4 ms·

Maybe he learned about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(genus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(genus) , which are known to hunt "intelligently" (They

Maybe he learned about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(genus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(genus) , which are known to hunt "intelligently" (They plot their route instead of acting only by reaction)

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
anotherevan 10y ago
Oh man, I just finished reading Children of Time[1] which involves sentient spiders. One of the main characters was named Portia. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29776274-children-of-time https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29776274-children-of-tim...
- ccozan 10y ago
  thank you so much! I've read this book some while ago, I wanted to re-read it, but I forgot the name and couldn't remember it at all! OT: is there a place in internet where you can describe a book and someone maybe tells you the name author?
  - ErrantX 10y ago
    If it's Sci-Fi or Fantasy, StackExchange generally works: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/ http://scifi.stackexchange.com/
  - r721 10y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/
- animal531 10y ago
  Growing up there was also Spider World, which I really really enjoyed.
taneq 10y ago
I really hope some new species of Portia spider gets named P. icarus or P. rorscharch or something. Probably 90% of the people I meet who know of Portia learned about it from reading Echopraxia (or from talking to people who'd read the book.)
- gpderetta 10y ago
  Echopraxia is nowhere as good as Blindsight, but it was worth reading just to discover about Portia spiders!
  - taneq 10y ago
    Different books for different audiences. Echopraxia tries to be more accessible by having a baseline human as the main character and a vehicle for a bit more explanation, but in doing so it loses a bit of the hard edge that Blindsight had. I'm re-reading it now (we're just about back to Earth) and I think it's actually holding up pretty well.
    - gpderetta 10y ago
      Definitely. Blindsight was straight high-stakes first-contact horror, with a deep philosophical questions about consciousness. Echopraxia switched to action/adventure which didn't work as well for me. Also the philosophical themes (post-scientific discovery, god is a virus) weren't as interesting or believable.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

anotherevan 10y ago

Oh man, I just finished reading Children of Time[1] which involves sentient spiders. One of the main characters was named Portia. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29776274-children-of-time https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29776274-children-of-tim...

ccozan 10y ago
thank you so much! I've read this book some while ago, I wanted to re-read it, but I forgot the name and couldn't remember it at all! OT: is there a place in internet where you can describe a book and someone maybe tells you the name author?
- ErrantX 10y ago
  If it's Sci-Fi or Fantasy, StackExchange generally works: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/ http://scifi.stackexchange.com/
- r721 10y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/
animal531 10y ago
Growing up there was also Spider World, which I really really enjoyed.

taneq 10y ago

I really hope some new species of Portia spider gets named P. icarus or P. rorscharch or something. Probably 90% of the people I meet who know of Portia learned about it from reading Echopraxia (or from talking to people who'd read the book.)

gpderetta 10y ago
Echopraxia is nowhere as good as Blindsight, but it was worth reading just to discover about Portia spiders!
- taneq 10y ago
  Different books for different audiences. Echopraxia tries to be more accessible by having a baseline human as the main character and a vehicle for a bit more explanation, but in doing so it loses a bit of the hard edge that Blindsight had. I'm re-reading it now (we're just about back to Earth) and I think it's actually holding up pretty well.
  - gpderetta 10y ago
    Definitely. Blindsight was straight high-stakes first-contact horror, with a deep philosophical questions about consciousness. Echopraxia switched to action/adventure which didn't work as well for me. Also the philosophical themes (post-scientific discovery, god is a virus) weren't as interesting or believable.