Interesting, well written and some nice ideas, but for me, wow, a long read that seemingly never ended.

What if, instead of monekys evolving, another creature evolved to reach our levels of self awareness? What if that creature were spiders? Well, this book will give you a good run for your money.

Split, mostly, between a new civilization of sentient spiders and a space ark containing (what we presume) the last cargo of earthlings, the story tells itself over centuries, if not millennia (it's not really clear - just enough time for spiders to become astronauts!).

On one side the story looks at an evolving species and dips in and out of time to see how they're getting on, how science evolves, how society evolves and most interestingly, struggles to break free of their DNA wiring.

On the other side, floating away in space a space ark ship, run by "key crew" and carrying a cargo of the last dollop of humanity. Space sleep, stasis, what have you, is used to let the characters jump over centuries of time, and start to slip out of sync of eachother's ages.

The responsibility of carry the last of humanity and even the sheer amount of time on a ship that was perhaps designed for shipping and not generations of the living are examined, and this is certainly interesting.

The book, at 600 odd pages though, for me, took me a long, long time to get through. 2 months in fact. I found it really hard to feel any kind of connection with the spider society and evolution which probably dragged my reading along.

I loved Dogs of War by the same author, and I legally remember it being quite epic. But with this book, it was beyond epic and around the 60% mark I was just wanting it to end.

The end of the book does close off with some really nice and aspirational ideas, but for me, this just too long to get to and fell short of what felt like work to finish the book.

Recommended if you like your space operas. Possibly pass if you're unsure. I'm not sure I'll be quick to pick up another book that spans an epic time period for a while!

16 Highlight(s)

Location 9

Only-child humanity craved the sole attention of the universe.

Location 101

It would be more diplomatically advantageous if Fabian was not killed and eaten during the throes of passion.

Location 154

She may then kill and eat him, which is thought to be a great honour for the victim, although even Portia suspects that the males do not quite see it that way.

Location 210

her own survival is not necessary for Bianca's plan to work, even though she would personally prefer it.

Location 252

The world is falling apart, and Portia is shocked at how little it has taken for this to occur. She had never realized that her whole civilization was such a fragile entity.

Location 319

that division of man against man that was the continual brake on human progress.

Location 322

'Two things, you said. Two reasons.' 'Oh, yes, he's completely nut-bucket crazy.

Location 397

Everyone was too busy doing the work to pass on the knowledge.

Location 440

It had been a rough few weeks. The universe had been given centuries to absorb the shock, but not him. He had been woken and pounded, woken and pounded, and the rigid stasis of suspension offered him no capacity to recover his balance.

Location 452

absence of success did not mean her experiment was a failure.

Location 484

The heat that she is generating has nowhere to go, being surrounded by so little air. She begins the slow process of boiling within her own skin.

Location 498

His somewhat disjointed briefing now looked in retrospect like a man fighting for his composure – and holding on to it, just. Against all expectations, Karst was coping. Come the hour, come the man. Also, he might be drunk. Holsten realized he couldn't tell.

Location 531

Still gouting out its contents into the hungry emptiness of space,

Location 536

It took a long time to work out how to do it, but in the end she was only information, after all. Everything is only information, if you have sufficient capacity to encompass it.

Location 561

Nobody had mentioned fighting an army of spiders for the survival of the human race,

Location 598

Life is not perfect, individuals will always be flawed, but empathy – the sheer inability to see those around them as anything other than people too – conquers all, in the end.