Friday, 1 April 2016

horror - A fantasy story about a man who discovers two groups of alien creatures similar to ants. He becomes a god to them

It looks like The Sandkings, by George R.R. Martin (1979). It also involves red and black insects, who might be ant-like (although I'm not sure, as I've never read this novel).



From Wikipedia:




Inside, he meets one of the owners, Jala Wo. She shows him a terrarium filled with four colonies of creatures called sandkings. Each colony consists of a large female called the maw, and numerous insect-like mobiles. The maw is immobile, but controls the mobiles through telepathy. The mobiles hunt, forage, and build, and bring food back to the maw, which digests it and passes nutrients on to the mobiles. Each colony has constructed a castle out of sand around the maw, and the creatures fight coordinated wars and battles with one another. Wo also shows Kress how she has beamed a hologram of herself into the tank, and how the sandkings have decorated their castles with her likeness. Kress is mildly intrigued, but disappointed at the small size of the creatures. Wo assures him that they will grow to fill whatever environment they are kept in. Kress then agrees to purchase them. Wo assures him that they are easy to care for, and will eat anything.



Kress observes the installation of his sandkings and watches his four colonies (colored white, black, red, and orange) begin to build their castles. There is little intrigue or fighting, however, so a bored Kress begins to starve them. After that, they consistently war over the food he does provide. He also beams a hologram of his face, and they begin to decorate their castles appropriately.




However, I couldn't find any reference to the last part, when the main character is killed and the sandkings pull his statue down, so I might be wrong.

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