Ants
Peter Tremayne
Signet, 1979
ISBN: 0-451-09163-9
One of the brightest burning trends of 70s horror paperbacks and low-budget horror cinema was the “killer animal” subgenre. Blame Jaws, but suddenly everything on the planet was out to kill us. Crocodiles, alligators, more sharks, rats, orca whales, giant mutated crabs, grizzlies, etc. etc. But what if they were smaller? What if they were grosser and what if they sorta felt slimy? That’s when the worms attacked or the scorpions or spiders. Or the Ants. Surely the scariest of all the bugs out to get you.
Peter Tremayne was actually Peter Berresford Ellis, a prolific author who has seemingly written in every genre in both fiction and non-fiction under various names. He had a pretty good horror out-put writing Dracula and Frankenstein books not to mention books with titillating titles like Snowbeast!, Swamp!, Nicor!, and Trollnight. I don’t think you can go wrong with a book with an exclamation point at the end of the title, it's a sure sign of EXCITEMENT! Now Ellis uses the Tremayne name to write historical mysteries. The Ants came relatively early in his novel writing career, but it's clear he knew how to put out an exciting, if a little daft, chiller novel about adventure and deadly mutant Ants, man’s worst fear, as you know.
The Ants is set in an isolated spot in the jungles of Brazil, which is a bad spot to be when there’s killer bugs out to get you but a nice spot for an author to kill off his characters with said bugs. The location is important because the novel really mixes a “jungle adventure” tale with the “monster story,” sometimes the jungle stuff over takes the monster stuff though. Our hero, Jane, is set-up to be a tough lady hero but quickly turns into a mess once the studly pilot hero-man appears on the scene which is a little disappointing, but more of a sign of the times than anything, I suppose. The rest of the cast are fairly cardboard, including the studly hero. From there we get plantation owners and plantation owners' wives plus their lovers and indigenous people all of which is presented in the most stereotypical way.
The titular ants are mutated by a downed bomber and the nuclear material that was on board. This makes the ants really angry, hungry and, um, telepathic. And there’s a TON OF THEM. All bad. They run amok through the jungle eating people clean and leaving skeletons in their wake. This is the stuff that you want in a paperback with evil ants on the cover, unfortunately there’s just not enough ant-eating-people-action. Though it’s grisly and fun when it shows up. Tremayne indulges in the human conflicts a little too much and a lot of is simple soap-opera type stuff which bogs it down a bit when there’s more interesting going on, i.e. mutant ants.
But all in all this is a fun adventure tale with some telepathic ants here and there causing a ruckus. I don’t know but I suspect that Tremayne wasn’t too happy about writing horror. As far as British horror writers of the time, Tremayne is no Guy N. Smith. Smith had no shame in writing the gory, goopy, saucy stuff you want to read in a sleazy horror novel or James Herbert who’s writing crackles no matter the subject. Tremayne’s The Ants simply lacks a little spark.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.