Ask Steve Perry

[Locke]

No just a personal preference 'cos he liked Aliens and didn't care much for them being killed off in Alien3.

(From memory - he may well refute that)

I hate to put it like this, but would you consider the books to be somewhat of an alternative story-line to aliens? Putting Wilks and Billie as Hicks and Newt, respectively.

[SM]

Some books and comics are okay, but they have no bearing whatsoever over the film continuity.  Call it an alternative timline if you like.  Personally I call them "The Banned Histories".

[Locke]

Some books and comics are okay, but they have no bearing whatsoever over the film continuity.  Call it an alternative timline if you like.  Personally I call them "The Banned Histories".

That's what Maledoro and I were talking about. The "alternative timeline" or "other universe" excuse for things that don't fit. But I do like to think of them as almost like a "what if" scenario, the "what if" being if Hicks and Newt survived, albeit several years after the events of Aliens.

[maledoro]

That's what Maledoro and I were talking about. The "alternative timeline" or "other universe" excuse for things that don't fit. But I do like to think of them as almost like a "what if" scenario, the "what if" being if Hicks and Newt survived, albeit several years after the events of Aliens.

By that, all that's changed is your label. For example, the "What If?" comics, novels, etc., all have to rely on the Good Ol' Alternate Universe Cheat in order to work.

[Locke]

That's what Maledoro and I were talking about. The "alternative timeline" or "other universe" excuse for things that don't fit. But I do like to think of them as almost like a "what if" scenario, the "what if" being if Hicks and Newt survived, albeit several years after the events of Aliens.

By that, all that's changed is your label. For example, the "What If?" comics, novels, etc., all have to rely on the Good Ol' Alternate Universe Cheat in order to work.

I know. But I do hate to think of it like that. I do agree with you about hating the "alternate universe" excuse.

[maledoro]

But I do hate to think of it like that.

♪ Don't stop believing. Hold on to that feeling... ♫

[Mr. Weyland]

The super-pred business makes sense in the context, but I'd lose the hellhounds and birds, they aren't necessary.

Thank you Steve, somebody who's on my side about losing the hunting dogs and Birds, not sure why the hell Predator would need trained animals in the first place.

Also, just wanted to say I bought 'Predator turnabout' not had time to read it yet, still going though 'Aliens DNA' but, its going to be interesting in what you come up with, without going from a comic, though I do like 'Aliens nightmare asylum' with it also being the first novel I have ever read and everything, I was 12 at the time.

Any plans on future books, though I have been away from the forum in over a year, I have noticed there's not been any new novels out since 2008.

[Gate]

What inspired you to write Turnabout? That's by far the best book that I have purchased under you. All I have left are the 2 AvP books after Prey.

Spoiler

Also, would you agree that it seemed kind of rushed, the way you killed off Regal? In my opinion, It would've been a little nice if Sloane and Regal had gotten some dialogue from each other, but that's just my perspective.

[close]

[Fujimaster]

WOW!!!! I cant believe it. I loved reading your books! And reading them again, and again. Thats why I love this site.  A chance to talk to the guys that made it all happen. And still dropping by after almost 3 years, thats true dedication to your fans.

[RakaiThwei]

A question for Mr. Perry, and I hope he replies.

Since you and Stephani invented the Yautja concept which has been popular for many years, and since a majority of the concepts have been adapted into the Alien vs Predator films, games and of course, a plehora of novels and comics.. my question is this:

Now that it has been established in Rodriguez's PREDATORS that the Super Predators are a different clan than the ones we've seen in Predator, Predator 2, AvP and AvP-R, would you say that there are many Yautja clans which operate differently from each other? Are there more clans who follow the traditional means of hunting or are there more like the Super Predator clans who do it more for the sake of killing and not so much for the honor and thrill?

-Rakai'Thwei

[steveperry]

Been a while since I dropped by -- browser messed up and I got busy and didn't fix it. Lazy in my old age.

