Web

Not the best Wyndham, but even so, this is an underappreciated entry in his catalog. As is typical, he brings in multiple societal issues (colonialism, nuclear war). It is fairly straightforward story about utopia gone bad. In contrast to other reviewers, I found his detailed description of the island as quite illuminating as a frame for the environment that the "colonists" were going to encounter. In some ways, reads like a screen play. Looks like it was penned late in his writing career.

John Beynon Harris, writing as "John Wyndham," was one of my favorite writers. This book, first published a decade after his death, is one of his best. If spiders creep you out (like they do me), this book will give you the heebie-jeebies!

This was John Wyndham's last novel, but it was one of the first I bought, fourteen years ago. I had already read "The Day of the Triffids" and "Chocky". This novel was published ten years after Wyndham's death in 1969.The story is about an island called Tanakuatua, where a millionaire plans to build a community. The narrator, who lost his wife and daughter in a car accident, volunteers for a position as one of the "pioneers". Little do the settlers realize the island is inhabited by swarms of intelligent, deadly spiders. Radiation from nuclear tests gave the spiders' evolution a bit of a push.I have a feeling Wyndham had quite a fascination with spiders. In one of his early short stories ("More Spinned Against") a man who collects spiders meets a rather grisly fate. In another of Wyndham's stories, "Wanderers of Time", the heroes are in a remote future where swarms of intelligent ants rule the world. It seems like a similar formula was used for "Web": the idea of humble creatures becoming intelligent rulers.The premise is a bit reminiscent of "Them" (a giant ants movie), or "Swarm", a killer bees movie, but there is a certain degree of intelligence in the story.

John Wyndham had an ongoing interest in the way humans interfere with nature, possibly because his heyday was during and after WWII, when the shock of radiation from bombs and the onset of the Cold War hit home. In The Chrysalids (arguably his finest book), mankind was wiped out except for a straggling remnant coping with radioactive mutations. In Web, a bunch of idealists hoping to create Utopia wind up on a remote island infested with intelligent - and lethal - spiders. Most of the characters are not well-developed, but stand in for stereotypes, but this is a very exciting book once it gets going. The implication is that the spiders mutated after humans did A-tests, so we are about to reap what we've sown. Wyndham's writing is crisp and clear, and the only problem I have with the book is the lack of depth in the characters. But the plot is terrific.

The version of "Web" that's most likely to come up on an Amazon search is a Penguin Readers "retelling," intended for children and people learning English. Don't order it if you're looking for John Wyndham's original novel -- you'll only end up puzzled and disappointed, as I was when I opened the package this morning.(And ignore my rating. It's only there because Amazon insists on one.)