Web (novel)
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 First edition hardback cover |
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| Author | John Wyndham |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Michael Joseph |
| Released | April 1979 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 187 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7181-1797-2 |
Web is a science fiction novel written by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. The novel was published by the estate of John Wyndham in 1979, ten years after his death.
[edit] Plot summary
The events depicted in Web are written from the viewpoint of Arnold Delgrage, a man suffering from what would now be described as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They revolve around a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on an island in the Pacific Ocean remote from civilization, which has suffered fall out and been cursed by the original inhabitants. As a result, intelligent and communally acting spiders have evolved on the island, acting in a manner that endangers all life in the vicinity. As in most Wyndham novels, the key information concerning unfolding events is actually provided by a female character, Dr Camilla Cogent. It is Cogent who first realises that the spiders inhabiting the island chosen for the utopian experiment have evolved intelligence, it is her actions that allow Arnold Delgrage to survive to tell the tale.
A reader of Web is left feeling that it is an unfinished work, without the normal polish of Wyndham's other works. One wonders at the character names, which seem like place holders, Camilla Cogent is indeed cogent, another practical female bit player has the surname Deeds. It does however introduce concepts that are familiar to readers of current thinkers such as Richard Dawkins with much given over to the pressure of evolution and the greed of any species to propagate their kind at any expense. As in a number of other Wyndham works such as The Chrysalids and Midwich Cuckoos the spiders are a new species, potentially able to dominate the world to the exclusion of humankind. There is nothing, in Wyndham's view, sacred about humankinds place in nature nor any such thing as the balance of nature. As in other Wyndham novels, one root cause of the rise of the spiders is humankind's testing of atomic bombs.
Unlike almost all other Wyndham novels, such as The Kraken Wakes, Day of the Triffids or The Chrysalids there is little hope at the conclusion of this novel, the spiders are being found by Camilla Cogent in locations all around the globe, despite the nuclear bombing of the island which was their source.
| John Wyndham |
|---|
| Bibliography |
| Novels: |
| Foul Play Suspected · The Secret People · Stowaway To Mars · The Day of the Triffids · The Kraken Wakes · The Chrysalids · The Midwich Cuckoos · The Outward Urge · Trouble with Lichen · Chocky · Web |
| Collections: |
| Jizzle · The Seeds of Time · Tales of Gooseflesh and Laughter · Consider Her Ways and Others · The Infinite Moment · Sleepers of Mars · The Best of John Wyndham · Wanderers of Time · Exiles on Asperus · No Place like Earth |
| Filmography |
| Feature films: The Day of the Triffids (1962 film) · Village of the Damned (1960 film) · Quest For Love (1971 film) · Village of the Damned (1995 film) |
| Radio |
| Radio adaptations: The Day of the Triffids (radio) · The Chrysalids (radio) · The Kraken Wakes (radio) |
| Television |
| TV adaptations: The Day of the Triffids (TV series) · Chocky (TV series) · Random Quest · Consider Her Ways |
