Web

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 Web, by John Wyndham

John Wyndham wrote British SF classics like Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids, so of course when I saw this I grabbed it.  This novel was published posthumously, and I don't know if it lacked editing or anything like that; it seemed whole and complete.

The narrator is a fellow who gets involved with a scheme to set up a new, independent society that will evolve its own government, hopefully in a way that is better than ever before and which will become an intellectual and social center of the world!  It's backed by a rich lord, and they seek out a remote uninhabited island to live on.

We now break for a comprehensive history of the island; why is it uninhabited?  Well, it was habited by a nation of islanders, and while officially under the British Empire, was pretty much left alone until after WWII, when nuclear testing meant the populace had to be moved temporarily.  A few people refused to leave, and the island's high priest called down the curses of the gods onto the land and anyone who tried to live there.  After that, the islanders moved to a different island, and this remote little place was left alone for decades, until it was scouted as ideal for a New Utopia.

Halfway through the book, the pioneers arrive on the island with six months of supplies.  Everything is looking fine, except the biologist wonders why it's so quiet; there should be millions of birds, surely?  And almost immediately, things start to go wrong.  The sturdy radio equipment is smashed, cutting them off completely, and during a trip exploring the island, they spot mysterious brown patches on the beach, like clumps of seaweed...only these move, and Dave is killed.  The entire island, it turns out, is infested with  spiders; plain old ordinary spiders -- except they've learned to work together, and there are billions of them, and they're starting to migrate.......

 

It wasn't bad, but it was in the vein of your basic animal-disaster-horror story of the 1970s.  He was probably hoping to get a movie out of it. 

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