Entertainment Weekly has just announced that Titan Books will be exploring the past of Aliens’ Private Vasquez in an upcoming novel from author V. Castro that will not only explore Vasquez’s history, but the family she left behind.
Aliens: Vasquez is set to explore the canonical background of Vasquez, as well as the story of the children she was forced to leave behind. Even before the doomed mission to Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, Jenette Vasquez had to fight to survive. Born to an immigrant family with a long military tradition, she looked up to the stars, but life pulled her back down to Earth — first into a street gang, then prison. The Colonial Marines proved to be Vasquez’s way out — a way that forced her to give up her twin children.
Raised by Jenette’s sister, those children, Leticia and Ramon, had to discover their own ways to survive. Leticia by following her mother’s path into the military, Ramon by entering the corporate hierarchy of Weyland-Yutani. Their paths converge on an unnamed planet which some see as a potential utopia, while others would use it for highly secretive research. Whatever humans have planned for it, however, Xenomorphs will turn it into a living hell.
Vasquez’s heritage and family has been explored several times within the expanded universe, most recently with Marvel’s Aliens: Aftermath featuring her nephew who was in search of answers regarding his aunt’s disappearance. In the 1990s Dark Horse’s Aliens: Colonial Marines featured Vasquez’s younger sister, Carmen, as a primary character.
While this will be V. Castro’s first foray into the Alien series, she is an established horror writer whose most recent work is Goddess of Filth and The Queen of the Cicadas. Aliens: Vasquez is currently scheduled to release later this year on the 25th of October.
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And the Aliens: Aftermath comic even added more convoluted things on top of that.
It apparently would not be the most ridiculous officially licensed story.
"Sir, we lost contact with the rifle platoon stationed at Hadley's Hope."
"Hmm. Very strange. Send one squad to find out why."
Did they report directly to Van Leuwen?
Canon.
I have never read that book.
Like Alien: River of Pain did for the bored Hadley's Hope leads? I hated that.
That's exactly the kind of radical idea that makes us all look like toxic fans. If it wasn't for ignoring the movies, we'd have never gotten a third cryotube on the Narcissus!
But then I'm the kind of person who thinks Solaris is a fun read and that's 90% people reading textbooks about a fictional planet.
Would genuinely dig this.
Edit-- maybe end the book with the last page being him going into a meeting about extraterrestrials. Never write a sequel to the book, to give the reader the most ridiculous set of literary blue balls ever.
Then when WY closes Fiorina 161 and tries to withhold information about the fate of the Sulaco team, he personally spearheads the cause to make an example of WY's corporate overreach. This results in massive sell-offs of WY stock that tank their value and make them susceptible to be bought by Wal-Mart.
And then I want Xenopedia to catalogue every line of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Vasquez-V-Castro/dp/1803363037/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1OFDTIQS3CTWZ&keywords=alien+titan&qid=1678617618&s=books&sprefix=alien+titan%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C277&sr=1-4
I think this is a solid story without the baggage of the Vasquez name attached.
It definitely had some cringe dialogue throughout but I enjoyed the length of time the main characters progressed story wise and at times felt a little like the older novels.
I think so far, the only book from Titan I actually liked was The Cold Forge. There are a few that are okay. Everything from there is just a slow slide down to a flooded basement where stuff like River of Pain, Colony War, and the Isolation novelization bob around in fetid, murky water.
This novel was... not good. I listened to it while I worked because I got a promo copy of it as an audiobook. It just starts on a shaky premise (for example, Vasquez having two kids she had to give up kinda makes her complete indifference to Newt pretty weird), and the military parts scream of an author completely unfamiliar with the military, and the science fiction parts by an author not really familiar with science in general. Honestly, she doesn't even seem familiar with the Aliens franchise, but I'll be fair in that the license is so muddled with contradictory depictions.
Might have been an almost interesting story about another Hispanic family in some generic military of the near future. But as an origin story for Vasquez the Colonial Marine from the film Aliens... not very much. If you can even call it that, since Jeanette Vasquez is only in about a third of the story. Vasquez is such a great character. I'd loved to have gotten a more thoughtful, series-faithful story about her background, about the rigors/challenges of being a Colonial Marine, about her friendship with Drake. Instead, this is just very dry, very slow, and mostly meanders about the lives of her two (adult) children. Even for a setting with cryosleep, slower space travel, and the potential of time dilation, it doesn't feel very well thought out.
I dunno. 1/5 for a fan of the Aliens franchise. Maybe a 2/5 if you just like near-future sci-fi.
Although that might be a little close to home.
To be fair all of your critiques were valid and I may have been caught up in just relating with the characters. Especially in regards to the world feeling a bit too modern day (I blame Covenant for normalizing the use of old music though!).
Titan dropped 6 books this year which is by far the most they've ever released in a year. Most other years sees 2-3 books released and 2017 had 4 if you include the Covenant novelization. I think they could've done a better job with spacing out the releases though as we got half of the books released in August. So while I loved getting so much content, we bordered on a quantity over quality scenario this year.
I'd forgotten about the
Spoiler
Spoiler
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All in all I'd probably rate this one a 7/10.
Aye and I think that hits closer to home for the authour
In 2022 we've had -
Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey (enjoyed)
Alien: Colony War (loathed)
Alien: Inferno's Fall (enjoyed)
Predator: Eyes of the Demon (enjoyed)
Aliens vs. Predators: Rift War (can't even get past the first 50 or so pages)
Aliens: Vasquez (indifferent to)
So 50/50. Could have been worse, but definitely not their best year. They've managed to break the tie-in curse and just have some genuinely unenjoyable original novels too.
So yeah. I still stand by enjoying the first part with Vasquez's background. But even then, it still felt very contemporary. This never really felt like an Alien book outside of
Spoiler
I did like that Leticia didn't get what she set out to do, and she made other opportunities. But again, it felt heavy-handed like some of the earlier modern politic commentary.
But the over all sensation is it just didn't feel like it belonged in the Alien universe. I didn't hate the book. I'm just indifferent to it. Wouldn't recommend to Alien fans.
I know you're mostly joking, but I gotta say I never minded the voice-over. Probably because I read the comic (several times) before I saw the movie. When it finally came out on VHS, I was actually surprised there was so little voice-over!
What about Blade Runner narrated by Harrison Ford ?