* P R I N T A B L E * V E R S I O N *

ROBIN HAWDON
P L A Y W R I G H T
a rustle in the grass
((Published 1984 by Hutchinsons as their Book of the Month))
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At a distance the countryside appears to stretch quietly and idyllically under the blue sky. Peaceful and untroubled, far from the wars and woes of man, nature moves through her timeless cycles.
But look closer. For there in the secret world beneath the grasses lies an empire in turmoil. A great leader has died and, as the enemy prepares its armies for war, rebellion is whispered through the undergrowth. There, in the kingdom of the ants, hidden from the gaze of man, a young warrior searches for his identity and fulfilment as the old order collapses around him and his turbulent community struggles to renew itself, whilst preparing to defend itself against obliteration by the forces of tyranny.

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E X T R A C T

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“....only two large tree lengths from where they were standing, rising out of the flat rippling grassland like a great rock anchored in the sea, stood a vast ant mound. Higher and wider than anything within the capabilities of their own species to construct, it was a monstrous edifice of mingled earth and sand, pine needles and dead grass stems, broken here and there by uneven patches of living grass and occasional sprouting flora which had taken root upon its surface. And upon this surface, teeming in their hundreds, mounting and descending in purposeful, ordered lines, spreading out across the surrounding countryside in lordly phalanx and with arrogant step, were the enemy they had come to find.”

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