This Book Is Full Of Spiders: David Wong

A very decent sequel. In my eyes, the only downside was that the action was non-stop in this one.The first book seemed a bit more well-paced and a better mix of scary-action-comedy.This one just hit the ground running and the action was relentless all the way through.

Peccato esista solo in inglese, ma comunque un bel libro!

I was already familiar with the work of David Wong with “John Dies At The End”, and this new adventure of John and Dave didn’t deceive me ! Funny and interesting it’s really a great book !Even though the cover tells to not open it I just have one thing to say “Seriously Dude Open It” !!

David Wong's John Dies at the End blew me away upon reading its first hardcover release in 2009. I devoured it over 12 consecutive hours, much to the chagrin of my subconscious. I was understandably anticipating its sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders, and let it be known that it's one of the few sequels that handily outdoes the original.Where JDatE satirized both Lovecraftian horror and explores our collective fear of free will (or rather, lack thereof), This Book is Full of Spiders is an awesome send up of the zombie subgenre and, perhaps, the last work of fiction that ever needs to be written on the subject. It's also a compelling work of societal horror, drawing off of Wong's analysis of the so-called "Monkeysphere," as originally discussed on Cracked ([...]Structurally, This Book... is a more cohesive work than its predecessor, likely the result of having been composed more or less in one spurt than JDatE, which was by the author's own admission three books in one. Wong very effectively continues to develop his three main characters (Dave, John and Amy), increasingly using third person narration to track the individual adventures of the latter two. While it might not be as mind-numbingly scary as the first, it's just as--if not more--thought provoking and a worthy sequel. Hopefully it as well as its predecessor will enter the horror canon one day.

Douglas Adams meets Stephen King (the best one), they get high on LSD and write a book. That's how twisted cool this book is.You just buy it and read it NOW!P.S. The prequel, John dies at the end, is crazy sexy cool too, you should read that one too and/or watch the upcoming movie.

Spiders is an excellent book for those of you with that uneasy feeling that the world we live in is not all that it seems. Wong has shown he was capable of mixing creepypasta-level terror with crude body humor in the previous title (John Dies at The End) and it's sequel does not disappoint one bit.As a note, I will say definitively that this book is not for everyone, it includes concepts that are on level with those of the wildest "They" conspiracies that any paranoid schizophrenic has ever come up with. Not to mention, the author insists, without a disclaimer ever stating otherwise anywhere in the book, that everything depivted in the book is the truth. Anyone with any trouble separating fact from fiction should not touch this book. Anyone who is not inherently familiar with Internet culture should likewise not touch this book. Anyone who is easily offended by grotesque imagery of dismemberment, mutilation, carnage or male genitalia should not touch this book. On the other hand, well-adjusted intellectuals (with an admittedly lax sense of sophistication) can get a lot of enjoyment out of this book and it's predecessor.With a lot of focus on the nature of humanity and how social mechanics clash with our primal urges, the author makes obscure connections that paint a bleak and horrifying portrait of the universe and our place in it. Many have described Wong's work as being like "Lovecraft with poop jokes" and they are absolutely correct. In fact, the entire tone of Wong's message is encapsulated in one of Lovecraft's most famous quotes:"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."Some of the themes in Wong's work include the idea that there are entities that view humans on the same level that humans view insects, or even bacteria. That there are forces outside our understanding that are molding the path of mankind for their own diabolical and incomprehensible ends. That our own inability to comprehend our role in the cosmic scale will result in our destruction and that there is absolutely nothing that anyone can do to change that.For those who have read the first book, all the major survivors from the first book make appearances and don't disappoint. Character interactions are more in-depth thanks to Wong's decision to jump from perspective to perspective in each chapter (familiar to readers of George R.R. Martin's Songs of Fire and Ice series). If you are expecting the same type of stories as the first book, you may be disappointed, or thrilled. The situations are a bit more... frantic and chaotic this time around, which may sound odd, considering the events of the first book. Wong raises the scales in just about every aspect to create a much more epic, apocalyptic tone for the story. The story is split into three parts, with each chapter counting down to some inevitable unpleasant outcome, creating a fast-paced intensity that can drag even a casual reader through the book in one sitting (if they have the stomach for the imagery). The author is also acutely aware of reader-expectations and well-versed in the psychology of pop-culture, evidently drawing from his experiences and research as senior editor of comedy article website, Cracked.com.In fact, anyone familiar with Wong's internet writing will see many familiar topics in Spiders, some being quite blatant. Personally, as a fan, I found this exciting and refreshing, but I can see others having a difference of opinion there.As for those who haven't read the first book, you CAN pick up Spiders and read it without having read JDAtE. All of the characters are presented in a way that reintroduces them without ruining every plot point of the first book. In fact, I was impressed to read that except for one or two major spoilers considering characters' fates (this can be expected in any sequel, obviously), all of the major reveals and twists from the first book are left completely unspoiled, with only a couple dialogue hints that would only be caught by someone intimately familiar with the events of the series... like myself.To conclude, this book was a load of fun... I read it in about six hours over the course of two sittings, mostly because the storytelling uses many tricks to keep you hooked and pulls you right through it. It does a great job of mixing common phobias, social psychology, ideological aspects, inter-dimensional parasitic invasions and crude humor into a social commentary that will cause you to look at the world in a completely new way...Possibly because you may now know that an alien spider-like creature is living in your brain, controlling your every perception.

Dieses Buch ist der Nachfolger des Buches "John Dies At The End" und wie das erste Buch, ist auch dieses hier ein super Buch.Es hat den selben Humor und ich musste schon im Prolog lachen.Ich muss gestehen, dass ich das Buch noch nicht durch habe, trotzdem kann ich sagen, dass es mindestens genauso spannend ist wie der Vorgänger, wenn nicht spannender.Natürlich sind wieder einige Charaktere vom vorherigen Buch dabei, und es ist auch klar, dass wieder neue hinzustoßen.Es werden einige Anspielungen auf die Geschehnisse des letzten Buches gemacht, allerdings muss man das erste meiner Meinung nach nicht gelesen haben um im Bilde zu sein, da das meiste kurz erklärt wird, jedoch sollte man sich den ersten auf keinen Fall entgehen lassen und nachdem man "John Dies At The End" gelesen hat erfährt man logischerweise auch mehr, das einem in "This Book Is Full Of Spiders" nicht erklärt wird und man mehr Hintergrundinformationen hat.Alles in Allem ist das Buch meiner Meinung nach sehr gut gelungen und zählt seit dem Release zu meinen Favorites.