"The Empire of the Ants" is a short story written by H. G. Wells. It was published in 1905.
What you have here is potentially one of the first example of a "swarm horror" story. That later became a really big and even lucrative movie genre. Most everyone has seen at least one.
The idea here is really something I have come to expect with H. G. Wells. The ants evolve to become far more intelligent and begin taking over the world. The concept of evolution is used in a few of his stories, including "The Time Machine." He loves it.
Most of the story is about a sea captain and crew running into various boats that have been conquered by the ants. The scenes depicted here are really quiet striking and even scary. The thing that got me was that the ants would prop themselves up against the edge of the boat and sort of stare at you as you went by. Ants don't do that. They keep moving and adapt to things that they run into. They never really stare at anything.
The problem with this story is that it basically just ends in a summary of what happens. Wells goes into how the ants ultimately begin conquering parts of the world, killing and driving the humans away. What I mean is that there is a build up of story followed by a mere summary of what happens. It's kind of like he just wanted to move on to something else, so he just wrapped it up. I noticed a lot of people complaining about this in some online comments.
Weirdly enough, this story was adapted into a film in 1977 called "Empire of the Ants." I have seen this one, and it's not really that good. It substitutes the evolution with toxic waste dumping, but at least it has a very interesting ending. I mean... at this point just having an ending is an improvement. Most of the film was really silly and cheesy, but I kind of still recommend it because of the super awesome stuff they do at the end of the film. It's fairly satisfying.
As for the original story, though, I am not sure I can recommend it. The sudden summary at the end really does feel like it comes out of nowhere. Wells should have finished his story.
This blog was written on August 11, 2026.
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