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the Spiders trilogy

Dawn of the Spiders

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A virus designed to control the burgeoning spider population causes them to mutate into overgrown, venomous killers. A large horde of the spiders take over the small village of Newtown, killing all but two of its residents. Laurence Johnson and Chloe Jones have only been together one night after Laurence parted ways with his wife. They find themselves trapped in the house with no way of escaping. Their only hope is to try and stay alive long enough for the army to intervene. Lorna Johnson is on the outskirts of town with nowhere to go and the spider invasion taking control. Her only hope of survival lies with a team headed up by Doctor Michael Briggs. He has a plan to stop the invasion before it gets out of hand. But he is running out of time and he is running out of allies. If he doesn't move quickly then mankind will face the darkest day it has ever known.

143 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 7, 2015

37 people are currently reading
51 people want to read

About the author

Brian O'Gorman

38 books11 followers
Brian O'Gorman was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire in 1974. He published his first novel Pharmacon in 2014 after years of writing unpublished short stories. He normally writes in the horror genre but has turned his hand to children's books and contemporary fiction. He is most famously known for his novel Dawn of the Spiders which has entertained and appalled readers all across the globe.

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5 stars
43 (27%)
4 stars
46 (29%)
3 stars
45 (28%)
2 stars
17 (10%)
1 star
7 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Profile Image for Laura Thomas.
1,552 reviews107 followers
October 6, 2025
Yep. This would be a good movie. The first thing I though of was some of those old black and white ones. Or maybe something along the lines of Eight Legged Freaks, which was actually scary fun.

It figures that the government caused the end of the world. They act first, never ask questions, and bang! There goes everything and everyone we know and love.

Now, a town struggles to survive as hungry mutant spiders cocoon it.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? I sure had fun, even though spiders are a phobia of mine. Perhaps it’s good for me to read about them. Maybe it’ll help me to face down those evil little monsters. Maybe not. I do know it was a thrilling read. And my heart goes out to those that didn’t survive.

Grab this book. It’s a fast thrill ride to a messy ending. Caused by the spiders, of course, not the author’s writing. That was good too.
Profile Image for Helen.
Author 29 books210 followers
September 21, 2017
When a virus causes spiders to mutate, the residents of Newtown don't know what's going to hit them. Blood, gore, and creepy gigantic spiders that are out for human flesh - I think you can guess what type of book it's going to be from the title and the cover!! This is a great read that keeps you turning the pages, even though you know that each scene is going to be worse than the last. Brian O'Gorman is definitely good at scaring his readers!
I'd like to say I never want to see another spider again, but I've preordered the sequel...
Profile Image for Lostaccount.
268 reviews24 followers
November 6, 2017
Badly written, appalling grammar (I mean shockingly bad), a simplistic formulaic twenty-years-out of-date plot, cheesy characters and unbelievable dialogue, juvenile and infantile and sex obsessed horror book about mutated spiders attacking the residents of a place called "Newtown". Sounded like a cool premise but so badly written and constructed that it's unbearable. There are fundamental problems with the writing that I don't think editing can fix (and this is the revised edition anyway!). I had to stop about 30-40% in, at which point I realised I was force-feeding myself this book to get through it, painfully, and just couldn't continue.

Profile Image for A. Rick.
Author 27 books12 followers
February 26, 2017
If I could give a lower rating I would

This has to be one of the worst books I've ever read and the most disgusting part was torturing myself to the end. The first third wasn't much more than poorly written porn with a brief teaser, and most of the rest was just poorly written, with more degenerate porn mixed in with a failed attempt at a decent story.

There 'might' be a decent 20 or 25 page short story hidden in there somewhere, but the author did his best to hide it amongst the garbage.

If I could give a negative rating I would,. The most embarrassing part, other than admitting that I read it through to the end, is that I didn't demand a refund.
Profile Image for Fred Rayworth.
451 reviews7 followers
August 3, 2023
Dawn Of The Spiders was almost a decent icky bug story. It certainly had plenty of mayhem and victims. The problem was the writing. This is an obvious self-published work and though I mostly enjoyed the story, I spent an awful lot of time cringing at the writing.

