Ask Steve Perry

[SiL]

Second Predator fell for Glover playing possum.

Ot-nay oo-tay art-smay.

[Corporal Hicks]

Doesn't mean there was any honor in the action. Just shows they have some sort of code, rules or etc. The whole honor aspect didn't become prominent until Prey and your vision of the Predator culture. The Thomas Brothers described the Predators as ruthless hunters looking for the best game. The samurai culture was your/comic invention.

I still don't agree. Just because he used it doesn't mean the Predators are intelligent. I'm sat here on a two screen AVID workstation researching animation and hunting at the sametime. I'm well aware how to create animations, I didn't find what I was looking for about hunting and I definately don't know how the PC works...but I'm using it quite well.

So we know the Predator/Yautja/Hish are capable of using technology well above our heads. Doesn't mean they understand it. I mean, taking AvPR into account the technology obviously isn't that sophisticated since Dallas uses the Shoulder Cannon/Plasma Cannon. It could be that someone else builds the technology for the Predator - which Mr Shirley stipulated and explained the slave races build them simply.

I can't recall a viable science fiction story in which a less-intelligence species took control of one way brighter. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Big and strong are good, but smart is better; else elephants would rule the Earth.

Don't think you've searched far enough. In lot's of sci-fi this happens and it's generally our pitiful race.

Lots of people do like the Yautja concept. Without you the Predator fanbase would be far smaller. I'm not arguing people don't like it. I searched out Prey years ago because of your interpretation and I found it interesting. I also found the Hish interesting. I'm the sort of person who loves to reads how different people interpretate different things. Forever Midnight went into a second printing BTW. I know it's probably not much compared to yours but people seem to like the Hish too.

In the end, I don't much in either Predator culture because when it comes down to it, it demystifies them. I like my P1/2 Predator as they are in the film. Ruthless hunters.

[AdamBombOi]

Lots of people do like the Yautja concept. Without you the Predator fanbase would be far smaller. I'm not arguing people don't like it. I searched out Prey years ago because of your interpretation and I found it interesting. I also found the Hish interesting. I'm the sort of person who loves to reads how different people interpretate different things. Forever Midnight went into a second printing BTW. I know it's probably not much compared to yours but people seem to like the Hish too.

In the end, I don't much in either Predator culture because when it comes down to it, it demystifies them. I like my P1/2 Predator as they are in the film. Ruthless hunters.

I just want to interject my opinion here....

A few years ago, when AVP came out FINALLY as a real movie... it made me miss the comics I got to grow up with... and then I found out about the Predator novels, and then I found out there was even a short series of AVP novels, and bet your ass I had to have them.

So I went on a shopping spree of comics, and novels. I had the movies in my possession and then I began finding more and more fan films - I was nothing short of obsessed for a bit.

...and then one day, I get some books in the mail. Concrete Jungle, Big Game, and Cold War... eventually I even got the rest of the Predator books... then I moved on to the AVP stuff, and holy shit was I blown away.

These were written like they were straight from the movies to me, they hunted REALLY well, had a TON of character development and struggles. They hunted with pride, and honor - and became true anti-heroes. It wasn't just for the sake of killing, it was more than that, and THAT made it respectable.

So, I read, and read, and read... then, there was nothing else for me to read. Then I find out in a few months Forever Midnight was coming out, and god damn was I excited! I preordered it, and the day it arrived, I was so stoked to read a NEW novel.





...and then I was disappointed. It stuck to NOTHING that was previously written, or shown in movies. Tell me when was a Predator in any film using humans as shields? Using mind control? Had there KIDS with them? Kissed each others asses? Changed genders? Flown around on silly platforms? I don't recall ANY of that, period. And it's not because I read Perry's work before I read FM that didn't make me like it, it's because it was so far out there it made no sense! Now, I  get that a lot of people like it, and that is FINE with me, but i don't get why, and I probably never will. You can't put Superman in a green suit and give him gills and sixteen arms and try to pass it off as being Superman.

Whereas in Perry's work, he at least, at the VERY least made them similar to the movies, Shirley's interpretation branched beyond the movies (and fell about 40 yards from having anything remotely in common with them) that are considered "canon."

