The Valley of Spiders

By H. G. Wells

Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the fugitives for so long expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fantastica
• Release date: Mar 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787242180

H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells (1866-1946) is best remembered for his science fiction novels, which are considered classics of the genre, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He was born in Bromley, Kent, and worked as a teacher, before studying biology under Thomas Huxley in London.

Book preview

H. G. Wells

The Valley of Spiders

Fantastica

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Published by Fantastica

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This Edition first published in 2017

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ISBN: 9781787242180

Contents

THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS

THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS

Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the fugitives for so long expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.

For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. It spread remoter and remoter, with only

Reviews for The Valley of Spiders

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book is a collection of 13 short stories which have largely been forgotten and probably with good reason. Most are around 15 pages long.Now there is a mixture of tales from flesh eating creatures and plants,voodoo type practices and ghosts to name a few which are ideas which have gone on to grace various novels. The title story itself is flesh eating spiders. Three men are in pursuit of a runaway woman and her companions when they come across a valley with a strange mist within it. That mist turns out to be spiders travelling on the wind on spores (which really does happen in nature) attacking and eating that they alight on. Unfortunately it is not overly obvious why the woman ran away or just why the men and in particular the leader is so keen to catch them. Then all the men turn out to be something of cowards with the leader killing one of his companions which makes none of the characters particularily likeable.Spiders are often seen as sinister so it is an easy sell to make the flesh crawl a little and many of the tales are pretty creepy but for me they lacked any real depth and the endings were on the whole fairly predictable to really stick in the memory for very long.For the record my favourite story was probably 'The Inexperienced Ghost' which made me smirk but this book is really only for H.G.Wells most ardent fans.

[stephenbarkley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While in high school I found second hand copies of H. G. Wells' classic works: The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine. I was completely entranced. Wells' writing is so matter-of-fact, it sounds convincing. I can understand why people panicked when The War of the Worlds was dramatized on radio!The short stories collected in The Valley of Spiders have that same convincing quality, but lack the imagination of his major works. Of the 13 stories, only two stood out:1) "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham" is a disturbing tale of waking up in someone else's skin. Wells conveys the horror of coming to grasp just what has happened brilliantly.2) "The Door in the Wall" mixes childhood memory and adult disillusionment in one unforgettable package.Besides these two shining lights, the collection falls flat.