It was solid third-person, past-tense, but there was no point of view. The author head-hopped with abandon, a pet peeve of mine. The grammar had all kinds of issues with incomplete sentences and repeated words. The formatting was off as well with line spacing and justification. I would’ve enjoyed this “part one” story if it were edited. It’s obvious that spell-check isn’t enough to make good writing.

Overall, it was my kind of story but until the author hires a decent editor, I’m going to skip the sequel.
Profile Image for Kayleigh Brown.
159 reviews
March 1, 2023
Simple, affective horror

An author with an uncanny nack of taking the simplest of scares,the simplest of everyday fears and playing upon them. This book as with all of this authors novels are full of characters that are ultimately and fittingly flawed, imperfect. Characters and storyline you can totally get on board with and relate to on a completely human level. A story that will crawl Into you mind and play on your deep seeded fears with more to come. Ace!
Profile Image for Cyrene Olson.
1,413 reviews17 followers
March 1, 2017
Uncaged Book Reviews:

Another great read by Brian O’Gorman with spiders as the storyline this time. The storyline worked and I can’t wait for the sequel of this book, which Brian O’Gorman is working on at the moment. Keep your eyes peeled here for more details as we get them. Reviewed by Jennifer

Full review at UncagedBooks.com
Profile Image for Raymond.
Author 5 books5 followers
February 2, 2022
Enjoyable tale. my only issue was the increasing size of the spiders and there actions. i struggled to figure out how a spider the size of a person got under a closed door. but hey i am reading a story about mutated spiders taking over a town so that's the least of my worries.
Looking forward to the next one.
2 reviews
February 15, 2022
Total rubbish

This was laughably bad, no idea how it's ended up as a trilogy of books to be honest! Poor writing and a storyline that's been done better several times before. I do not recommend!
42 reviews
January 10, 2017
Good monster story

This was a fun little book that would make a great movie. I enjoyed every minute of it. Have fun
Profile Image for Chantal Pearce.
40 reviews12 followers
May 7, 2019
Loved this! Could not put this down I have read lots of apocalypse books this is in my top 10 very gory!
Profile Image for Teresa.
1,908 reviews33 followers
December 31, 2019
Hahaha. A book that cannot be taken seriously. A black and white 1960’s style horror story., except with sex!

Brainless, senseless fun silly book!
207 reviews1 follower
August 25, 2024
Fun

A fun, terrifying read. Not only are the spiders giant and dangerous. They are mutated and funky looking. Simple plot. Easy to follow.
Profile Image for Erin Escarzaga.
13 reviews1 follower
March 19, 2017
Great Book

I really enjoyed this book.....makes one think of the bio terror possibilities. ...if you liked the movie 8 Legged Freaks, you'll enjoy this...
17 reviews
March 13, 2017
More of an extended action sequence than a book...

O'Gorman does a good job spinning a creepy premise (mutated large man-killing spiders overrun a country village) into a fast-paced, gripping, extended action sequence -- sort of like a long short story. That said, the "bones" of the story are pretty weak. The origin of the mutations seems implausible, and the target of the protagonists (the mutant queen spider) makes an awkward appearance only in the last ten pages. Overall, this book seems like it needs further development to be an engrossing long story.
3 reviews
March 7, 2017
Good book

Enjoyable and fast paced. Very graphic. Not for kids. I would recommend this book if you like gory books with lots of sex.
125 reviews6 followers
December 5, 2016
Interesting

Interesting to read but the end just seemed to happen a nd that was it. .

Looking forward to the follow-up book.
Profile Image for Sandra Knapp.
530 reviews14 followers
April 6, 2017
I did enjoy this story. A fascination with spiders that started at a very young age, drew me to it, although I am very happy to never have met any spiders such as were found in this story. It would have ended my fascination quickly if I had. LOL

Anyway, here we have a man-made virus with good intentions gone awry. Of course! It had been noted that as the bee population was diminishing, the spider population was greatly on the increase, so it was planned to invent a virus that would prevent the spiders from breeding so successfully, while they worked to improve and aid the bees in building up their numbers. It was a screwed up idea to begin with, guaranteeing it would go wrong, which it did.

Still, a good story. Only one comment I have to make. I am going to say that I believe the author is British, simply because they overused the word "whilst" so many times during this story, it had my head spinning. And American authors never use the word "whilst." I believe it must be a word that is very British, as I've only heard it used when watching British movies and/or TV programming.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews

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