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Back Of Ants and Dinosaurs

Of Ants and Dinosaurs

Cixin Liu
Chapters (26)
  1. BY CIXIN LIU
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 18
  24. EPILOGUE
  25. About the Author
  26. An Invitation from the Publisher

of

ANTS

and

DINOSAURS

BY CIXIN LIU

The Three-Body Problem

The Dark Forest

Death’s End

*

Ball Lightning

The Supernova Era

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

The Wandering Earth

Hold up the Sky

Title Page

of

ANTS

and

DINOSAURS

CIXIN LIU

TRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH HANLON

Copyright

First published in the UK in 2020 by Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright © 2010 刘慈欣 (Liu Cixin)

English translation copyright © 2019 FT Culture (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

Co-published by Chongqing Media & Publishing Co., Ltd.

Translation by Elizabeth Hanlon

The moral right of 刘慈欣 (Liu Cixin) to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (HB): 9781789546118

ISBN (XTPB): 9781838935191

ISBN (E): 9781789546095

Design: David Wardle
Images: © Shutterstock
Author Photo: Li Yibo

Head of Zeus Ltd

First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG

Contents

By Cixin Liu

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue: Bright Sparks

1. The First Encounter

2. The Age of Exploration of the Dinosaur Body

3. The Dawn of Civilisation

4. Tablets

5. The Steam-Engine Age

6. The Ants’ Arsenal

7. The First Dinosaur–Ant War

8. The Information Age

9. The Dinosaur–Ant Summit

10. The Strike

11. The Second Dinosaur–Ant War

12. The Medical Team

13. The Final War

14. Mine-Grains

15. Luna and Leviathan

16. Defection

17. The Ultimate Deterrent

18. The Battle of the Signal Stations

Epilogue: The Long Night

About the Author

An Invitation from the Publisher

of

ANTS

and

DINOSAURS

PROLOGUE

Bright Sparks

If the entire history of the Earth were condensed into a single day, one hour would equate to 200 million years, one minute to 3.3 million years and one second to 55,000 years. Life would appear as early as eight or nine o’clock in the morning, but human civilisation would not emerge until the last tenth of the last second of the day. From the morning that philosophers held the first ever debate on the steps of a temple in Ancient Greece… from the day slaves laid the first foundation stone of the Great Pyramid… from the minute that Confucius welcomed his first disciple into the candlelit gloom of his thatched hut… right up until the moment you turned the first page of this book, only one-tenth of a tick of the clock would have elapsed.