3/7/24 5:14pm
hi. think i'm gonna give liveblogging a book a try!
i'll be listening to the audiobook of Natural Selection by Dave Freedman.
A shocking biological discovery. A previously unknown predatory species. Evolving just like the dinosaurs. Now. Today. Being forced out of its world and into man's for a violent first encounter.
Weaving science and thriller in a way not seen since Jurassic Park , Natural Selection introduces a phenomenally dangerous new species that is rapidly adapting in a way never before seen.
A mystery. A chase. A vast expansive puzzle. A team of marine scientists is on the verge of making the most stunning discovery in the history of man. In their quest for answers, they engage a host of fascinating characters. The world's premier neurology expert. A specialist on animal teeth. Flight simulation wizards, evolution historians, deep sea geologists, and so many more.
Along the way, the team of six men and women experience love, friendship, loyalty and betrayal. Together, they set off to exotic locales. Literally to the bottom of the ocean. To a vast and mysterious redwood forest. To an unknown complex of massive caves. When people start dying, the stakes are upped even further. Then the real hunt begins. . . .
Loaded with astonishing action sequences, Natural Selection is that rare breed of thriller, filled with intricately layered research, real three-dimensional characters, and tornado pacing.
my liveblog tag will be "bats reads natural selection" if you wanna follow along
3/7/24 5:15pm
so i'm around chapter 3 now. so far the book's pacing is kinda slow? but i'm not sure how much that has to do with me listening to the audiobook vs reading it?
the prologue is kinda useless. a lot of words to essentially just say "evolution is gonna come along and make a creature that is sooo scary just you wait." chapter 1 opens with two couples on a boat going to have lunch somewhere. we get a few cuts to "ooo there's something scary down there! it's gonna eat that seagull!" but i don't think any seagulls actually get eaten? the point is to establish the spooky critters can fly.
in chapter 2 one of the creatures gets left behind & ends up jumping onto the boat. it flops around a bit trying to fly while everybody hems and haws about what is that thing. one of the girls, theresa, knows enough about fish to know that this is some kind of ray. it bites her when she tries to help it off the boat but she's fine. the thing finally manages to fly off the boat.
theresa's like, hmm, i should look into this. she remembers this one time when she went to a manta ray aquarium that sucked because it didn't even have any mantas and decides to go ask somebody there.
gotta be honest, not really feelin the fishy frights here. the creature just seemed kinda sad tbh. i was kinda expecting the first chapter to be the typical first kill scene, which might have been cliché but it would have been better than what we got lol
that being said, the concept of a manta-less manta ray aquarium is just so funny to me. like, do they just have other rays on display? or do they just not have anything? are there even any fish at this aquarium?
"where are the mantas? oh, y'know. around. well okay we don't actually have any mantas. but we will. Soon. take a few more laps around the gift shop i'm sure they'll turn up eventually"
3/7/24 5:21pm
that's like twice now some dude has described theresa as wearing too much makeup. leave her alone! it's her face, she can do what she wants with it
3/7/24 5:39pm
dude's like "oh these randos, always coming in with some wild description thinking they found something new" when he's literally just some lawyer referencing a coffee table book on rays! he doesn't know what he's talking about either. at least theresa took one class lol
3/7/24 5:45pm
"oh yeah you're definitely gonna have kids someday and i'm gonna nickname you soccer mom because you're totally gonna be-" biting you biting you biting you
3/7/24 6:20pm
nothing i love more than putting the plot on hold to have a petty argument
3/7/24 9:52pm
i will say at least i do like some of the characters. idk if theresa will ever show up again but she was alright, lisa's interesting so far, jason & his cringefail annoying boyfriend no one likes are gay in my heart if not on the page
3/7/24 10:32pm
ooo is it happening? are we finally gonna get to see some violence???
3/7/24 10:44pm
FISH VIOLENCE FISH VIOLENCE FISH VIOLENCE YESSSS about dang time!
3/7/24 11:28pm
and then we go right back to dry science talk. it's all very fascinating but i wanna see some action!!!
i'm on chapter 18 of... 93. dear god
3/8/24 12:07pm
diving back in. i wish i could be giving more of a play-by-play but it really is just a lot of "what if it's gdv4" "it can't be gdv4" "what if it is tho" "what about the plankton?" "what about the plankton?" "could they be migrating" "nah they wouldn't do that" "what if they did tho" "look at this kelp they're teething on the kelp" "oh hey we found some teeth what kinda teeth are these" just on and on and on. and i'm sure there's a target demographic that would be eating this kind of thing up, but i'm a basic bitch who just wants to see a scary fish
3/8/24 12:38pm
this entire chapter really gives off the vibes of someone reading me a wikipedia article
3/8/24 12:48pm
you do not need to explain the entire concept of sonar to me. it's okay. i know about echolocation. i know what dolphins are.
