Alien: River of Pain (Book 3) - Reviews

Started by Perfect-Organism, Nov 18, 2014, 10:36:08 PM

Author
Alien: River of Pain (Book 3) - Reviews (Read 41,989 times)

Corporal Hicks

It calms down soon, don't worry. But it bookends with bits from Aliens to connect it to the film.

Corporal Hicks


HuDaFuK

Quote...but my focus was mostly on the scenes of Newt and her family from the Extended Edition of Cameron's Aliens...

So why the f*ck didn't they tie up with those scenes?

Ultramorph

Ultramorph

#108
I finished River of Pain last night, and I have to say that the Titan trilogy, for me, peaked right at the start with Out of the Shadows. RoP was fairly good, and definitely didn't leave me as unsatisfied as Sea of Sorrows, but certain elements of the book didn't work for me. Full thoughts, with spoilers, below.

Spoiler
First, the good. Golden, like Jim Moore, was smart to hold off on the alien action until the midway point. The way he sets up just how hostile LV-426 is, and the strain that that takes on the colonists, is one of the book's strengths. I'm very much looking forward to seeing if the stuff with the Arcturians comes more into play in the Rage War. Similarly, he does a good job writing the Jordens without it becoming cheesy or fan fiction-y. Brackett is a nice main character as well, though I would have liked to have seen a bit more remorse for how he was essentially responisble for what happened to the Jordens. It was there, but I would have liked to have seen his flaws and mistakes given more room to air out. Hoop still stands as my favorite main character of the trilogy.

As for the bad, I'm just not sure that it was necessary to change the universe as much as they did here. The secret escape ship read like something from one of the lesser DHP novels, and though it felt more earned, the Colonial Marines-esque ending felt useless, unless there winds up being a sequel with Brackett and company. Similarly, the cameos from Derrick Russel and the FaS characters were a nice treat, but ultimately I don't think it really worked. How The Company just missed what was going on with the jungle on LV-223 defies reason. On the same note, including the marines felt more forced than anything, as the story would have arguably been better if it had just starred colonists coping to survive. So, a lot of the premises behind the book felt needlessly over-complicated, and this is coming from someone who liked Ripley in Out of the Shadows.

All being said, I liked the book well enough, but it felt a bit unnecessary. I'm looking forward to Lebbon continuing the 25th century side of things in the Rage War.
[close]


A couple other points:

Spoiler
I really enjoyed how Golden handled Marachek, IE not actually having him as a character. The scene where the marine grills the researcher about how they got the living facehugger was one of the best in the book, and that kind of handling is what separates a well-written book from fan fiction.

As far as the Derelict, I didn't hate what Golden did. It wasn't as new or as exciting as the dog-alien ship scenes in OotS, but Anne and Russ's reactions to what they found were nice. The Engineer and alien queen locked in their death struggle bordered on cool and cheesy, but given what we've seen of the Engineers and the xenomorphs in FaS, the whole idea of a battle on the Derelict works well enough.
[close]

HuDaFuK

Quote from: Ultramorph on Jan 08, 2015, 09:40:40 PM
Spoiler
I really enjoyed how Golden handled Marachek, IE not actually having him as a character. The scene where the marine grills the researcher about how they got the living facehugger was one of the best in the book, and that kind of handling is what separates a well-written book from fan fiction.
[close]

I actually hated that scene. The Marine's reaction was yet another example of characters leaping straight to conclusions the reader knows to be true, but the characters themselves have no real evidence to suggest. The minute he saw that he knew what was going on, yet nothing before that suggested the colonists had to have been killed, nor was there any evidence it was intentional on the part of the scientists.

Corporal Hicks

Hadn't they seen the acid blood at this point?

HuDaFuK

Yes, but I don't remember them seeing anything to suggest taking off a Facehugger was fatal. Difficult, yes, but not necessarily terminal. Even if someone had died in the process, there was nothing to suggest it couldn't have been an accident borne out of desperation.

Corporal Hicks

Whilst I definitely agree with you about the conclusion jumping, I don't think that one was too much of a stretch. It would have been better if it'd been shown.

BTW we've got the Chris Golden interview back. I'm awaiting some response to follow-up and I need to get it all pretty but it should be up over the weekend. He didn't really want to talk about the mistakes so...that wasn't talked about.

janenad

He didn't want to talk about the mistakes? Now that's mature... -.-" It's just annoying me that his book had the most mistakes, and the most important ones! The worst thing is, the mistakes in his book were the hardest ones to make, it's one thing when someone forgets a set piece or some data from dialog in previous movies that interferes with what you're writing now, but here he had to just copy the dialog and look of the characters, and the obvious Jockey ship layout. It really does ruin the immersion.

Mr. Clemens

About the dialogue changes, I've been wondering: could that be a legal thing? Is a writer able to grab Cameron's dialogue whole-cloth and then say, 'written by Christopher Golden'? Something to think about, anyway...

HuDaFuK

Quote from: Mr. Clemens on Jan 10, 2015, 07:03:27 PMAbout the dialogue changes, I've been wondering: could that be a legal thing? Is a writer able to grab Cameron's dialogue whole-cloth and then say, 'written by Christopher Golden'? Something to think about, anyway...

But some of the scenes were verbatim...

Mr. Clemens

Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jan 10, 2015, 07:12:05 PM
Quote from: Mr. Clemens on Jan 10, 2015, 07:03:27 PMAbout the dialogue changes, I've been wondering: could that be a legal thing? Is a writer able to grab Cameron's dialogue whole-cloth and then say, 'written by Christopher Golden'? Something to think about, anyway...

But some of the scenes were verbatim...

Ah, didn't realize... I only remember the errors. :D

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: janenad on Jan 10, 2015, 05:40:14 PM
He didn't want to talk about the mistakes? Now that's mature... -.-" It's just annoying me that his book had the most mistakes, and the most important ones! The worst thing is, the mistakes in his book were the hardest ones to make, it's one thing when someone forgets a set piece or some data from dialog in previous movies that interferes with what you're writing now, but here he had to just copy the dialog and look of the characters, and the obvious Jockey ship layout. It really does ruin the immersion.

I was a little disappointed that he didn't want to but I guess there's only so much fan outrage you can take. To be fair to him, he did say he'd got mistakes he'd like to go back and fix but *shrugs*.

I still enjoyed the novel despite those mistakes - as easy as they were to makes. I've yet to read the perfect Aliens novel. And I'm still dying for it.

HuDaFuK

I think the errors are doubly disappointing in this one because the fall of Hadley's Hope is such a pivotal story that we've all waited a long time to hear.

Corporal Hicks


AvPGalaxy: About | Contact | Cookie Policy | Manage Cookie Settings | Privacy Policy | Legal Info
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Patreon RSS Feed
Contact: General Queries | Submit News