Aliens Bishop

[BlueMarsalis79]

Will be mighty interested in the podcast for this one. Hopefully some contrasting opinions.

[Xenomrph]

Okay,I read it rather quickly,cause it was pretty solid read. It didn't blow me out of my socks or anything, but after few missteps and middling books from Titan, that was a good feeling to just mostly enjoying myself during a read.

I had worries at first,that it would end up like Vasquez novel, where the best part was about titular hero, and it ended after first third of the book and after that we got not very good story about other characters. But Bishop has much better construction. We're jumping between a few main and secondary characters for a whole book,and their storylines nicely entangle and come together at the satisfing finale. And I enjoyed  following most of these protagonists. Only wasn't sure about Apone's brother,I don't feel that it was neccesary for him to be known character's relative It feeled a little forced. Also his constant pompous quotes could get annoying.  But as for other known characters, I really enjoyed their inclusion. Bishop had interesting role with finding and understanding his feelings, although if someone doesn't like more human-like, emotional potrayal of androids, they might not like it, but since Bishop was first android that showed us their more human side,it seems appropiate to give him that kind of arc. Also seeing more of Michael Bishop was very interesting and fun. And there's one suprise known character, whose apperance  gave me a lot of giggles.

Books had also a lot of little easter eggs and attention to details that should satify EU enjoyers. I really liked usage of acid blood on a spaceship fight, or Xenos' carapace actually deflecting smaller calliber bullets. But It also had a couple of nitpicks,for example we get nice Manumala Noxhydria name for facehuggers, but adult Aliens are just called Xenomorphs throghout whole book. Would it be that hard to just add that nice little XX121 to it? Also I felt that Napper was overusing onomatopoeias in his descriptions and dialogues.

Overall it was definetly a better read than I was expecting. Not top tier neccesarly, but just a solid fun.

I caved and bought this on kindle with a bunch of Amazon credits thanks to your review.

[Local Trouble]

Is it both cool and good?

[Xenomrph]

Is it both cool and good?

I have no idea, I haven't read it yet.

[Slutty Badger]

I'm about two thirds of the way through a proper read of this thing and, quite frankly, my criticisms still stand.

Granted, the Bishop sequences are pretty cool. There're some interesting conversations and it's pretty trippy to imagine Lance Henriksen talking to himself - yes, Fassbender did it as well, but with two different accents; it's established in A3 that both Bishop and Michael speak identically.

Sadly, when Bishop isn't onscreen, this book TANKS. Too much time is spent with needless secondary characters. One of them, Vietnamese smuggler Xuan Nguyen, seems to be a mouthpiece for Napper's undying luuuuurve for Hanoi. If anyone even coughs or sniffs, it reminds her of.... guess where? Why the f**k did she even leave? Yes, I know that the UPP moves people around regardless of how they feel, but a brief acknowledgment would have been nice.

The Colonial Marine characters are the same ol' archetypes we've seen a bazillion times before, although I do like the characterization of Marcel Apone, which is a rarity for pointless shoehorned character relations. He's pretty much how I would imagine Al Apone's brother to be like.

Also, the prose is clunky and there's a serious overreliance on onomatopoeia.

So, overall, not great.

[Xenomrph]

So my kindle says I'm 15% of the way into the book.

Spoiler

What year does this book take place? I'm just trying to gauge how long after Alien3 we're talking here.

The Marines seem to know more about the Aliens than I expected, up to having specialized gear to counter them and knowing their full life cycle and flinging around colloquialisms like "facehugger" and "chestburster". It kind of feels weird, like they know more than they should.

Lee finds two (dead?) facehuggers in a lab when she goes to turn the artificial gravity back on, does the book address where they came from?

Apone's brother is... fine. Like, he's got solid characterization, and he's distinct from his brother, but there was no need for him to be a blood relative of a movie character

[close]

So far the book is fine. The action is neat, and I'm invested enough to keep going.

[Slutty Badger]

So my kindle says I'm 15% of the way into the book.

Spoiler

What year does this book take place? I'm just trying to gauge how long after Alien3 we're talking here.

The Marines seem to know more about the Aliens than I expected, up to having specialized gear to counter them and knowing their full life cycle and flinging around colloquialisms like "facehugger" and "chestburster". It kind of feels weird, like they know more than they should.

Lee finds two (dead?) facehuggers in a lab when she goes to turn the artificial gravity back on, does the book address where they came from?

Apone's brother is... fine. Like, he's got solid characterization, and he's distinct from his brother, but there was no need for him to be a blood relative of a movie character

[close]

So far the book is fine. The action is neat, and I'm invested enough to keep going.

We never find out when exactly this book takes place; I merely assume that it's 2179, given that the Xinjiang is near Fury 161.

Neither do we find out from whence the Ovomorphs came. But that's par for the course at this point. The more glaring issue for me is how Apone's barmy army are equipped with better gear than an actual dedicated Xeno-fighting unit (the Midnighters), and how they have full knowledge of the species. The setup feels really thrown together, and that hobbles it for me.

