Book Review: Empire of the Ants by Bernard Werber
May 28, 2025
Empire of the Ants (original title: Les Fourmis) is a French science fiction novel by Bernard Werber, published in 1991 and translated into English by Margret Rocques. This is a review of the book.
The story in Empire of the Ants takes place in the near-future in Paris, France. There are two parallel stories going on in the book. One involves a human protagonist, Jonathan Wells, and his family and friends. The other story is about a federation of ant cities located in a forest. The ant half of the story revolves around the ant city of Bel-o-kan, its queen Belo-kui-kiuni and ants like 56th, 327th, and 103683rd (only the queen has a name, rest others have numbers). The two stories intersect right at the end. The ant part of the story is more detailed and somewhat surprisingly, much more believable. Interspersed with these two stories, there is a third stream in the book. These are excerpts from the notebook of Edmond Wells (who is the protagonist Jonathan's recently deceased uncle) called Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge. These "excerpts" provide the philosophical underpinnings to the story.
The story starts with the ant colony waking up from the winter hibernation. It follows a male ant, 327th, which wakes up, and then takes part in a hunting expedition. On the way back to the city, all other ants die suddenly and inexplicably. 327th then takes on the task of investigating the mysterious weapon which killed its brethren. From then on, the story takes the form of a fast-paced suspense thriller. The other thread follows Jonathan Wells, an out of job locksmith, who inherits his uncle's basement flat and moves into it. The flat has a cellar which his uncle has warned to never go into. Accidentally, their dog gets in and hence Jonathan has to go down to fetch him back. The problem is, anyone who goes in does not come back. One by one, Jonathan's family, some firemen and policemen all disappear down the cellar.
The protagonist ants in the story are Russet ants (Formica rufa). They are hard-working, curious and inventive. When faced with a problem, they systematically go about solving it. And in the process, they are not afraid to sacrifice themselves for the good of the tribe if needed. All the facts about ants in the book are scientifically accurate, and very little literary liberty has been taken. Even the fact that ants communicate using chemical smell signals (pheromones) is beautifully used in all dialogues between ants. There is a battle scene where the Russet ants have to fight another species, the dwarf ants. The set piece scene is depicted with strategic twists and turns and is probably more graphic and violent than a Second World War movie.
Philosophically, one of the goals of the book is to demonstrate that ants are another intelligent species on earth. They are as intelligent, may be more so, than humans. And we should pay more attention to them. However, their intelligence is different. Various thinkers have likened an ant society to democracy, authoritarianism and even anarchism. But as the novel briefly mentions, ant societies are none of these. They are just different.
You will appreciate this book even more if you have some scientific understanding of ants or have at least a fascination with them. Otherwise, some parts may feel gross. After reading it, if you would like to learn more about ants scientifically, then I would recommend - Journey to the Ants.
Although the book is classified as a science fiction, there isn't any big futuristic technology in it. It will be better to consider it as science & philosophy based novel. This book is the first part of the trilogy of books - The Day of the Ants (original: Le Jour des fourmis) and The Revolution of the Ants (original: La Révolution des fourmis) being the other two.
The story starts with the ant colony waking up from the winter hibernation. It follows a male ant, 327th, which wakes up, and then takes part in a hunting expedition. On the way back to the city, all other ants die suddenly and inexplicably. 327th then takes on the task of investigating the mysterious weapon which killed its brethren. From then on, the story takes the form of a fast-paced suspense thriller. The other thread follows Jonathan Wells, an out of job locksmith, who inherits his uncle's basement flat and moves into it. The flat has a cellar which his uncle has warned to never go into. Accidentally, their dog gets in and hence Jonathan has to go down to fetch him back. The problem is, anyone who goes in does not come back. One by one, Jonathan's family, some firemen and policemen all disappear down the cellar.
The protagonist ants in the story are Russet ants (Formica rufa). They are hard-working, curious and inventive. When faced with a problem, they systematically go about solving it. And in the process, they are not afraid to sacrifice themselves for the good of the tribe if needed. All the facts about ants in the book are scientifically accurate, and very little literary liberty has been taken. Even the fact that ants communicate using chemical smell signals (pheromones) is beautifully used in all dialogues between ants. There is a battle scene where the Russet ants have to fight another species, the dwarf ants. The set piece scene is depicted with strategic twists and turns and is probably more graphic and violent than a Second World War movie.
Philosophically, one of the goals of the book is to demonstrate that ants are another intelligent species on earth. They are as intelligent, may be more so, than humans. And we should pay more attention to them. However, their intelligence is different. Various thinkers have likened an ant society to democracy, authoritarianism and even anarchism. But as the novel briefly mentions, ant societies are none of these. They are just different.
You will appreciate this book even more if you have some scientific understanding of ants or have at least a fascination with them. Otherwise, some parts may feel gross. After reading it, if you would like to learn more about ants scientifically, then I would recommend - Journey to the Ants.
Although the book is classified as a science fiction, there isn't any big futuristic technology in it. It will be better to consider it as science & philosophy based novel. This book is the first part of the trilogy of books - The Day of the Ants (original: Le Jour des fourmis) and The Revolution of the Ants (original: La Révolution des fourmis) being the other two.