When AVP came out and I was sitting around idly thinking of how I would do a Predator 3, I came up with a scenario that I thought was pretty clever, really: In the desert of the American southwest (hot environment, but not one we'd already seen in a movie) near a military base (so manuvers and live rounds provide the air of conflict, the other thing that attracts a Predator), a Native American hero (tie-in to the legends about the Demon Who Makes Trophies of Man) must do battle with the Predatora amidst the brush and plateaus, using his knowledge of the legends about the creature and the lay of the land to his advantage.
So I was surprised to find someone had already thought of all this and wrote it! I obviously HAD to read this book when I found out about it.
I picked it up shortly before a trip and tore through it during my flight. The result is, in some ways, better than I could've hoped. Everything dealing with our hero's history, his military involvement and how he chooses to engage the Predator are top-notch. Great backstory.
Unfortunately, it's also crushingly disappointing in other ways. The portrayal of the Predator itself is ridiculous. Anybody who has even a cursory knowledge of the films knows that the Predators only attack armed people, right? There's not a lot of continuity to worry about, all you have to know is like three films total - only two of which existed when this was first printed, so that makes it even sadder when the author doesn't know his or her shit. In this book, the Predator attacks kids, old dudes, even sheep and dogs all willy-nilly, regardless of whether they are armed or show any aggression towards him. He also leaves the heads of the humans completely intact after cutting them off. What I mean is that there's no boiling off the meat and polishing off the blood and such that we saw in Predator 2, he just leaves them all fleshy and even with their hats and glasses still on, and pretty soon he's attracting flies because he's got decomposing heads hanging off of his armor, which seems pretty dumb for our stealth-based f**ker, since you can smell his location from half a mile away. Oh, and the Predator can now leap tall buildings in a single bound! Pretty silly, but I have an easier time blowing it off than the other crap.
It was a frustrating book, because I was left with the feeling that someone had taken my concept and not done it as well as I would've myself, at least in these particular ways. Sounds cocky, I know. But respect for the continuity of the source material is law with me. And it's not like the research they needed to do was very extensive. Another disappointing read.
