I understand the appeal of this book. I loved A Fire Upon The Deep. But I was very disappointed in this one. It all came down to the spiders. 
 One would think that an alien species evolving many, many light years from Earth would end up with a culture, history, and technological advancement utterly alien (pun intended) to what Earth spawned. Instead, we find the spiders living in a near carbon copy of 20th-century Earth. 
 I know much of what we read with the spiders is supposed to be coming at us through translation. But to me that is just a cop-out. Almost the entire time we're in the heads of the spiders they feel completely human. They smile, frown, sigh, and steeple their fingers in contemplation. They have TV shows, churches, cars, and helicopters. They have spunky children, husbands and wives, and nuclear families. They have names like Smith and Brent. They even have a dominant nation grappling with a rival who is bankrupting themselves in an effort to come ahead in a nuclear arms race (Cold War). 
 This was such a wasted opportunity for me. Such a shame.