> Skip to content
  • Published: 2 January 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099478850
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $39.99

Cobweb



A gloriously prescient and satirically witty thriller of the first Iraq war, which suggests that Saddam was making biological weapons in Iowa, by the authors of Interface. A Manchurian Candidate for our time.

The Gulf War is imminent and there's something mighty strange going on in the Agriculture Department of East Iowa University. When an Arab student turns up drunk - and dead - in the lake, redneck Deputy County Sheriff Clyde Banks gets a feeling he's on to something big. It's a suspicion shared by low-ranking CIA agent Betsy Vandeventer.

But before two great minds yell conspiracy theory, in steps top US policy-maker James Millikan.
Here's a man well used to dictating the Middle East's future - from a comfortable seat at a top Paris restaurant. While shenanigans in the Midwest might not be exactly his style, there's a technique that serves America well in all matters of national security. It's called the 'Cobweb', and it backfires every time...

  • Published: 2 January 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099478850
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $39.99

About the authors

Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is the bestselling author of Reamde, Anathem; the three-volume historical epic the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World); Cryptonomicon; The Diamond Age; Snow Crash, which was named one of Time magazine's top one hundred all-time best English-language novels; and Zodiac. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Frederick George

Neal Stephenson is the author of The Baroque Trilogy (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System Of The World). His other books include Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Zodiac, as well as Cobweb and Interface, written in collaboration with Frederick George. He lives in Seattle.

Praise for Cobweb

Quicksilver: A tour-de-force ... Dense, witty, erudite and gripping, Quicksilver is ... an indication that Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is shaping up to be a far more impressive literary endeavour than most so-called "serious" fiction. No scholarly, and intellectually provocative, historical novel has been this much fun since The Name of the Rose

Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent

The Confusion Ideas about currency and calculus become thrilling because of the way Stephenson incorporates them into his story ... Huge in scope ... rich in detail ... This weird, wonderful collision of scholarship and storytelling has no peer

Time Out

Cryptonomicon: The Gravity's Rainbow of the information age ... an astonishing, monumental performance; and if the rumours of a sequel are true, I can hardly wait

The Independent

Praise for Neal Stephenson: I have seldom felt such humble, intoxicated, euphoric and droolingly grateful awe as before Neal Stephenson's ... Baroque Cycle

Christopher Brookmyre,, Glasgow Herald