Alien/Predator Novel Reviews

Started by Hudson, Aug 19, 2014, 04:55:43 PM

Author
Alien/Predator Novel Reviews (Read 70,504 times)

SM

SM

#510
Ah, righto.

Gentleman Death

Hicks,
I'd love to hear these interviews you did with the authors of the Alien novels. I'm having a hard time locating them...

SM

SM

#512

Gentleman Death

Quote from: SM on Oct 21, 2020, 11:31:28 PM
Here you go.
Awesome, I'll give it a listen soon!

HuDaFuK

HuDaFuK

#514
I twigged that Rollins was possibly a droid too.

Moore then mentioned in another forum that one character was an unannounced synthetic and asked if anyone had guessed who - I suggested Rollins and he confirmed it.

Corporal Hicks

Isn't that made overt in the audio drama too?

Gentleman Death

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Oct 22, 2020, 01:56:16 PM
Isn't that made overt in the audio drama too?

Haven't listened to any of the audio dramas yet so I'm not sure. Listened to the interview and it was good other than the fact that he couldn't discuss anything since it hadn't been released yet.

I think I might've heard it kinda garbled but did Hicks mention something about the end of events in Out of Shadows possibly leading into Prometheus or having something related?

felix

felix

#517
Just read Predator Stalking Shadows.

Yeah, this wasn't very good. The characters just felt off.

South China Sea remains the best Predator novel so far.

HuDaFuK

HuDaFuK

#518
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Oct 22, 2020, 01:56:16 PMIsn't that made overt in the audio drama too?

Sea of Sorrows is the only one of those I've not listened to.

Gentleman Death

Gentleman Death

#519
Finished River of Pain...

With this being the conclusion to the trilogy (Shadow and Sea being the first two installments) I'm happy it was last, as this was the weakest of the three.

I felt like this book at a lot of potential, especially with it centering around the fall of Hadleys Hope on LV-426/Acheron. Instead the first 200 pages wasted time on characters and stories that had no outcome or little to no involvement with the final product. Case in point, Captain Brackett and Draper. There was hinted at a possible power struggle and the two barely had any interaction. Why put this at all when the two are never together until the end and accomplished nothing?

The love story of newts parents, Anne and Russ, with Brackett being a past lover of Anne. It was a completely unnecessary and the story could've continued without it. Plus I feel it was only added to the story to somehow sympathize with how he feels with the end result.

It's briefly mentioned about the state of the planet being unstable a few years prior to the events happening at Hadleys Hope. Why? I don't know and confused as to how it was never was brought up again. There was a whole chapter of how the ground was splitting one of the processors....and then nothing, rather confusing.

Out of all the books I've been reading of Aliens, this one by far takes the cake on the weakest written chest bursting scene regarding Russ' character. I think it was, "He screamed in agony. Pain. Thing runs off." I had to reread the two sentences and roll my eyes.

This one probably bothered me the most. So, Russ comes back with the FH attached and they send people out to secure the ship. Instead of that, several people return with FHs attached, like 5 people. Now, Anne informed them what had happened but yet the people were stupid enough to go to the eggs anyway? Its a hard stretch for me. Annnddd when the aliens burst out from the colonists back at the med lab, they continue to let the aliens run off after coming out! Wtf!?

The little tie-ins to Aliens is nice though. Like why the marines weren't with Anne and Russ when they went to the location of the craft, I was wondering how the author was going to do that once I knew there would be marines at the colony.

I also liked how the aliens would "spit" on the humans faces to paralyze them so they could be moved easily. I hadn't thought of them needing to do anything like that but it makes sense and adds to it being even more intrusive.

Finally, the ending...now that I've read the trilogy and all three are open ended, what the hell happens...? Are any ever mentioned again? I mean, the ending to this was left with survivors...

The last 3/4s of the book was pretty good so it wasn't a complete eye roll. Overall I feel like the author did a swing and miss with this. Like I said in the beginning, it could've been so much greater, with the scale, fighting and outcome. Sadly it was mild when it should've been hot.

Bug Hunt is next....

Side note: below are the remaining Alien novels I have left. Should I read these in any type of order?

Prototype
Isolation
Phalanx
Cold Forge
Echo

SM

SM

#520
Chronologically they go:

Isolation
Prototype
Echo
Cold Forge
Phalanx

You don't need to read them in that order though.  They're standalone stories.

As for River of Pain, how you've described Russ's chestburster is so way off base that I'm having trouble believing you actually read it.

Absolutely there were missed opportunities in that book - and I would've preferred Colonial Marshals to marines - but without the character set up, there's no punch when the hammer drops.  Brackett has a past with Anne, which causes some drama with Russ - drama leads to tension and conflict; same deal with Brackett and Draper which leads to the race to get back to the escape ship;  Brackett's decision to stop marines accompanying colonists inadvertently has dire consequences, on his ex-girlfriend no less; the early chapter about earthquake is simply foreshadowing and setting up the terraforming concept with more than one processor.  And they didn't let the Aliens run off after they birth in the med lab - there's an argument over killing vs. capturing and before it can be settled, Aliens attack making it moot.

And yes, all three books in that trilogy have survivors at the end.  With the RoP survivors (mirroring the film upon which it's based) plus Fire & Stone plus the RPG repurposing the story again for the Hope's Last Day scenario, I'm surprised the marines found anyone in the hive in the film.  ;)

The consequences of Sea of Sorrows lead into the first book of the Rage War (though Lebbon buggered up the dates a bit), but there was no follow up for characters in OotS or RoP.  Brackett and co. could've hooked up with someone from one of the books you've yet to read - had Brian Wood not turned out to be a turd.

HuDaFuK

HuDaFuK

#521
Quote from: Gentleman Death on Oct 29, 2020, 03:01:28 AMBug Hunt is next....

Man that anthology was all over the place. Some of the shorts were excellent. Some were atrocious. Most were just kinda meh.

I'm with you on River of Pain being the weakest of that trilogy though. It comfortably had the most potential of the three, but as with Newt's Tale I felt like it largely squandered what could've been an excellent tale.

Quote from: SM on Oct 29, 2020, 03:40:22 AMBrackett and co. could've hooked up with someone from one of the books you've yet to read - had Brian Wood not turned out to be a turd.

That's a shame to hear.

SM

SM

#522
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that was going to happen - only that the timeframe would've fit.

HuDaFuK

HuDaFuK

#523
Ah, gotcha.

Corporal Hicks

It's been a little while since I read it, but I remember really enjoying the portrayal of the frontier-life and just how hard physically and mentally it was on the people who pursued it. I also really liked Brackett myself, I thought he was just such a good dude. That said, his saving of Newt's friend whose name escapes me at the minute was empty, because she was just a surrogate for Newt. Like with Out of the Shadows, I still enjoyed it quite a bit in spite of the issues.

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