Customer Reviews

Spider Legs (Tor Fantasy)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I enjoyed this book very much for its odd characters and chillingly scary sea creatures. At times, the suspense was very high and the book hard to put down. The New Foundland setting was haunting and beautiful, and I don't think readers will have ever read a book quite like this! It is strange and absurd, biological, mystical, mythical. Hard to describe. You can't go wrong with this book.

The publisher calls this book "the ultimate crustacean encounter," and that it is! The quirky characters and setting enhance the book's appeal. "Twin Peaks" meets "Jaws." The depictions of the sea spiders are among the scariest creature-scenes I've ever read, and some of the attack scenes had me squirming for more. Loaded with fascinating biological facts and oddities.

Strange things are born in the ocean's depths... I can't wait until they make a blockbuster movie from this book. It would be more powerful than "Jaws" because the giant sea spiders are more terrifying, more deadly.

I notice that the West Coast Review of Books remarked: "Pickover has collaborated on a novel with the prolific Piers Anthony, and the combination of Pickover's theory and Anthony's fantasy should yield an intellectual tour de force without precedent."

If I were stuck on an island for a decade and could take only one book with me, Spider Legs would be the one. Funny, disturbing, shocking, apocalyptic, absurd -- lots of action and suspense. The book with its beautiful setting and odd cast of characters ring in the mind long after most books are forgotten. Long live the pycnogonids!

This book has so many wonderful and strange ideas that it is a must read for anyone wanting a "JAWS meets X-FILES" kind of book. There is suspense, horror, humor, oddness, absurdity, and a creature sure to win attention if this book is turned into a movie.

Funny, scary, and absurd -- all at the same time. The authors intend for the book to be jarring and strange, even nuts at times. The characters say odd things in odd ways. Weird events occur. The environment is evanescent, on the threshold of dream. Parts of it are serious, parts parody -- parts defying logic. And this is all good! It makes the book unique in a way that borders on Pynchon and Vonnegut. I enjoyed this book and recommend it.

I read Spider Legs on the recommendation of a friend. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It seems to me that some of the other reviewers did not resonate with the quirky characters and strange situations as much as I did. The visual aspect of the book was compelling -- the setting, the monstrous spider, and so forth. If you like scary tales, sea tales, plots with some absurdity, genetic engineering, marine biology, a little romance, Benchley tales, and a host of unusual characters -- then this book is for you. But you have to keep an open mind to the oddness of the whole story.

The plot revolves around sea spiders (pycnogonids) that are terrorizing a community in New Foundland, Canada. One of the lead characters is Martha, who has various genetic defects and is also a martial arts expert. The descriptions of the creature are unbeatable. Just keep an open mind and move with it. Enjoy the zany parts and the scary parts, and open your mind to absurdity -- and don't try to overanalyze the composite structure. Do this, and you'll love this book. It is definitely worth reading.

Spider Legs is not your ordinary science fiction book. The characters and motives are different to anything I have read. It remind me a lot of Relic and Relicary, where science, horror and suspense are intermingle together to create one bizarre but enthrilling story. The action is great and really scary. But what I love best is the relationship between Nathalie and Nathan and later Elmo and Lisa. The only thing that I think it was a little overboard was some of the scientic information that take away a little from the story but in itself the information is amazing about sea spider, marine life in general and our pollution situation in the world right now. It is a waking call of a sort about our interaction with Nature and how that can affect us. I really recommend this book if you love the sea and care about our world ecology, with an added amount of action and love to spice up things. ;-) I can't wait for more new science-fiction from Pickover. Also it is nice to see that Piers Anthony collaborate in this novel, adding some really nice dimesion to the characters and situation. Really a very nice combination.

The aspect I liked best about the book was the beautiful New Foundland setting and strange creatures. I think other readers will be fascinated!

I was really intrigued by the Pycnogonid (sea spider) as the monster and Newfoundland as the setting. It reminded me of the creature features from the '50s when monsters were a product of man's ignorant use of atomic power and often were confronted in unusual regions. "The Atomic Submarine" (chasing a UFO in the Artic) and "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (atomic test releases dinosaur near Greenland) are examples. The ice floe fields, forests, and stone cliffs of Newfoundland offered an interesting (but underused and undervalued) backdrop for the story.

In Spider Legs the theme takes a unique twist. The monster is not an atomic perversion of nature wrecking havoc among its creators as in the movies "THEM" and "The Giant Behemoth". Instead it is a planned mutation intended to take vengeance on an enviromentally ignorant mankind. Where the '50s scientist fought the monster to save the world, Spider Legs has the scientist create the monster to punish the world. Part of the wonder of the '50s was the promise of science to bring a better future, a view that usually put scientists in the role of saviour. Spider Legs reverses the image by pulling its scientist into the role of villain with the world's saviours comprising a team of more common folk (a self-educated fisheries officer and a cop) as well as a scientist.

I credit the uneven delivery to the merger of the two authors' talents on reworking one author's manuscript. The novelty of the monster and the initial chapters of the book laid a great suspenseful groundwork for the rest of the story. The creature rising from the depths to attack the yacht reminded me of Benchley's great white or squid. Yet the rest of the story didn't play off the initial suspense, falling into formulaic segments that didn't quite mesh into a satisfying finish. The romance between the scientist and cop was amusing, but predictable. The physical deformity of the brother-sister characters was unique, but seemed not so much integral to the story as intended to add a touch of the grotesque. That the sister was a martial artist didn't sync with her antisocial attitudes. I couldn't imagine such a disagreeable character being welcomed in a dojo long enough to reach a black belt.

I could buy the creation of the pycnogonid as an genetically-altered instrument of vengeance. But the license taken in ascribing the alterations in the book stretched credibility. Understanding the scientific foundation for the plot had better been a separate read. The '50s creature feature had a way of introducing the science as an integral part of the story; e.g., "THEM"'s giant ants as mutations from the White Sands proving grounds. The little known nature of the pycnogonid and its genetic alteration to monster-size were a large dose of science to integrate easily into the story. A more complex plot in a longer manuscript may have allowed time for it. Spider Legs as written force fed the science to the detriment of the story. Finally, I had trouble accepting the premise of sea spider as invertebrate Nautilus. Growing one to the size of a small sub, I could buy as science fiction. Riding in one using tactile manipulation of nerves as a steering column strayed into science fantasy. I tend not to like blurred plot lines of science-fiction and science-fantasy in the same work.

I could not buy into the heroes going out on a ferry to pursue this creature. It telegraphed the mayhem to come like the slasher movies have done in recent years. Developing a more realistic approach to the creature's pursuit may have allowed time for more scientific explanation in a natural story setting. The ferry attack provided the captive focus as Jaws did, though with a rushing, much less comprehensible lead in.

For its environmental theme, its monster founded in reality, and its Newfoundland setting, Spider Legs had a lot of promise. It's a good read that could have been better.

On page 60 Elmo helps convince the police that a spider killed a woman. On page 66 after a TV news report of a giant spider "He would have laughed it off.. had he not seen that woman's head" On page 250 an electrican manages to restore some battery power to the ferry. Nathan sees instrument lights come on, then dim. He then walks to the coffee shop, and on page 252 the 'air conditioner' stops running. It's not due to weak batteries: a woman is electrocuted with 'thousands of volts on page 258. These are not 'nits,' the whole book is full of logic errors. Piers has written books I happily re-read to experience golden moments again. Lately, he seems convinced that it will cost him a dollar to hire a proofreader.. If a friend asks for a recomendation, refer him to an older novel, when Anthony still put some craftmanship into his work.