Customer Reviews

The Spider World: The Tower

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dig

this is a great yarn, with a huge world to let your mind wander through. The first half is an interactive Discovery special on the insect kingdom, except you're trapped in the TV with them. Life is rough for the characters and you look up expecting your own skin to be sunburned and your belly empty. But it's all foreward moving, foreward thinking. Our hero grows on each page and ends the book thinking entirely for himself. The Spider Kingdom is at once frighteningly sterile, and exceedingly organic at the same time. The perversion of the insects seems abrupt until you meet the humans. Our yarnspinner Wilson is definitely trying to say something about the nature of the human race, and once I dream about it for a few more weeks, I'll be able to tell you what that message is.

The Tower is the first of four volumes in the Spider World series.

This visionary work chronicals events after a radioactive comet turns the world of man upside down. Spiders, and insects of all variety are now the masters in size -- leaving humans in the ackward position of not being somewhere closer to the bottom of the food chain.

Colin Wilson is thoughtful, erudite, and a damn good story teller. This first installment follows the life of Niall from his birth through capture by spiders, escape, interrupted revolt, and eventually... let's say we leave that to your reading, and in case you are wondering the butler did not do it.

The book has an excellent blend of story-telling, character development, action, budding love, and even a balloon chase. I especially enjoyed the vivid descriptions of Niall's life in the desert. Good science fiction starts with an outrageous premise followed by self-consistant, even logical, progression of events. In this case, Colin Wilson begins with the presumption of monstrous spiders ruling the earth after the passage of a radioactive comet. From this all follows. In fact, if not for this science fiction premise the book could easily be a combination of adventure, biographical history and nature writing.

But it is science fiction and the unnatural situation servers nicely to highlight the development of Niall through the events which follow.

A fine example of good story telling by a thoughtful and educated writer. There's enough to feed many aspects of the reader -- and perhaps leave him or her with more than a few thoughtful questions as well.

A Classic? Hyperbole of course...but it's an okay story, aimed primarily at a demographic of teenage boys. What keeps it from being a classic? The story was simply loaded with McGuffins-- the hero constantly stumbles upon the right solution/equipment/etc. for no apparent reason. Oh, there's a mysterious, impregnable tower in the middle of Spiderville? Let's have our hero stumble upon the key that's been buried in the sand for years and years. Can't locate the hidden armoury? Let's dowse for it! Can't defeat the spiders because they can control your will? Let's be able to defeat them because they can't control your will...oh, er...let's find energy weapons that have been stored for long enough for spiders to evolve into supersize sentient beings, but haven't lost their charge! We're surrounded? Good thing we stumbled into this building with spider balloons we can make our escape on--and please, pay no attention to the earlier chapter in the book in which we were specifically told the the balloons couldn't take the weight of adult humans, and let's get three people on each one! And so on...

Now, I have to say that I did enjoy the book, although I kept coming up against annoying stuff. On the plus side, it's a fun story. Most of us think spiders are creepy, and giant evil telepathic spiders make great villians. The rationale for their mind control is quite clever. The story took a 'real-life' toll on it's characters; Wilson killed off a lot of people--well before JK Rowling--and main characters, too; and he's made his hero have to make some decisions that didn't turn out well at all for those he loves.

But there was a lot of sloppiness, too--far too much. I was constantly wondering about the relative sizes of things, particularly in the scene where a 6 inch wasp kills a giant spider and drags it back into it's den...I couldn't make sense of that. And like the entymologist below, I was annoyed at the dragonfly larvae reference--no it wasn't, couldn't have been. Wilson should know his bugs if he's going to write about them. He should also know his ecosystems, if this is going to be a series in which man and his place in nature features--if all the insects are giant sized, how are there insectivores that are normal sized? What do the birds eat? Are the plants giant sized? If the aphids are giant sized, and the bees are giant sized, they're gonna have to go through HUGE amounts of plant matter--in a desert? Giant bees wouldn't even be able to land on a flower, much less survive off of the tiny amounts of pollen they would get.

There was also a peculiarity where the hero kept feeling an 'electric tingling' from the key...but he wouldn't have known what electricity was. Personally I was put off by the constant and obvious new-agey references, the world-energy, dowsing, and more, but I understand I'm not necessarily in the majority on this--what would Star Wars be without the force?

