The power of Biology

Adrian Tarkovsky's book reads like a traditional space opera from the golden age of SF. What sets it apart is the focus on biology, as the author carefully documents how a spider civilisation could look like:

• the spiders didn't use speech but communicated through vibrations and scents
• knowledge was passed through genetics, rather written word
• wars were won by reprogramming the enemies rather than exterminating them.
• since the spiders lived on a new planet, there were no fossil fuels so the scientific revolution of the spiders was different than others
• the early spider civilisation was matriarchal 

Future humans terraform a planet and, through an unfortunate accident, infect it with a nano-virus that significantly accelerate the evolution of spiders. With their new found biological advantages, the spiders evolve from a species of lonely predators into a space traveling civilisation.

W...