Breed out the Scary
Breeding Ground was an interesting novel to read. I liked the premise, although, having a pregnant wife didn’t make the opening of this novel easy to read. I would read some, then put my hand on my wife’s belly and feel our son kicking and think it was some spider thing eating her from the inside out. Because of that, this book was all the more scary for me, at least in the opening.
There are a couple of places this book didn’t hold up for me. First, I felt that society fell way too fast. The main character was only under his girlfriends spell for a little while and when he finally broke free, everything was changed. There was no one walking around, no shops were open and the world had died. I found it hard to follow the character as he went through his village plundering the local shops. I guess he went feral way too fast. I know there is a need to survive and, yes, it is strong, but things broke down too fast. The story lost reliability and readability for me there. I was still intrigued with the story enough to continue, but holding on tightly after that was a little hard.
The second thing that stuck out were the little jibes at the male audience. I remember reading along and then coming upon a short passage where the main character, a male, would think something un-male like. He would think something along the lines of, “because I’m a man, I can only focus on sex or food,” or “I tried to keep my eyes off her body but because I’m a man I couldn’t.” Little jabs at the male reader were unnecessary and it appeared as though the author was trying to make a social statement rather than character statement.
The third thing that kind of drew me out of the story was the sex scene. I am no prude, but I had a hard time reading through that. If this were a movie and my wife chose this time to walk in, I’d have some explaining to do. I really don’t understand the need for the scene and I think that only a female author could get away with just such a scene. If a man wrote it, he would be considered a pornographer or a pervert, but because a woman wrote it, the scene got a pass. I don’t know if I’m the only one that thought that, and if I am, then maybe I am a prude. And really, the main character jumped from one woman to another way too fast.
Lastly, why would the next evolutionary step, because of pesticides, be an insect? Wouldn’t pesticides on our food mean that our next evolution would move as far away from insecticides as possible? This is where the novel fell apart for me. I don’t think we needed an explanation, at least one that could be brushed past so quickly. This explanation came when it was unnecessary and answered no questions. My disbelief failed to be suspended here. The thing that I wished would have been answered was why the deaf characters blood was so potent. Does this mean that the next generation will all be deaf? Answer that one for me.
Anyway, despite all of this, I guess it has a place in the monster genre. The monsters were scaryish, I guess they would be scarier if you hated spiders. This was a new way to take monsters so it wasn’t too bad in that respect. The common themes were there with survival being of utmost importance and the human ingenuity that comes from the need to survive.
On another note, maybe this is my American oversaturation with weaponry, but really, how hard is it to figure out how to handle a gun? I know that most of Brittan is gun free, but come on, it’s point and shoot, not a problem. If you gave a camera to someone that had never seen one before, they’d be able to figure it out without any hassle and that has more moving parts.
There are a couple of places this book didn’t hold up for me. First, I felt that society fell way too fast. The main character was only under his girlfriends spell for a little while and when he finally broke free, everything was changed. There was no one walking around, no shops were open and the world had died. I found it hard to follow the character as he went through his village plundering the local shops. I guess he went feral way too fast. I know there is a need to survive and, yes, it is strong, but things broke down too fast. The story lost reliability and readability for me there. I was still intrigued with the story enough to continue, but holding on tightly after that was a little hard.
The second thing that stuck out were the little jibes at the male audience. I remember reading along and then coming upon a short passage where the main character, a male, would think something un-male like. He would think something along the lines of, “because I’m a man, I can only focus on sex or food,” or “I tried to keep my eyes off her body but because I’m a man I couldn’t.” Little jabs at the male reader were unnecessary and it appeared as though the author was trying to make a social statement rather than character statement.
The third thing that kind of drew me out of the story was the sex scene. I am no prude, but I had a hard time reading through that. If this were a movie and my wife chose this time to walk in, I’d have some explaining to do. I really don’t understand the need for the scene and I think that only a female author could get away with just such a scene. If a man wrote it, he would be considered a pornographer or a pervert, but because a woman wrote it, the scene got a pass. I don’t know if I’m the only one that thought that, and if I am, then maybe I am a prude. And really, the main character jumped from one woman to another way too fast.
Lastly, why would the next evolutionary step, because of pesticides, be an insect? Wouldn’t pesticides on our food mean that our next evolution would move as far away from insecticides as possible? This is where the novel fell apart for me. I don’t think we needed an explanation, at least one that could be brushed past so quickly. This explanation came when it was unnecessary and answered no questions. My disbelief failed to be suspended here. The thing that I wished would have been answered was why the deaf characters blood was so potent. Does this mean that the next generation will all be deaf? Answer that one for me.
Anyway, despite all of this, I guess it has a place in the monster genre. The monsters were scaryish, I guess they would be scarier if you hated spiders. This was a new way to take monsters so it wasn’t too bad in that respect. The common themes were there with survival being of utmost importance and the human ingenuity that comes from the need to survive.
On another note, maybe this is my American oversaturation with weaponry, but really, how hard is it to figure out how to handle a gun? I know that most of Brittan is gun free, but come on, it’s point and shoot, not a problem. If you gave a camera to someone that had never seen one before, they’d be able to figure it out without any hassle and that has more moving parts.