(This is unrelated to the article, but given that Vinge is one of my favorite authors I couldn't resist replying to this.) It's been a few years since I read "

(This is unrelated to the article, but given that Vinge is one of my favorite authors I couldn't resist replying to this.) It's been a few years since I read "Deepness", but I don't recall that the Spiders were ever referred-to as genetically-engineered. I'll definitely look into that. re: the perception of color - I took that to be the Focused translators' interpretation of the spiders' vision, rather than a literal description of the spiders' cognitive process. I've always read the portions of the book that take place on the spiders' world as being a narrative created by the translators, in which the incomprehensibly-alien spiders are made more "relate-able" by analogizing alien concepts with human concepts.