Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Breeding Ground - Sarah Pinborough
I love giant spiders. I don't know what it is about them but I've always enjoyed watching movies about them. Even regular sized spiders actually. There is just something creepy about the long legs and multiple eyes and sucking the fluids out of people. Not to mention the webs. They just make great villains for me.
So needless to say I was stoked about reading Breeding Grounds right from the moment I saw the cover. Spiders, score! And that enthusiasm carried me through most of the book. I loved how the spiders came about. Not the explanation of it, which I'll get to that in a bit. But the way they were birthed out of people. That was a bit original and suitably gross. The way Matt was too preoccupied to notice the slow collapse around him was a nice touch that kept things hidden from me until just the right time. And there were other aspects of the setup that was nice. The image of Chloe standing in his living room eating raw meat, dribbling the blood down her chest, and "talking to Helena" was great. I'll never forget that.
Then we get to what effectively was part two. Survival. Scrounging for resources, meeting new friends, typical apocalypse survival stuff. Again I thought Pinborough did a fine job here. All of the actions made sense for the characters and their states of mind. They keep Nigil around which is obviously a bad call but you really can't expect them to abandon him. And most of all, the creepiness of the spiders just amps up. They don't rush Katie, they can impede electricity in the vehicles, and they even follow them to wreck the vehicles as they cower inside a building. They can even read minds! I'm getting more and more interested.
Then they all get to Hanstone. And it all just falls off. The tension Pinborough developed for over half the book just dies as they enjoy weeks of just hanging out safe behind electric fences. Sure there's some bickering, but what happened to the awesome spiders! Aren't they the villains? Instead we shift gears to developing Nigil as a villain. It just didn't work for me. Sure, he's a jerk and I liked it when he finally snapped and the final showdown and all, but I just wanted more of the spiders she spent so many pages making me love.
There is one other issue that irked me as well. Questions. The ones she answered that she shouldn't... GMOs? Really? Deaf blood? Really? were bad enough. But there were a slew that were never answered. Why did it take so long for Katie to be affected? If they can impede electricity, why didn’t they do so to the fence? Why were the spiders so terrified of one dog? I mean granted it's blood was acid to them but these spiders are smart enough to know to take out vehicles, I'm sure they could find one of their number prepared to sacrifice for the greater good. And if all the men are erupting into spiders, aren't George and Matt hosed anyway?
All of these just stole my enjoyment out of the ending and made it flat. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. Which really disappointed me because the first half fed my every spider horror desire. Now I need to watch Eight Legged Freaks to make up for it.
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I think you mentioned all the problems I had with the story. The beginning starts with this horrible take over of spiders via women. Woo! They do the apocalyptic run around and shimmy. Then they make it to a safe haven and the spiders stop being a serious threat, now humans are threats! No. You're right, if the spiders can take out a car's electricity, then they can disable an electric fence. But really what got me was all the unanswered questions. How in the hell was this not a massive event BEFORE (almost) every woman gave birth?! The MC's boss said even his wife was acting weird. He's described as old so this made me assume his wife was probably past menopause. So now she's pregnant? Why aren't they freaking out? Was it only a deaf person's blood that was acid to the spiders or everyone's blood? If the spiders are telepathic then being deaf wouldn't matter, talking into someone's mind doesn't require ears. At the end the male spiders start bursting out of the men, but does this even matter since they're still inside the electrical fence and the spiders can't escape? Do all the men die? Too many unanswered questions for me to enjoy the story and pick it up again.
ReplyDeleteArachnophobia is my spider movie of choice. I still remember sitting in the theater when my cousin tickled the back of my neck... needless to say I was traumatized.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with you a hundred percent here. The setup was fantastic and I kept waiting for the big payoff at the end. Unfortunately the ending just left me with too many questions. I think a big part of making a creature this complex and interesting is coming up with explanations. We don't need the nuts and bolts science but we need something. And at the end instead of the sense of hope I think the narrative was going for I just assumed everyone was about to die... a real bummer.