Alien: Phalanx by Scott Sigler

Started by Corporal Hicks, Jul 10, 2019, 12:59:28 PM

Author
Alien: Phalanx by Scott Sigler (Read 88,843 times)

Kradan

Kradan

#330
Have you managed to avoid spoilers during whole month ?

Hudson

Hudson

#331
Quote from: Kradan on Mar 25, 2020, 03:51:18 PM
Have you managed to avoid spoilers during whole month ?

I have. It's not difficult considering no one in my waking life is reading this book, and it's easy to not click the SPOILER tags when people use them on here.

Nightmare Asylum

Nightmare Asylum

#332
Quote from: Hudson on Mar 25, 2020, 04:02:12 PM
Quote from: Kradan on Mar 25, 2020, 03:51:18 PM
Have you managed to avoid spoilers during whole month ?

I have. It's not difficult considering no one in my waking life is reading this book, and it's easy to not click the SPOILER tags when people use them on here.

This, basically. :D

EDIT: A few chapters in and so far, so good. A very different experience so far from The Cold Forge (TCF is the only Titan Alien novel I've read, barring the Covenant novelization) but I'm immediately interested in this world and want to see where this goes. It was also a very nice touch, given the structure of this story, to see a map up front at the start.

EDIT 2: Just finished chapter 15...
Spoiler
So the book is actually going to acknowledge there being a difference between the smooth and rigid heads...

To be honest, I've always just chalked it up to artistic interpretation and don't really bat an eye when a story chooses one option or the other, though I don't mind Cameron's take that the domes eventually molt off with age. I'm going to assume that that's the intention here.
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The Old One

The Old One

#333
So good, perfect uses of two appropriate quotes from the films and, because of the mostly wholly new dialogue when they did get used it created more of an impact;

"If it comes to that, I'll do us both."

"Hey f**kface, come and get me!"

A lesson in good fanservice.

Kradan

Kradan

#334
Completely off topic, but hey ! You're The Old One again ! Or is it just my PC glitching ?


Was it better than (Alex White, forgive my soul) THE COLD FORGE ?

For me, it was. By the slightest.

The Old One

The Old One

#335
It's the Alien (The Cold Forge) Vs Aliens (Phalanx) comparison.


I always preferred Alien.

SM

SM

#336
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 10, 2020, 08:37:08 PM
Completely off topic, but hey ! You're The Old One again ! Or is it just my PC glitching ?


Was it better than (Alex White, forgive my soul) THE COLD FORGE ?

For me, it was. By the slightest.

Me too.

Nightmare Asylum

Finally finished this one tonight. Quite liked it, and definitely worthy of sitting on the shelf alongside The Cold Forge.

I have quite a few thoughts on things I'd like to discuss, but I'll hold out on all of that until after I go through all of the spoiler tags in this thread.

Corporal Hicks



Haven't had the chance to watch yet.

Hudson

Hudson

#339
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 10, 2020, 08:37:08 PM

Was it better than (Alex White, forgive my soul) THE COLD FORGE ?

For me, it was. By the slightest.

Probably got about 200 pages left and so far I agree. This is my favorite novel in the franchise so far, unless it collapses horribly from this point to the end which I doubt. I'm especially enjoying how political the book is with the numerous allegories that continue to populate the story. For instance, the current refugee crisis and the way the US government has responded to it, among other current issues. Beyond that, it's well-written and the characters are engaging and feel effectively portrayed. Someone at Titan could have proofed the manuscript though. Woops!  :o

Kradan

Kradan

#340
Quote from: Hudson on Apr 28, 2020, 02:03:11 PM
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 10, 2020, 08:37:08 PM

Was it better than (Alex White, forgive my soul) THE COLD FORGE ?

For me, it was. By the slightest.

Probably got about 200 pages left and so far I agree. This is my favorite novel in the franchise so far, unless it collapses horribly from this point to the end which I doubt. I'm especially enjoying how political the book is with the numerous allegories that continue to populate the story. For instance, the current refugee crisis and the way the US government has responded to it, among other current issues. Beyond that, it's well-written and the characters are engaging and feel effectively portrayed. Someone at Titan could have proofed the manuscript though. Woops!  :o

! SPOILER ALERT !

Spoiler
It won't
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Hudson

Hudson

#341
^LOL, I will quickly finish the book and return to this hidden message.

Kradan

Kradan

#342
Oh man, I don't want to keep you in suspence for so long. It's not really A SPOILER (nothing like Darth Vaider is Luke's father bullshit). It's just a joke really. So, if you trust my word you can look it up now and it won't affect your knowledge of the plot in any way.

Corporal Hicks

What are people's thoughts on the (spoiler for the end of the book)

Spoiler
blue lighting continually mentioned during the hive sequence? Is it a throwback to the laser light from Alien? I'm struggling to make my mind up, as the book also references the light coming from the eggs and such.
[close]

SpaceKase

SpaceKase

#344
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on May 12, 2020, 10:31:18 AM
What are people's thoughts on the (spoiler for the end of the book)

Spoiler
blue lighting continually mentioned during the hive sequence? Is it a throwback to the laser light from Alien? I'm struggling to make my mind up, as the book also references the light coming from the eggs and such.
[close]

Spoiler
I think yes and yes. Visually (in the mind's eye anyway) it has that immediate association for us from the original film to instantly let us know that our heroes are in the final level as it were, the den of the beast. Contextually for Ahiliyah it offers her an instant telltale that she's not waking in any place she's ever known or is aware of. Expositionaly, it's another callback to the unique bioluminescent traits of Ataegina's waters and given how wet things are in the hives and in the eggs and such a really nice way to create some unsettling imagery, provide the characters something to see their surroundings with that isn't ancient or Ataeginian made and also a fun callback to the rarely referenced watery translucence and inner glow from the eggs of the original film. I think the blue glow water is just infused into anything containing moisture that happened to grown in that environment.
[close]

Somewhere I've got a McFarland Alien vs Predator two figure set that features an egg with a little light inside that makes it glow from within, it's always been my favorite part.


I've always loved the laser light from the egg chamber scene in the original film, and like the AvP2 game I've always preferred to think of it as (failing) stasis field, Pilot technology that's breaking down due to age and seismic activity, the egg containment starts to breach and the acoustic warning beacon immediately starts blasting through the æther. Isolation did such a gorgeous job picking up on this theme with the Marlowe beacon scene on the derelict. I think Steel Egg is the only time it was ever inferred that the mist field was some kind of emission from the eggs themselves (thankfully the only time IMHO).

On another non sequitur side note, the bit with the water droplets dripping up from the eggs has always been another one of my  favorite little details from the film, and one of the few atmospheric tidbits that I thought Colonial Marines really got right, if I'm remembering correctly, anyway.

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