Finished the
Covenant adaptation a while back. As with the
Resurrection novelisation, I definitely find it superior to the movie, although it still suffers from the same problem of going downhill badly in the second half (admittedly the fault of the source material rather than ADF's writing).
Then, after a bit of a break break from
AVP, I continued with a re-read of the
Predator and
Predator 2 novelisations.
The first of these is as bizarre as I remember it being - aside from featuring what is essentially an entirely different titular creature compared to the one in the film, I just can't get my head around the way it seems to want to make Dutch and his men total pricks. Most obviously there's the fact they're all openly racist towards both Dillon and the local Hispanic rebels. I don't recall ever reading another book where the main cast were so genuinely unlikable.
Predator 2's aces though. Revisiting these books has cemented it as my favourite of all the film adaptations. I genuinely think this contains perhaps the best portrayal of the Predator itself found in any of the EU books - it manages to shed some interesting light on them without ever over-humanising them, and the insights into the City Hunter's thoughts and motives really add to the story. I also get a kick out of the bits written from Tony Pope's point of view; taking such a minor supporting character and putting him front and centre, even if only briefly, was such a neat, unexpected touch, and his character works better here than it did on the screen. It's a shame this has never been reissued by Titan, because copies are incredibly hard to find at a reasonable price these days. One thing I had forgotten tough, it's a terrible book for anyone who likes novels they can just pick up and put down - the entire 230-page story consists of just eight chapters