That's why I didn't like it, and from what I've gathered from a TON of other Predator fans, THAT is why they prefer Perry's work, over Shirley's. --- Also, it's the main reason I like Flesh and Blood so much as well, the Hish name means nothing to me, they actually hunted, and acted like what was shown in the movies... not something forty thousand lightyears away from it.

[SiL]

I don't remember Predators talking like they've got cotton wool in their mouth in the movies, either...

[AdamBombOi]

I don't remember Predators talking like they've got cotton wool in their mouth in the movies, either...

Fair enough, but then again, we've never seen in the movies on going interaction with them that would lead us to hear their language... HOWEVER we have heard in Predator 2, TWO of them speak. One saying "motherf**ker" to Harrigan, and the elder at the end saying "take it" - soooo to assume they might have hunted humans long enough to have learned a small bit english, it's not to far fetched that Perry's interpretation of their own language isn't more practical based on what was in the movies, than the other things I pointed out.

[SiL]

Always made more sense to me that they could communicate in clicks and grunts. You can create quite a vocabulary with some basic sounds.

[AdamBombOi]

Always made more sense to me that they could communicate in clicks and grunts. You can create quite a vocabulary with some basic sounds.

Like the Hadza in Tanzania, they hunt with body language and clicks.

I was just implying that what Perry used in his books, makes much more sense than what was used in Forever Midnight.

[SiL]

It's all Greek to me.

[steveperry]

[quote I still don't agree. Just because he used it doesn't mean the Predators are intelligent. I'm sat here on a two screen AVID workstation researching animation and hunting at the sametime. I'm well aware how to create animations, I didn't find what I was looking for about hunting and I definately don't know how the PC works...but I'm using it quite well.
[/quote]

But you are intelligent, at least much more so than apes or dogs. That's where the xenomorphs live, in my opinion, down in the German Shepherd kennel.. No ape or dog can drive a car to the market, go in, pick up a loaf of bread, pay the bill, make conversatino with the checker, count his change, and then drive home, Lassie and Planet of the Apes notwithstanding, much less take a starship across the galaxy to go hunting various carnivore game species.

The base-level IQ has to be higher to run the gear. Rote only takes you so far.

You might not know how a PC works, but the guy who came up with the idea was human, and there are a bunch more like him running around. Every bit of technology you see is manmade, so your analogy is shaky. If you need to how some of it works in detail, the information is available -- there are humans you can ask.

As for mysterious, sure. That's why James Bond used to work -- you don't get inside his head. But for me, the latest movie, in which you see *how* he goes from being a newbie op to become 007 was much more interesting. Whodunnits are only interesting if you have to work to figure them out. If can tell who the killer is nearly every time, then *why* he dunnit is more interesting, at least to me.

As a book writer, I have to be able to get inside a character's head if I'm featuring him or her as viewpoint. Why they do stuff is important, it makes a link by which a reader can relate to them. Otherwise, why care what happens to them?

[Space Disc Jockey]

Steve,

Could you ever see a Predator female be invovled with hunts (humans, Aliens, etc)? Maybe, have a Predator female star in a Predator 3 or a new Predator novel?

[steveperry]

Steve,

Could you ever see a Predator female be invovled with hunts (humans, Aliens, etc)? Maybe, have a Predator female star in a Predator 3 or a new Predator novel?

I don't see why not. My daughter and I made a point of noting that Predator females were apt to give the males more grief than they wanted if they crossed them (much like human females can do) and I see no reason why a female predator couldn't be spotlighted.

[steveperry]

P.S. The DVD/Blue-Ray of the next AvP movie is going to have some nice extras -- including interviews with scientists and writers and all like that, including -- if they don't cut it -- a short piece with Yours Truly. If you want to see what I look like on the hot seat in front of a camera, check it out ...

[Commander Aun]

Steve,

Is it possible that you may do another of you 'Yautja' novels again? Or are your next predator novels (if you are hired) going to be like the Hish or the films? Or, do you want to do another AVP Yautja novel?

[AdamBombOi]

One question here... I was wondering if you'd ever be interested in doing a novel set in the past (pirates, vikings, or samurai)?

[steveperry]

One question here... I was wondering if you'd ever be interested in doing a novel set in the past (pirates, vikings, or samurai)?

I don't think those are on the table, last I heard. Be kind of fun to do one with samurai, though ...