Spider Legs - Softcover

Anthony, Piers; Pickover, Clifford A.

2.82

157 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812564898 ISBN 13: 9780812564891

Publisher: Tom Doherty Assoc Llc, 1999

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

At a time when Earth's hungry inhabitants demand more than even the ocean's endless boundaries can provide, strange things are born in the oceanic depths--things that the sea throws back up onto the land in retaliation of decades of pollution and abuse. Reprint.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Publisher:

"Quite a change of pace for Anthony.... The characters are sketched in skillfully, but from the outset we know this is going to be mainly about suspense." --Science Fiction Chronicle

"Bucky fuller thought big, Arthur C. Clarke thinks big, but Cliff Pickover outdoes them both." --Wired

From Kirkus Reviews:

Man-made monster yarn written by nonfiction author Pickover and rewritten by Anthony (Faun and Games, p. 1167, etc.) into a school-of-absurdism ecological rant. In the waters off Newfoundland--an island where, according to the authors at least, all four seasons occur simultaneously, and drunken Dutch dwarfs are a notable feature of the population--a sea spider the size of an elephant attacks a boat, ripping a woman to shreds and driving her husband insane. Visiting St. John's, luckily, is Harvard invertebrate-expert Nathan Smallwood, who'll team up with some of the locals--cop Natalie Sheppard, fisheries officer Elmo Samuels-- to investigate. Also on the scene is Elmo's irascible sister Martha, proprietor of a tropical fish store, karate black belt, biology whiz, and secret hater of humanity. Martha and Elmo look scary, having inherited their father's abnormally long teeth and fingers. Anyway, Martha has genetically engineered the giant sea spider as a predator to reduce the human population. Nathan and Natalie take a ferry trip to try to capture the creature, with mayhem the predictable outcome. Meanwhile, cross-country skiers set off despite the absence of snow; more ludicrously still, Elmo (father's name Elmo) was born in Milan, while Martha (Jewish father Ismar) hails from Silesia; other inconsistencies abound. Some promising characters blundering around in a madhouse: a showcase of what goes wrong when writers, editors, and publishers sleepwalk through production. -- Copyright �1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.