3/8/24 12:56pm
this bit with the horde of evil murder rays hunting a pack of dolphins should be horrifying/exciting but it's rendered so dry by stopping to over-explain every scientific concept. like i genuinely do not care about this echolocation/ampullae of lorenzini click-measuring contest. also cutting the chapter like halfway through? before anything interesting has actually happened? this scene did not need to be broken up into multiple chapters
3/8/24 1:42pm
the constant "oh but rays don't do THAT" is starting to get to me. even at this point you've seen so much evidence that these are Not Like Other Rays why are we still doing this. like yeah, some skepticism is healthy but come on now. you are literally looking at a dolphin that was bitten in half. "oh but rays can't hunt dolphins" well clearly these can. you have the evidence.
i'd maybe be a little less bothered by it if i knew it wasn't just an excuse for the author to show off how cool and totally scientifically sound his murder rays are
3/8/24 2:17pm
the author is trying sooo hard to convince me that jason and lisa are Totally Into Each Other Seriously Trust Me Bro. maybe you could like, idk, let the relationship develop naturally rather than just telling me they're into each other now? or make the actually correct choice and just let jason and phil make out already
3/8/24 4:22pm
ugh right when i was thinking "maybe this character is alright" he kicks back off with the soccer mom shit. i hope he gets eaten
3/8/24 4:49pm
we've been in part 2 for a while at this point, but i can't really tell why this needed to be a part 2? we're still in the runaround, talk to this or that expert, speculate, look some more, yadda yadda phase
3/8/24 5:06pm
we keep having scenes where the experts are like "ooo this is from a very scary predator! it's probably super good at killing! be careful!" but there's just no tension. i know they're just gonna spend another 10 chapters running around in circles. i'll believe it's a deadly predator when i see it
3/8/24 10:51pm
oooo we got a title drop!!!
also i literally just noticed the recently used tags thing holy shit that's a game changer lol
3/9/24 11:04am
oh so now the lawyer's gonna preach to us about what murder rays can and can't do?
3/9/24 12:02pm
to be fair, it's possible this really is just a book about finding a weird new (possibly deadly) species. if that's the case it was just poorly marketed, and you can't really blame the author for that, though I would still say it's overwritten in places & some of the back and forth is still grating. if you go into it with the right expectations you might have a good time.
but i won't actually know if that's the case until we get to the end.
3/9/24 12:14pm
all of this hetero expectations of parenthood bullshit is making me nauseous can we get back to the wikipedia articles
3/9/24 12:19pm
oh fuck off, jason. if phil's contribution's are so important you should fucking credit the guy! degree be damned!
this is a terrible way to treat your boyfriend
3/9/24 12:51pm
also like what a cop out lmao. "oh there's Hundreds of murder rays evolving! they're gonna be surface threats! wait nvm only this special one's gonna do that"
3/9/24 1:01pm
okay, so we're setting up the phil betrayal arc. and you know what? i don't even blame him. and hell, at least stuff is happening, even if it's still not much
3/9/24 1:08pm
there's just something about including "learn how to shoot it" in your research on a new species. like yeah i know it's a murder ray but i know that this is a book
3/9/24 1:12pm
wait this thing is just a fucking dragon now ain't it? thinking of it as a dragon does make the book a bit better ngl
3/9/24 1:18pm
i am now imagining the plot of beloved syfy channel original movie Wyvern except instead of the dragon being released from a glacier by global warming it's this book's evil evolved manta ray
i was imagining it so hard i almost missed FISH VIOLENCE!
3/9/24 6:01pm
ugh jackass why are you even asking her if what she says doesn't matter and you're just gonna argue anyway??? she's agreeing with you!!!
3/9/24 6:10pm
for fuck's sake. why are we doing this. even if it was a bear that killed the hiker you are still supposed to be looking for the ray!!!!!!!! my god!!!
i could be watching wyvern. i should go watch wyvern.
3/9/24 6:33pm
on one hand i want to finish this thing, especially now that we're actually in the monster-movie portion. on the other i want to free myself from the sunk-cost fallacy and read literally anything else.
i think i'm gonna finish the chapter & skip towards the end to see if i'm really missing anything
3/9/24 6:40pm
skipped from 65 to chapter 90. what do you mean you don't know why a big cave makes you nervous. you are literally looking for the totally-not-a-dragon in the big caves. that's probably why.
3/9/24 7:02pm
the "final battle" was just so. anticlimactic. also after all that hemming and hawing about how actually only one of the rays made it to shore you really expecting me to believe plot twist! there's a bunch of them now! like really? be serious.
3/9/24 7:15pm
well. that was terrible. glad it's over.
if you wanna rec any actually good/silly aquatic horror, feel free.
wyvern's free on tubi btw. is it a perfect movie? no. is it even a good movie? many would say no. but it is a fun movie. and it is much better than this book.
3/14/24 1:21pm
so wait- coasties is an actual term for the coast guard, and not some shit natural selection made up???
learn something new every day lol
