Antasy
3 primary works Complete
Book 1
Both familiar and fantastic, Clark T. Carlton's Prophets of the Ghost Ants explores a world in which food, weapons, clothing, art-even religious beliefs-are derived from Humankind's profound intertwining with the insect world.
In a savage landscape where humans have evolved to the size of insects, they cannot hope to dominate. Ceaselessly, humans are stalked by night wasps, lair spiders, and marauder fleas. And just as sinister, men are still men. Corrupt elites ruthlessly enforce a rigid caste system. Duplicitous clergymen and power-mongering royalty wage pointless wars for their own glory. Fantasies of a better life and a better world serve only to torment those who dare to dream.
One so tormented is a half-breed slave named Anand, a dung-collector who has known nothing but squalor and abuse. Anand wants to lead his people against a genocidal army who fight atop fearsome, translucent Ghost Ants. But to his horror, Anand learns this merciless enemy is led by someone from his own family: a religious zealot bent on the conversion of all non-believers . . . or their extermination.
A mix of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt, Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor, and Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, this is a powerful new addition to the genre.
Book 2
The powerful Antasy saga continues with The Prophet of the Termite God, the exciting new chapter following up on Clark Thomas Carlton's epic fantasy novel, Prophets of the Ghost Ants!
Once an outcast, Pleckoo has risen to Prophet-Commander of the Hulkrish army. But a million warriors and their ghost ants were not enough to defeat his cousin, Anand the Roach Boy, the tamer of night wasps and founder of Bee-Jor. Now Pleckoo is hunted by the army that once revered him. Yet in all his despair, Pleckoo receives prophecies from his termite god, assuring him he will kill Anand to rule the Sand, and establish the One True Religion.
And war is not yet over.
Now, Anand and Bee-Jor face an eastern threat from the Mad Emperor of the Barley People, intent on retaking stolen lands from a vulnerable and chaotic nation. And on the southern Weedlands, thousands of refugees clamor for food and safety and their own place in Bee-Jor. But the greatest threats to the new country come from within, where an embittered nobility and a disgraced priesthood plot to destroy Anand … then reunite the Lost Country with the Once Great and Holy Slope.
Can the boy who worked in the dung heap rise above the turmoil, survive his assassins, and prevent the massacre of millions?
Book 3
The Ghost Ants of Grylladesh is the final chapter of Clark Thomas Carlton's epic Antasy trilogy that started with Prophets of the Ghost Ants (a Kirkus Reviews Best of the Year pick) and Prophet of the Termite God, in which human and insect--and ancient magic--blend to tell a story of an empire in ruin, vicious and mysterious usurpers, and a young man who would be lead his people beyond everything they know in hopes of utopia.
In the Barley Lands to the East, the deformed and demented Emperor Volokop has blinded the hero Anand and sent him to Dranveria with a message for its rulers. But when Anand is captured by a mysterious people, the fate of his family and his new nation of Bee-Jor is suddenly in jeopardy.
Because Bee-Jor remains in chaos. In the South, starving refugees from Hulkren have overwhelmed Mound Palzhad and segregated into warring camps to fight for their very survival … with some descending into cannibalism. Beyond them, the roach riders of The Promised Clearing threaten a new conflict in a quest for more land. And in the West, a new peril arises from the Velvet Ant League, one not seen in a thousand generations.
Aiding all of these enemies is the deluded Queen Trellana, who has gathered the royal women of the East to march out of Bee-Jor and leave it vulnerable to attack.
The founding of Bee-Jor was Anand’s dream of a perfect society, but without their leader, is that all it ever will be: a dream?