If you you enjoyed books such as "Lord Of The Rings" and "Dune" , you MUST read this novel. It makes you think and also entertains and takes you away to a "what if" scenario.

This book follows the story of a family of desert dwelling humans plagued by giant, super-intelligent spiders. The "good" characters are well rounded and likeable, and the "bad" characters are sinister and brutal.

The story is fast paced with many interesting twists to keep you turning the pages and there is rareley a dull moment. The locations are clearly described, giving an evocative mental image of the world in which these people live and the highs and lows keep you laughing or crying all the way.

I highly recommend this book, but keep a box of tissues handy if you cry at sad bits in books, it certainly tugged at my heartstrings many times along the way.

I read this when I was a kid and recently re-bought it to read again and give to my father as a present. I won't discuss the plot as I don't want to spoil it but this book is a classic. Definitely aimed at younger readers, I'd say teens. It possesses what all good teen oriented stories have, excellent readability. You feel totally immersed in the story and the pages turn themselves. Before you know it you have finished and you get that disappointed feeling you get when you have to leave a world you have begun to really inhabit. Embarrassing to admit, when you are 35, but I realise that this book is vastly more enjoyable than most of the 'adult' books I've read in the last five years.

Regarding the plot mistakes previously mentioned, I think the guy below is right about them saying a balloon wouldn't take a fully grown adult human's weight. I guess we must allow Mr. Wilson some small leeway and the editor's should have picked it up too. At least it gives reviewers the smug satisfaction of pedantry. Something we all enjoy if we are honest. And about the entomology, I think we should also allow the author to create his own world. The idea of a massive insect or the like growing to such size is widely agreed to be impossible. I think it's due to their breathing system or some such. If we can allow Mr. Wilson the licence to bypass this reality, and to create the fungus-squid things and sentient plants, then surely he can change a few entomological classes. So referring to an antlion as a form of beetle is something that we can overlook, but I disagree that the author is in major error by saying it's a juvenile dragon fly. It may be a different class of insect but its adult stage greatly resembles a dragonfly. It is similar enough for us to forgive this minor error. In fact it would be churlish to bring it up.

So in all, I really recommend to those who want to enjoy a real diversion. Next time you find a spider in the bath, you could be saving the future by flushing it away...

After reading the Desert I found out that there is a LOT of books in the series. So I decided to start buying up the hardcover books. The Tower has three of the stories in one. I am not sure if the paperbacks were published first or if the hardcover copies were first. But getting the hardcovers are cheaper in the end IF you plan to read all of them. And I do. The future of mankind, spiders and thought control. Who will become the masters of the Earth? Who should become masters of the Earth? Does the Earth need masters?

Posting a review on the Spider World series by Colin Wilson. Great read for you and your teen. Received the book in great shape/great time.

This is a brilliantly-executed adventure on par with the finest fantasy writing of the twentieth century. There is a richness of vision and an underlying philosophy in this work that complement its readability and make it fiction of the highest order. It's a profound page-turner.

The first in a series, followed by Spider World: The Delta, Spider World: The Magician, and Spider World: Shadowland.

Colin Wilson's Spider World : Volume 1, The Tower
I am an entomologist/zoologist and a life long fan of science fiction. It is rare to find a combination of good sci-fi and good biology, and I am still looking. Even with differences in entomology between England and the U.S., and the sci-fi factor, and possible editing errors, there are still far too many mistakes. I was very disappointed in the mistakes made that could only have been accomplished by lack of research. At one point in the story, one giant insect (the pit monster which flung stones up at our heros) was obviously an immature antlion, was later called a dragonfly (p.44) and was later called a beetle (p.53)! That would be like calling a bat a tiger, then later calling it a duck-billed platypus. It is insulting to the reader to think they are not smart enough, nor educated enough to know the difference. I could list numerous errors just as bad, but I have made my point.
With that said, I read the whole book and enjoyed it, despite my opening rant. Mr. Wilson has an excellent imagination. What truly kept my interest was the social stratifications between humans, spiders, beetles etc...Also, the sinister hint that the radioactive asteroid may not have been an accident, as well as Niall's growing psychic abilities has me buying the next book of the series.
If the entomology had been more accurate, I would have given this book a higher rating.