Finished Alien Prototype...
Out of the newer Titan novels, I'd say this was the weakest but had a few redeeming qualities to it.
The book starts off fairly well and had me hooked when describing Zulus dream of a skeleton bone alien, it was fairly well written and set the mood. But like a teenager, this books mood swings were all over the place..
I absolutely loved the Necromorph. Easily the highlight of the book and it already being an alien, vicious and brutal, adding in something like cellular necrosis was brilliant in my mind. It brought a new darkness to this beast that I thought couldn't achieve to be any more sinister. Each time the chapter would change perspectives to the alien, I was hooked. I really enjoyed being able to read about the battles it was having to procreate but spread this disease that it has. Trying to kill the alien became even harder and the pusulated lesions bursting over people or coughing up into a section of the bases air system to spread the sickness was a great read!
Then came the characters....all of them, forgettable and laughable at times. Like the recruits playing a joke that almost turns into a death on Zulu because she's always so mean as their boss...uh ok.
I know Zulu continues on from this in comics, I believe, but I frankly don't care. I couldn't enjoy her story, the way she trained the recruits or her past relationship with Amanda or the xenomorph. Her dialogue was sloppy and at times, felt forced by the writer in trying to make me believe shes supposed to be a strong individual.
Although Davis (Zulus Android stuck in an earpiece) was fairly interesting and his battle with the Lodges AI in a chapter made me think of tron. It was different but overall worked for me.
Plus the way the alien escapes is extremely questionable. It's mentioned previously that the doctor, who's looking over the egg/alien, labs are extremely well enforced since he handles testing on subjects, especially with diseases. But the alien, once it bursts out of the volunteer, finds a small vent and escapes....and very casually goes back to running tests on the egg while sending his robot assistant to search for it in the vents. (Side note; I thought it was interesting that the author mentioned that the egg lips close back up. I don't believe ever reading about that happening in the other books and was really hoping that it might lead to something but doesn't get brought up again.)
Anyways, lots of up and downs in this one but I do have to say that this probably has my favorite written alien in the novel series so I'll take all the puss filled necrosis sprayed on me for that alone!
Oh that ending....so you're telling me no one noticed the three foot high egg in the warehouse before leaving the base...?
Next is Phalanx....
