Spiderlight in SpecFic Buddy Reads

Oct 18, 2021 Nataliya rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021-reads, netgalley, 2024-reads

Adrian Tchaikovsky is just SO GOOD.

“You set up a system of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and you wonder why it didn’t make people nice?”

This book tricked me, but in a very good way. You see, after the first few pages of Spiderlight I expected Dungeons and Dragons. After all, we have a questing party in the search of the Dark Lord that already came equipped with a mage, a cleric, a thief, a fighter and an archer, with the language that at first screams “sword and sorcery”. I was expecting a clever and prob Adrian Tchaikovsky is just SO GOOD.

“You set up a system of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and you wonder why it didn’t make people nice?”

This book tricked me, but in a very good way. You see, after the first few pages of Spiderlight I expected Dungeons and Dragons. After all, we have a questing party in the search of the Dark Lord that already came equipped with a mage, a cleric, a thief, a fighter and an archer, with the language that at first screams “sword and sorcery”. I was expecting a clever and probably sarcastic deconstruction of fantasy tropes, but what I got was something else, something deeper and darker and quietly angrier as the lighthearted(-ish) humor is slowly replaced with scary seriousness, and smiles and giggles slowly disappear.

Because damn, it went dark pretty quickly. Not fantasy-dark but human-dark. The petty awfulness that comes from “Us vs. Them” divide, that smug self-righteousness and superiority from belonging to the “right side”, the intolerance and despising of the “other”, the desire to elevate yourself by subjugating someone in your power. And even those who themselves experience the pain of prejudice by others can turn around and take it out on someone who’s in turn weaker and with even less power - that classic “kicking the puppy” example.

“It was just one more ready and convenient way to find them sufficiently alien as to be below her consideration.”

There’s quite a danger in someone feeling that they are on the “right” side, because with that comes the easy justification of superiority and the right to subjugate and exterminate those in the “wrong”.

“It was her task that had resulted in Nth being subjugated like this, he knew, and he was entirely certain that, when he had done what she needed him to do, she would have him destroyed. Despite the relative balance of power between them, she seemed to view him as some threat that must be wiped out the moment expedience allowed her to do so.”

Tchaikovsky shines at making you empathize with non-humans. Here he returns to spiders, but before you start feeling that deja-vu of Children of Time he introduces a different flavor of otherness and a whole other degree of relatability. And the result is all the feelings that you cannot escape - empathy and anger and heartbreak intertwining and weighing on you throughout the story and making it actually hurt. There was a particular scene in the book close to the end where I had to stop and take a few deep breaths just to help *me* get through the sheer impact of what was on page without wanting to punch the wall.

“That they had made him into this form, and were now sufficiently chagrined over it that they wished to hide him introduced him to another new word. ‘Hypocrite’.”

Do not dismiss this story after a few pages as just playing with familiar fantasy tropes, as I almost did, because their eventual deconstruction here is done in a way that can really resonate if you let it. There are dark depths here, and a ray of hope which really feels unsettlingly ambiguous once you think about it. By now I really learned to trust Mr. T to get everything right.

And also it’s a damn good story.

2024: The audiobook narrated by Adrian Tchaikovsky himself cemented the 5 stars. There is nothing that man can’t do, and yet again he also proved himself a superb audiobook narrator. And the book is just as wonderful the second time around.

5 stars.

“It had been that moment in Ening’s Garth, in the tavern there, when she had been drunk and angry, and it had spoken for itself. She had looked into that scrambled visage, those eyes, those teeth, and found that, in her mind, it had made the curious transition from abomination to simple monster.”

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Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Also posted on my blog.
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Sep 03, 2016 Lindsay rated it really liked it

A Dark lord, a world of Light under threat by the Dark, an adventuring party and a prophecy that says the path to victory is via the spider's path.

The adventuring party gains the help of a giant spider and transform him into something more humanoid so that he can pass through human lands. There's Dion, a cleric of the Light who is questioning her faith and the methods she is using, Penthos, a powerful wizard whose connection to the rest of humanity is narrow at best, Cyrene, an archer who strugg A Dark lord, a world of Light under threat by the Dark, an adventuring party and a prophecy that says the path to victory is via the spider's path.

The adventuring party gains the help of a giant spider and transform him into something more humanoid so that he can pass through human lands. There's Dion, a cleric of the Light who is questioning her faith and the methods she is using, Penthos, a powerful wizard whose connection to the rest of humanity is narrow at best, Cyrene, an archer who struggles with the way people treat her as a female warrior, Harathes, a knight of Dion's church and a consummate asshole and Lief, a thief. Penthos transforms the giant spider into a humanoid version of itself that the group calls Enth. He is under their control, but he fairly quickly makes it clear that he's not just a creature of the Dark.

There's a lot going on here and some of it doesn't quite work well together. The concept of Light and Dark and how that relates to good and evil is a large part of the point of the book. There's some pretty strong prejudices in play and these are questioned throughout, particularly in the characters of Dion and Enth. The book is fairly light and with some really quite funny references, but some of the elements are quite heavy. For instance, Cyrene is being sexually harassed by Harathes throughout, and some of the reason for that is Harathes trying to fit her into a traditional gender role to match his prejudice. But Cyrene starts out as the most prejudiced of the party towards Enth, even more so than Harathes.

