Aliens Bishop

[Wweyland]

Also...

Spoiler

Robert Morse shows up.

And he asks for... ICE CREAM! 'Cos he says "ice cream" in Alien 3!

[close]

*barks and claps like a seal*

Man, I gotta start spoilering this shit.

EDIT: So I did!

Long overdue, but excellent!

[Slutty Badger]

Also...

Spoiler

Robert Morse shows up.

And he asks for... ICE CREAM! 'Cos he says "ice cream" in Alien 3!

[close]

*barks and claps like a seal*

Man, I gotta start spoilering this shit.

EDIT: So I did!

Long overdue, but excellent!

What's overdue? Robert Morse's appearance, me spoilering stuff, or me clapping and barking like a seal?

[Wweyland]

Also...

Spoiler

Robert Morse shows up.

And he asks for... ICE CREAM! 'Cos he says "ice cream" in Alien 3!

[close]

*barks and claps like a seal*

Man, I gotta start spoilering this shit.

EDIT: So I did!

Long overdue, but excellent!

What's overdue? Robert Morse's appearance, me spoilering stuff, or me clapping and barking like a seal?

The character's return, in any form.

[Still Collating...]

Also...

Spoiler

Robert Morse shows up.

And he asks for... ICE CREAM! 'Cos he says "ice cream" in Alien 3!

[close]

Having him appear is nice (when they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel to movie related characters, can't believe it took them this long to use him), but I would be embraced to even mention that cause it sounds so cringe. 
*barks and claps like a seal*

Man, I gotta start spoilering this shit.

EDIT: So I did!

[Slutty Badger]

So I've given this thing a good skim read, and I feel I can offer some solid observations.

Spoiler

There is not nearly enough Bishop in this Bishop novel! We don't even pick up Bishop's story until we're sixty-nine (dudes!) pages into the book. Much of the book is spent with original characters, all of which are boring as balls.

One such character is a Vietnamese smuggler. Napper spent some "extraordinary" time in Hanoi and takes every opportunity to rhapsodize about how smegging fantastic it is.

More Ovomorphs from nowhere! Seriously, where are all these f**king things coming from, and how is it that everyone and their dog has one? Seriously, the USM must have been utterly useless if cloning Ripley was their only option. If recent media is anything to go by, throwing a rock would result in that rock hitting an Ovomorph.

The Apone familial connection is pointless and was clearly inserted as fanbait. It comes up a couple of times for some heartstring-tugging, but that's it.

Bitty, inconsistent chapter size; at least one chapter is only a page long. Moreover, three consecutive chapters cover a single event involving a single character.

Michael Bishop is your typical ranting lunatic, the type seen in all cheap tie-in fiction. He ends up spraying himself with Queen pheromones and trying to control the Xenomorphs - and OF COURSE ends up cocooned. Blue Marsalis, he is not. f**k, he isn't even Spears.

Aussie Vegemite is the only tasty option on a table otherwise stocked with tasteless American pap. Groan.

As aforementioned, Michael Bishop dies when the ship upon which he is cocooned is scuttled by Apone's Marines. This does not jive with what we are told in the Wey-Yu Report, which mentioned that he died in the 2190s after an operation on his synapses went wrong, and that failing to obtain a viable Xenomorph specimen was his greatest professional regret. Guess the report lies, 'cos he found some eggs from somewhere else; see above. Well, either that, or established canon is being disregarded entirely. You be the judge.

It's okay, though - an ass-pull of the epilogue variety has Michael unlock the secret of virtual consciousness and transmit himself to a W-Y base on Torin Prime. I'm sure we are never going to see any mention of this again.

And the message? Bishop is a good person and a true Marine!

Yeah, thanks for telling us what we already know.

And Rachel Caine did it better, in a 22-page short story that is way more thrilling and touching than this 488-page novel.

[close]

[Retropocalypse]

So I've given this thing a good skim read, and I feel I can offer some solid observations.

Ouch. Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to be an Alien EU fan. Nicely put, though.

[[cancerblack]]

Big Oof but also exactly what I've come to expect from the Titan stuff.

[SiL]

Spoiler

Aussie Vegemite is the only tasty option on a table otherwise stocked with tasteless American pap. Groan.

[close]

As an Australian this is the dumbest thing I've read all week. And it's been a long week.

[SM]

Probably true though.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Astonishing waste of potential. 

[Local Trouble]

It sounds like everything I expected it to be.

[[cancerblack]]

Probably true though.

I dunno. I do rate Vegemite above Marmite, but some of that American slop is kinda good, better than yeasty toast at least. They deep fry most of it.

[SM]

I would demand to see the entire context of this passage to redeem the standing of Vegemite, but I can't say I'm that interested.

[[cancerblack]]

Fair enough on both counts.

[SiL]

I'm struggling to think of anything that would make Vegemite seem like a good alternative.