As Ants to the Gods

If they found and destroyed the Scroll they would bring down all civilisation. Would the sacrifice of one man’s life save humanity?

 

Five years after the Great Fire of Lundun, ex-dragoon Laqua is lured into helping the Keepers of the Light, a covert band fighting the equally clandestine Cult of the Death of Hope. The Cult would bring down the empire of the Moors and, indeed, all civilisation. An empire that has conquered most of Europe, where the language is Arabic and the flag of the falcate moon flies. Where alcohol is banned and hashish legal, prison is unknown and punishment by whip, knife or hook. A world in which the Industrial Revolution is already well advanced and steam engines chug. Where the Norse have settled the New World first. In Lundun, capital of the Tin Isles, the largest mosque looms over St Pauls Cathedral. And Samuel Peppin has given up his diaries to write bawdy poems.

   Vital to defeating the Cult is an ancient secret Scroll, the final chapter of the sacred Script, its authenticity assured by the Seal. While the Cult would destroy it, the Keepers intend its dissemination to all. Until they have the means to do so, Laqua is charged with its safekeeping. He falls in with a dour eunuch, a functionary of the Court of the Amir in Qurtuba, and a perfidious, possibly drug-addled, heretic. And what part might a libidinous Norsewoman play? Ahead of him lie spying, fighting, loving, torture and tragedy … and the discovery of a hideous truth.

 

As Ants to the Gods is an alternate history adventure that challenges some of the orthodoxies and assumptions of Western culture. For adults only, certainly not for the faint-hearted or easily shocked, it is a ribald and irreverent exploration of a world that could have been.

 

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Cover artwork by Alison Buck