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I am a research scientist and university professor that began writing fiction during the stay-at-home orders of Covid-19. I used my time efficiently and wrote a trilogy during the pandemic. The first two novels in my trilogy, The Antunite Chronicles, were the backstory of my wife’s children’s book Black Hole Radio-Bilaluna. They explained how Earth insects were transported to a planet in a far-off galaxy, how they transformed into cyborg insects, and how they destroyed their world and nearly destroyed their moon. The third novel of the trilogy is much more open-ended since it occurs long after the period described in the Children’s book. Yet the characters are still cyborg insects that have returned to their rejuvenated planet. So, although the plotline was less constrained, I again drew the world-building and character archetypes from my wife’s story. The premise for the plot, however, was heavily inspired by the dystopian novels Brave New World and 1984.
The Rise and Fall of Antocracy is the second book in The Antunite Chronicles. This Animal Farm-like story tracks the insects’ evolution to cyborg insects, the growth and decline of a fledgling democracy, and the destruction of life on the planet caused by a long-ignored climate crisis. It also follows the utopian society created by a group of cyborg insects that escape to Poo-ponic’s moon Bilaluna before Poo-ponic’s atmosphere collapses.
Reviewed by Essien Asian for Readers' Favorite
In a futuristic timeline on a different planet, insect-like creatures have evolved to the point where they control activities, similar to what we have on Earth. This planet is called Poo-ponic where almost-human size ants, bees, roaches, and worms coexist in harmony. However, a friendship between two ants with drastically different views on life is about to disrupt the harmony of this once-peaceful planet. Anthiery must decide if his friendship with Antilla is worth losing the respect of the ant he loves and what could be his greatest invention ever. Read on as a growing rivalry and its consequences push the planet to the precipice in Terry Birdgenaw's The Rise and Fall of Antocracy.
The Rise and Fall of Antocracy has the initial appearance of a book targeted at children but the more I read, I realized the storyline and content are of a mature orientation with present-day implications befitting a much older spectrum of readers. Terry Birdgenaw goes out of his way to superbly flesh out the background of this interesting story. The organization of the insectoids right down to their names, and the methods of calculating time, is impressive. The ease with which the story transitions across the different generations, and the characters that play primary roles, is remarkably fluid. What I like most about this story is the way Birdgenaw integrates real issues, such as deforestation, genocide, evolution, and the search for the perfect system of government, which is easy to understand and identify with irrespective of the age of the reader. With even doses of romance, action, and adventure, this tale is top-quality and in a class of its own.