Enth is an interesting character. He's subject to mind control by the other members of the party, so his agency is limited. That means that his viewpoint is unfortunately underrepresented overall, but when he does have agency it's all the more profound for it. It would have been nice to have more from his point-of-view, but that would have made the story be told from the perspective of a spectator for much of it. A minor related criticism is the gratuitous head-hopping in this book, particularly mid-scene. It can be a little jarring.

Overall, a good entertaining read that tackles some cool issues with the fantasy genre and with a really interesting non-human protagonist. There are some minor issues with tone and wanting more, but it comes out in favor of the book in the end. ...more

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Apr 15, 2025 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, 2025-shelf

Tchaikovsky hits this one out with a solid subversion of old fantasy tropes. Thank goodness.

It was also fun seeing a spider-turned human adventuring with warriors of light, with all that is implied, or guessed--and how it flips, and flips again before the end.

My synesthesia hears the patter of enormous spider feet behind me.

Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my s ...more

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Apr 24, 2025 Leticia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2025_tbr, 70-books-to-read-before-70, 2023-bingo, ebook_priority

A very original spin on classic fantasy, with humour, food-for-thought and all emotions running on their own volition, neither belonging to the light or the darkness.

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Oct 27, 2024 Lata rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2024-read, arc, sf-f-h

Playing with an idea common to epic fantasy: warriors of the Light must vanquish a Lord of the Dark, author Adrian Tchaikovsky kicks that overused trope over to look at its less salubrious underside, such as the misuse of power, bigotry, and who has value in society.

A party arrives in a forest because a prophecy says they must gather travel the spider’s path to the lair of the Dark Lord, who in this case is terrible and nasty and must be deposed. They’re there to collect a spider’s tooth, and fi Playing with an idea common to epic fantasy: warriors of the Light must vanquish a Lord of the Dark, author Adrian Tchaikovsky kicks that overused trope over to look at its less salubrious underside, such as the misuse of power, bigotry, and who has value in society.

A party arrives in a forest because a prophecy says they must gather travel the spider’s path to the lair of the Dark Lord, who in this case is terrible and nasty and must be deposed. They’re there to collect a spider’s tooth, and find a way to find a secret path to the Lord’s lair.

The party is made up of:
-Dion, a priest of Armes, who has Right on her side, and is full of tiresome virtue and rightness
-Penthos, a man who may be a powerful magician, but can’t read the social temperature of a room
-Cyrene, an terrific archer who battles male prejudice constantly
-Harathes, a pompous prick, I mean priest, of the Church
-Lief, a thief, who is a lot smarter and unexpectedly kinder than the others.

They manage to convince the mother of a brood of spiders to give them what they need, including one of her sons, whom Penthos transforms into a sort of man. The others are repulsed by Nth, as 1) he’s a spider, who is naturally on the side of the Dark, and 2) he does not fully resemble a human, with his too long limbs, greyish skin and multiple eyes. Nth has his mother’s imparted knowledge of a secret path to Lord Darvesian’s castle, and though the party needs his knowledge, Nth is mistreated, feared and misunderstood as everyone knows spiders are bad.

The party stumbles its way on their journey, while Nth gradually gains control over his body, learns to speak with the others, finds a friend in Lief, while quietly contradicting their beliefs about their cherished beliefs by his very existence and behaviour.

Tchaikovsky also points out the inherent unearned superiority and imperialistic attitudes and bigotry baked into these fantasy archetypes and religions; the humans abuse everyone they designate as not human, or monster, and feel they have every right to invade, take from and kill them.

Tchaikovsky holds a mirror to our perception of what a hero is, and it looks pretty ugly, as it takes much of the novel for the party to treat Nth as something more than a piece of garbage. What good is virtue or virtuous thought if one’s behaviour leads to abuse, exclusion and violence?

I love reading this author’s work, and this novel is no exception. I actually listened to this book, and have nothing but compliments for the author’s narration. The voices of each character is unique, and my favourite was Nth’s. The transformed spider’s confusion, pain, and gradual acceptance of his terrible situation is wonderfully conveyed, while Penthos’ voice was my second favourite. I liked the way Tchaikovsky communicated Lief’s sly humour, and Cyrene’s quiet anguish during her difficult conversation with Dion. I definitely recommend the audiobook to experience this entertaining book.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Macmillan Audio for this ARC in exchange for my review. ...more

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Oct 12, 2024 Cindy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi, giveaways-and-arcs, audiobooks

Written and narrated superbly by the talented Adrian Tchaikovsky, this quest tale takes place on a world populated by humans and sentient spiders (see Children of Time), many generations after first contact. The humans are kept in line by a religion that describes anyone not human as “of the dark.” Yet, to fulfill their prophecy and slay the dark lord, they need a spider as their navigator (a la Lewis and Clark). The story is engaging as are the interactions between characters. There is characte ...more

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