It is, however in his story the spiders gained intelligence from a "virus" that helped them accumulate and carry over experience across generations. BUT! The b

It is, however in his story the spiders gained intelligence from a "virus" that helped them accumulate and carry over experience across generations. BUT! The book and Tchaikovsky is still brilliant; he did a great job "thinking outside the box" by creating a thought experiment of "how would human-like skills, like reading, develop over time in non-human-like creatures, like spiders" - I'm pointing to the balls of spiderweb as "books". Tchaikovsky himself used to study zoology and had a focus in insects. Coincidentally he just turned 50 yesterday. Happy birthday to him!