Dorval, QC, Canada -- Cyborg Insect Books is proud to debut a new novel, Antuna’s Story by Terry Birdgenaw, which launched as Amazon’s #1 Hot New Release for Young Adult Dystopian Fiction.

Neuroscientist Terry Birdgenaw never intended to write fiction, but his wife’s challenge and COVID-19 stay-at-home orders created a perfect storm of motivation and opportunity. Annoyed by plot suggestions that were too mature for her audience, Children’s Author, Ann Birdgenaw, suggested Terry write a backstory for her book targeted at young adults. Terry took the bait! But he enjoyed writing fiction so much that the backstory became a trilogy. Antuna’s Story is the first book of The Antunite Chronicles.

Antuna’s Story is about the early survival of insects transported to a far-off planet. The insects’ struggles between aggressive and altruistic tendencies are an allegory for human frailties, where the lust for power and hatred of others leads to widespread prejudice and racism. It’s a story about friendship and societal growth eclipsed by the horrors of war. A timely tale where a draconian ruler uses deception and oppression to convince his followers to eradicate groups he hates. Young Antuna, an ant heroine, becomes close friends with two bees, a termite, and a spider and encourages ants and other insects to work together to survive under harsh conditions until all hell breaks out.

“Antuna’s Story stars our six- and eight-legged friends, but really uses them as caricatures for our own most dark and worrisome wrong-turns, our troubled history. It’s an adventure that spans evolution, deep-space travel, and geopolitics.” Prof. C.M. Buddle, Entomologist & Associate Provost, McGill University.

The second and third books of The Antunite Chronicles will be released this Summer and Fall and also feature heroes battling leaders who use propaganda and tyranny to obtain power and wealth. Book 2: The Rise and Fall of Antocracy is an Animal Farm-like allegory about failed democracy, where the planet is placed in peril by the leaders ignoring a climate catastrophe. The rulers in Book 3: Antunites Unite create an Orwellian society that uses histrionics, bionics, and socionics to subjugate its citizens. An allegorical dystopian tale like 1984, it’s a brave new world out of this world, where freedom-loving spies from the nearby moon infiltrate the colony and start a revolution.

Although Birdgenaw riddled the novels with details about insect behavior, he is not an entomologist. Yet his Ph.D. studies in neuroscience and psychology allow him to understand human behavior and what makes autocrats tick. Insect and human behavior are quite similar, as both work together to enhance survival and fight those seen as different. Humans have the same core motivations as their tiny neighbors underfoot. Visit the author at Terry.Birdgenaw.WordPress.com.