Jumping spiders are my best friends, I’d raise them if I could keep anything alive. As-is, I just try not to bother them when one takes up residence in a corner of a room.
Portia spiders are used to pre-populate a terraformed planet (among a few other species like ants) before humans arrive but [minor spoiler] they eventually take over the entire planet and develop an advanced society. Which causes an interesting conflict when a lost group of humans do arrive much later than planned via spaceship.
The sequel book takes the same concept but uses an octopus takeover of a water planet.
Funny, was thinking the same thing. The audible version is great. Book 1 is pretty good. If you want, stop it there and there won’t be too much you are missing. I’ve listened to the three that are out, this is my preference but would say I enjoyed all 3 but not a lot of value added after the first one.
Oh I didn't know there was a 3rd one. But yeah the 2nd one had some slow wading moments, basically the obligation to make it have a beginning/middle/end type story under insane constraints while keeping it plausible. But it's worth the price of admission to nerd out on some earth species taking over some local region of space in another solar system.
