typographical errors – for example I lost count of the number of times that “loose” was substituted for “lose”. Still, it was early in Tremayne’s career as an author, so we can’t complain too much. Gore lovers should look elsewhere, however, as Tremayne is no Guy N. Smith; there are only a handful of deaths here and they typically skimp on explicit detail. Still, the suspense is strong and the action quite tense, recalling the good old days of pulp adventure by stirring up the excitement.

The major problem with this book is that the second half is quite obviously based on the Carl Stephenson short story, Leiningen Versus the Ants, which was originally published in the 2nd Pan Book of Horror Stories. Although a few elements have been mixed around (as well as the inclusion of a cellar sequence inspired by Night of the Living Dead), Tremayne follows it very closely indeed – surely it couldn’t have been hard to come up with a more original premise? Additionally, characterisation is a bit clichéd, there’s a romantic sub-plot that reeks of Mills & Boon, and not enough people die, aside from the obvious contenders.

The first half of the book is the strongest, building up a really eerie atmosphere in the jungle through the inclusion of great plot points like deserted villages, creepy silences, strange trails and gleaming skeletons. Unfortunately, as with many books like this, the lead characters are overwhelmingly dense in working out where the threat is coming from – they have to actually see a guy getting eaten by ants before they realise that insects are behind it all!

[Hugo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite the When Animals Attack! horror promised by the cover, but a solid and neatly paced Men's Adventure with a capable female lead who becomes useless and besotted once a real man shows up. The ants (two inches long, so not quite the apparent giants from the cover—but there all millions of them) are relentless, the humans too busy bickering amongst themselves to survive long, and I enjoyed it a great deal.

[Ian Pattinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good old fashioned monster tale set in the Brazilian jungle. It's almost a shame that the monsters in the story are given away in the title. The author does a good job of building the mystery and giving glimpses of the terror.

Young anthropologist Jane Sewell returns to the Brazilian tribe she has been studying with her father, only to find the village deserted. All that is left of the former residents is a pile of stripped clean bones and a (temporarily) mute boy.

Before she can begin to work out what has happened, she has to rescue a pilot who crashes nearby. It turns out he flies for a local plantation owner, so the three of them head in that direction.

Only as they near the plantation is the threat revealed- mutant ants! Not giant mutant ants, as you might imagine from the cover, but telepathic mutant ants. That can sometimes communicate with humans, and they've enslaved other ants to help them.

There's lots of soap opera stuff going on at the plantation- the owner's wife is carrying on with the manager and the local workers are reverting to superstition- which play out in fairly obvious ways as, one by one, they get eaten alive.

In the end, it's a race to the river, with a little help from a different ant colony. The wrap up is rushed, after all the build up, but it's a fun, if occasionally predictable, journey to get there.

[Eliza Clara Hemming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pure entertainment. A cliched, fast-paced romp with likeable (if two dimensional) characters and a well-realised threat.

The dialogue is fairly stilted at times, and full of exposition, and the novel could have definitely done with an edit or two to tighten up the quality of the prose. There also so many familiar tropes of this kind of genre, particularly in relation to the female characters. Jane is presented to us as the lead, and is fairly strong. But as soon as the dashing American man turns up, he takes over and she becomes 'his girl'.

The action is well-presented though. The ants are nicely realised, and the setting works. A little subplot involving witch doctors adds an extra element of dilemma to the drama, too.

Predictable, silly, certainly not high art. In spite of this, The Ants is a blast and perfect 'leave your brain behind' fodder. I just wish Tremayne knew the difference between "loose" and "lose"!

[Leroy Nimrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this when i was a teen, liked it. Haven't read it in years. Wonder if it would hold up...will have to start scouring the shelves at the thrift stores now.