Predatory Instinct almost seems to be Author Michael McBride’s attempt at a mainstream bestseller. It has the “Almost-but-not-quite-Horror” vibe of the Preston/Child Pendergast novels, mixed with your run-of-the-mill thriller three-act pattern (1: Threat is vaguely teased to the reader, 2: Threat is revealed, runs amok, 3: Team of do-gooders invades the threat’s lair and hunts it.)….and the result is decidedly bland.
The book starts with the discovery of a previously unknown Human ancestor, a kind of “Missing Link” that we soon discover was not really missing at all, just hiding under piles of sand in a cave (???). (McBride never really explains the reason they hide in piles of sand, breathing through reeds, but it sure piqued my interest, so I guess that little throwaway piece of business did it’s job.) We don’t really discover just what the creatures are until waaaaaaay into the book, but whatever they are, they slaughter the team of Scientists that discover them, which causes military sociopath General Spears, the Father of one of the deceased explorers, to launch a scorched Earth revenge mission that leaves only one creature alive. Which Spears plans to smuggle back Stateside to use in genetic experiments to create the perfect soldier.
Needless to say, the creature escapes, and goes on the aforementioned rampage, which Spears attempts to stop. Stock Law Enforcement Officers Elena Sturm and Grey Porter are also tracking the creature, which leads to endless explorations of it’s underground lair, where the pattern of “stumble around in the dark until almost everyone gets killed, then run away and repeat again the next night” plays out over, and over, and over again, ad nauseum.
Predatory Instinct could have been an excellent novella, but it feels bloated and padded at it’s current length. McBride introduces an almost laughable romantic subplot that’s comical in it’s awkwardness, but the book’s biggest stumbling block is the murderous creature itself. The monster of the piece is a female cave-child, and that revelation took whatever wind was in the plot’s sails right out of it. I could almost buy all of the psuedo-science that McBride uses to create his invincible child, but all I could think of when I was reading the book was a piece I saw years ago on Entertainment Tonight, about former child star Emmanuel Lewis training to become a Black Belt……..You may be a Black Belt, but you’re two feet tall, so I could probably still kick your ass. I just never bought that a feral child, no matter how tough, could wipe out wave after wave of highly trained Mercenaries and Military men without so much as getting a scratch. Give me fully-grown cave-people any day of the week!
McBride can certainly tell a story, but Predatory Instinct could have been told with about 200 less pages.
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- The Deep - February 2, 2015
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- Dark Screams, Volume One - November 20, 2014
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- Monster & Madman - August 6, 2014