[TheBATMAN]

This book was a hot mess. Everyone so suddenly being aware of the xeno so soon after Alien 3 really took me out of it, not to mention where they all came from.

Makes you wonder why Bishop is so valuable, especially as Michael has his own specimens.

Ripley may as well have just given the company the Alien if this is what it directly leads to.

[Slutty Badger]

This book was a hot mess. Everyone so suddenly being aware of the xeno so soon after Alien 3 really took me out of it, not to mention where they all came from.

Makes you wonder why Bishop is so valuable, especially as Michael has his own specimens.

Ripley may as well have just given the company the Alien if this is what it directly leads to.

Also, this.

[jacobo1122]

Yeah, but that's the bigger problem with whole EU getting more and more stories. Even in great ones,like Cold Forge, where it also took place shortly after Aliens,and they already had lab full of Xenos. I just ignore that kind of things when they fit a story. Also universe of Alien is one place where it is possible to have people in one part of cosmos knowing more or less than people in the other,considering how hard communication is and how long traveling through space takes. Although I admit that wanting access to Bishop's data is rather weak motivation when you already have live specimens. Although it may be because he enconutered a Queen. But again, at this point in the EU there shouldn't be any need for studying Xenomorphs honestly :p   And as for marines in the book having proper anti-xeno gear, well, they only thought they had, it didn't help them much in the end.

[TheBATMAN]

That was honestly my only gripe with the Cold Forge. As excellent as it is, it never made sense to me setting it in 2179 as it kind of makes The Company's quest to secure Ripley rather pointless in some respects if they already have eggs from another source.

Bishop I think is open to more criticism than other Titan books because this particular story is so closely tied to the films. Again, it undermines Ripley's sacrifice completely and makes the entire subplot with the company in Alien 3 largely redundant. I'd have preferred this book to be more of a character study and espionage thriller rather than another Aliens clone.

[Xenomrph]

I'd have preferred this book to be more of a character study and espionage thriller rather than another Aliens clone.

Frankly I'd have been extremely okay with the book containing no Aliens whatsoever.

I wonder if there was some kind of licensor/studio mandate necessitating their inclusion.

[SM]

That was honestly my only gripe with the Cold Forge. As excellent as it is, it never made sense to me setting it in 2179 as it kind of makes The Company's quest to secure Ripley rather pointless in some respects if they already have eggs from another source.

Bishop I think is open to more criticism than other Titan books because this particular story is so closely tied to the films. Again, it undermines Ripley's sacrifice completely and makes the entire subplot with the company in Alien 3 largely redundant. I'd have preferred this book to be more of a character study and espionage thriller rather than another Aliens clone.

Back when I was working with Fox the approach we took was 'the Company is huge and very siloed'. Millions of employees and thousands of people like Burke not knowing what each are up to. It allowed stories to be told without contradicting the films.

That said, and without having read this book, I agree that it can get dumb if the authors aren't properly paying attention.

[jacobo1122]

That was honestly my only gripe with the Cold Forge. As excellent as it is, it never made sense to me setting it in 2179 as it kind of makes The Company's quest to secure Ripley rather pointless in some respects if they already have eggs from another source.

Bishop I think is open to more criticism than other Titan books because this particular story is so closely tied to the films. Again, it undermines Ripley's sacrifice completely and makes the entire subplot with the company in Alien 3 largely redundant. I'd have preferred this book to be more of a character study and espionage thriller rather than another Aliens clone.

I don't mind Ripley's sacrifice being unimportant,it fits this grimm universe. Also I like the idea of Aliens being this overgrowing cosmic force that is slowly infecting whole life, and that fits nicely into that idea; no matter how mamy Aliens you destroy,there is always more of them in zimę dark corners of space and there are always people ready to try to exploit them, only helping them to spread instead.
And I agree that Bishop could be something more interesting, but I wouldn't call it Aliens clone. It's more  of a chase story with few plotlines nicely overlaping each other with proper Aliens action only at the end. For me it was solid read,even if rather simple.

I'd have preferred this book to be more of a character study and espionage thriller rather than another Aliens clone.

Frankly I'd have been extremely okay with the book containing no Aliens whatsoever.

I wonder if there was some kind of licensor/studio mandate necessitating their inclusion.

I mean, there were two attempts at writing a book without Aliens with Covenant Origins,wchich I haven't read yet, and kinda in Inferno's fall, so It's not like they are completely against this idea.I think that more often than not, adding Aliens is already on writers' minds. Maybe because of lack of idea on what to tell a story about without it, or just because It's to tempting to write about such an iconic monster.

[BlueMarsalis79]

It works for me because in The Cold Forge because... of compartmentalisation, reinforced by the theme of the entire state of the station being compartmentalised projects the right hand not knowing what the left one does,  and they all get wiped out, it in no way contradicts the larger narrative.

Michael seeing the infant Queen tear through Ripley sensing death, and Bishop being pierced by the prior Queen, exchanging memory- that should have been their only inclusion here.