Aliens Bishop

[Kimarhi]

Amazon has it listed on Oct 24, 2023
https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Bishop-T-R-Napper/dp/1803364513/ref=sr_1_12?crid=23SO0LU5UEGDG&keywords=media+titan&qid=1681880104&s=books&sprefix=media+titan%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C295&sr=1-12

Android's bother me less than people because there is a reason to have more than one.  But I hate when a series shrinks itself continually by only following the sons/daughters/brothers/sisters/dads/mothers of certain characters, or continually try to set something in a familiar place, like all the Hadley's Hope tie ins for the Alien verse. 

It cannot be that hard to come up with something new.  I could think of a half dozen EU stories in 30 seconds that wouldn't need any of the old characters (unless you consider the Aliens characters) or settings to work. 

[HuDaFuK]

I ran the whole gamut of emotions reading that synopsis.

At first we've got a bunch of returning characters, which just made me cringe.

But then some of the stuff about getting into Bishop's memory sounded like it could potentially be quite interesting and different.

But then we had relatives of established characters and I checked out again.

[Mr. Clemens]

Haven't read an Alien EU novel since 'Puddle of Annoyance' or whatever it was, and this isn't exactly luring me back.

[HuDaFuK]

You missed out on Alex White's books?

You should definitely give those a go.

[Mr. Clemens]

You missed out on Alex White's books?

You should definitely give those a go.

Oh that's right, I read The Cold Forge, I think. Checked it outta the library. The first of those ones, anyway. It was interesting, but a slog that didn't keep me coming back. Shitty people doing shitty things to each other. Now it could be said that that's what the Alien films are, but at least they have beautiful production design, cinematography, and music.

[HuDaFuK]

Fair enough!

[BlueMarsalis79]

Blue's a good person, I may be biased.

[SiL]

Shitty people doing shitty things to each other. Now it could be said that that's what the Alien films are, but at least they have beautiful production design, cinematography, and music.

Nah, it's usually regular people banding against a common event while some solo outlier is shitty. White's characters can come across a bit edgelord-y by series standards.

[[cancerblack]]

I definitely felt that way about them. Although I think I'm due to try again after not finishing TCF. Won't try the audiobook this time though, I think the narrator put me off much more than the characters did honestly.

[Simply_Kevin]

I'm honestly interested in this. It sounds like a cool RPG premise. Last year I used Michael Bishop in my Alien RPG campaign and it was similar, but it was indeed still WY however behind the veil of the drilling company from the manual. It was on an icy planet full of cryovolcanos that spilled liquid methane. Went into a fair bit of research for this one.

[Corporal Hicks]

I never thought White's characters were shitty. They all thought they were doing right. They were all shades of grey and very representative of genuine people.

In regards to Bishop, being serious, I was actually aboard with the idea of bringing the character back. Of all the character revisits, he makes the most sense. He can be rebuilt after all, even if it's not top of the line. And I'm surprised it took until Colonial Marines to revisit the character of Michael Bishop. That all seems like a good foundation to me.

I'm curious to see where the novel does take Michael in regards to his motivation.

But yeah, it was then having a relation of Apone that lowered my enthusiasm. I am getting a little tired of Titan wanting to keep doing these legacy/relations of film characters.

[HuDaFuK]

I wouldn't go so far as to describe all the characters as outright shitty, but the fact none of them were clear-cut heroes definitely added to those novels for me. Felt more true to life.

EDIT: Hicks beat me to it

[Cosmic Incubation]

I'm actually interested in checking out this story. I do feel like there's a lot of potential to make something interesting out of it.

I'm imagining a kind of dark, nihilistic, story (in similar tone to Alien³ about an android who asked to die cause he'd "rather be nothing" being forced to come back to life, in shambles, to do the bidding of this evil corporation. I think that could be really cool and interesting in a sort of sci-fi gothic way. I'm not entirely confident it will go in that direction, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

[Local Trouble]

to do the bidding of this evil corporation.

And, of course, it'll be completely ignored that Bishop worked for the ECA.

[Cosmic Incubation]

I forgot the part in the synopsis where it says that Michael Bishop no longer works for Weyland-Yutani as well, so the evil corporation part doesn't really apply. But more so the point of being forced back to life for nefarious purposes still works.