I can't really speak to some of the ins and outs of the uber-plotting in the A, the V, or the AvP series. If you don't want to do the research on an existing world, it's much easier to make a new one up.

My most recent foray into was Turnabout, and that one an original idea -- using "original" loosely. I offered up four or five storylines for an empty slot they had, and IIRC, we wound up combining two of them into the book. My daughter was going to write it, but got into a time-crunch with her Aliens book, so I wound up writing it instead.

Movie universes tend to hold the movies up as canon and the EU stuff in comics or books or whatnot as less so, but sometimes, they like an idea and borrow it. Some of the material in a book might find its way into a movie, and thus becomes more established.

As far as I know, nobody sat down and worked out a backstory on any of the movies past what was necessary to get the pictures made originally. Predator II stuck that xenomorph skull into the mix, but I don't know if that was before or after Chris Warner and Mike and Randy came up with the AvP concept.

The Wilks/Billie/Newt/Hicks stuff had to do with legal rights and that it was later spoken to was probably as confusing as it was enlightening. Was what it was, and what we had to work with.

The book market is soft right now, and I haven't heard about any new ones coming out in the A, V, or AvP universe. If the next movie gets made and does okay, I expect there will be more of a demand for new novels and graphic novels.

[SiL]

As far as I know, nobody sat down and worked out a backstory on any of the movies past what was necessary to get the pictures made originally.

Dan O'Bannon had the Alien's backstory licked; Ridley had a few ideas. The Thomas brothers worked out quite a bit of the Predator backstory.

but I don't know if that was before or after Chris Warner and Mike and Randy came up with the AvP concept.

It was done in response to it, as a joke.

[DeadCities]

A couple quick questions Mr. Perry, the creator of the predator (I can't remember his name at his moment) said once that the design of the predator was based on the rastafarian warrior. Did you take that into account in any way when building a Predator culture/mythos? What was your main source of inspiration for the Yautja? And finally, what is it like working with a co-author, did you have any creative diffrences? If so, how did you resolve them?

[steveperry]

A couple quick questions Mr. Perry, the creator of the predator (I can't remember his name at his moment) said once that the design of the predator was based on the rastafarian warrior. Did you take that into account in any way when building a Predator culture/mythos? What was your main source of inspiration for the Yautja? And finally, what is it like working with a co-author, did you have any creative diffrences? If so, how did you resolve them?

I saw the dreadlocks, but no, I didn't consider the Preds to be Rasta-men from another world. I thought about a warrior/hunter culture, and there were three scense: the single-combat scene with Ahnahl;  the don't-shoot-the-pregnant-woman scene in II; and the Pred leader giving Danny Glover the old pistol, and allowed that the culture had some kind of honor. I thought the samurai aspect of being willing to die played, so we tossed that together and came up with what we came up with.

In writing collabs, sometimes there is a senior and junior writer and the senior gets the final say. In collab with those of equal or nearly-equal skill, it's common to agree going in who gets the final draft; otherwise you can kick a project back and forth forever. Some teams feel they need to agree on everything and they won't let the project go until that happens. It depends on the writers.

My daughter and I didn't have any creative differences that I can recall.

[Meathead320]

Steve, in Female-War, when you described the "Mother-Queen", the description sounded very different than what was in the Dark horse comic.

I never really like the Dark-horse art depicting her, and she looked too much like a Cricket.

The version you described, in my mind looked more like a overgrown version of the Queen we saw in the movie Aliens, and I liked your description much better.

Just wondering what you were envisioning when you described her in the book.

I remember you said 8 meters tall, and four arms (like a normal Queen), and in the DH comic she looked like an insect, and did not even have arms.

It's a different form. I have to paint a picture with words, which are poor tools compared to pictures. Everybody brings a different viewpoint to a story; you work with what you got, do the best you can.
I don't recall the exact timeline, I might have seen A2 by then and incorporated that into my description.

Cool. Well, even though words are poor tools you did a great job.

What I imagined based on your description was Far better than what ended up on the page of the comic.