Aliens: Bug Hunt - Aliens Anthology Announced!

Started by alienscollection.com, May 10, 2016, 08:21:28 PM

Author
Aliens: Bug Hunt - Aliens Anthology Announced! (Read 107,869 times)

Ultramorph

Lebbon's story has characters that are in Rage War, but the story takes place before that trilogy and has no real connection to the red meat of the Rage War story.

Engineer

Ah! Ok thanks!

Lonely Universe

Another couple stories in. The Bishop one is great & I would accept it as canon if they deemed it so.

The Hicks one is fine but it seems implausible that he wouldn't have mentioned encountering a hostile organism before in Aliens. If there are things that devastating out there then the company wouldn't have as much interest in the Xenomorphs, the marines wouldn't have been so over-confident, the board at Ripley's inquest wouldn't have been so skeptical, etc...

Engineer

Engineer

#393
Spoiler

Quote from: Lonely Universe on Apr 30, 2017, 06:57:11 PM
Another couple stories in. The Bishop one is great & I would accept it as canon if they deemed it so.

The Hicks one is fine but it seems implausible that he wouldn't have mentioned encountering a hostile organism before in Aliens. If there are things that devastating out there then the company wouldn't have as much interest in the Xenomorphs, the marines wouldn't have been so over-confident, the board at Ripley's inquest wouldn't have been so skeptical, etc...

And what about the fact that bishop directly disobeyed orders, and killed two people despite his programming. That's never who bishop was, and that would also make him a liar since in aliens he says he could never harm or allow a human to be harmed by omission of action. I was mostly ok with bishops story, I just wish they had changed these two plot points to be more inline with what we knew to be true of bishop from the movies.
[spoiler/]


PS. I finished the book last night. Some of the last couple stories were much improved! I loved the "Hugs to Die for" and "Dangerous Prey" stories a lot. Tim Lebbons story was pretty good too. The story that...

Spoiler

Went back to fury 161, had a lot of potential but they kinda dropped the ball by never explaining where the xeno came from or what happened to the marines. It ended way too abruptly.

And I had no idea that Dillan, Morse and the rest of the prisoners were really women this whole time! Lmao (double X chromosomes; biggest error EVER!!)
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*Edited to add "spoiler" to original post
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SM

Spoiler
Perhaps not go into details about stories for the sake who haven't read them yet.
I agree that Bishop violated his programming, and found it a little lazy.  It would've been more interesting if Bishop had found a way to save the hostages, without breaks the rules.
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The Cruentus

I think it was one of the authors or something that said some of the stories would not be canon, so those that contradiction things are probably the ones that are just for fun, though canon stories can be contradictive as well  :P

Engineer

Engineer

#396
Quote from: SM on Apr 30, 2017, 08:34:21 PM
Spoiler
Perhaps not go into details about stories for the sake who haven't read them yet.
I agree that Bishop violated his programming, and found it a little lazy.  It would've been more interesting if Bishop had found a way to save the hostages, without breaks the rules.
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Yea sorry about that! Got a little over zealous with my last post. Lol. Thanks for the reminder; I went back and added the spoiler tags...

But as for the rest of the stories...

Spoiler

Empty nest was interesting but it was a little predictable. Ended a little abruptly too, but not bad in general.

Distress was also interesting. I wanted to know what that thing was! Too bad we never found out.

The story about the planet in andromeda with "blue moon centipedes" and xenos, was weak and forgettable. The alien variants reminded me of the old Kenner action figures. Lol

I think that covers all the stories.... if I forgot one, that should tell you all enough about my opinion of it. Haha.
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Quote from: The Cruentus on Apr 30, 2017, 08:55:06 PM
I think it was one of the authors or something that said some of the stories would not be canon, so those that contradiction things are probably the ones that are just for fun, though canon stories can be contradictive as well  :P
It was the lead author/editor who wrote the forward who said that. It bugged me that they never specified which were canon and which weren't. Almost like they were waiting to see fan reactions before committing to it. But really, just about every story had contradicts to the movies in some way, big or small...

Lonely Universe

Ugh. I got to 'No Good Deed' & it's about as silly as it gets. Really glad they made sure to say these aren't cannon. Still enjoying the book, though maybe they could have set some ground rules to make sure things stayed believable within the somewhat realistic Alien universe. It goes full on Jekyll & Hyde lol

Corporal Hicks

Corporal Hicks

#398
For me the highlights of Bug Hunt were Broken, Deep Background, Empty Nest, Deep Black, Distressed and Dangerous Prey. These ones really made the anthology for me.

The only one I didn't really like was Reclamation because it seemed so obvious the bugs were supposed to be Aliens and it was setting it up as a "Hicks is gonna go get revenge for his wife in Aliens" kind of thing. Felt like a very shoe-horned kinda of connection that I really don't like. I was especially disappointed because it was Navarro who wrote it and I remember really like Music of the Spears.

I felt like the rest were just okay. All those Sulaco marine stories bunched together with Dietrich being front and centre in two of them. All the "bug" stories being bunched together. One of the stories (Burkes, I think) even seemed to have some editor notes in it.

Xenomrph

Quote from: Lonely Universe on May 01, 2017, 04:11:26 AM
Really glad they made sure to say these aren't cannon.
To be fair the intro says some may or may not be, but doesn't say which ones, and then clarifies the statement to say the Alien universe might be weirder than we previously thought.

Which stories are canon? All the ones you like. Yes, I'm talking to you, whoever is reading this post right now. :P

HuDaFuK

Read the Bishop and Hicks stories last night. Quite enjoyed the Bishop one, but the Hicks one was just a coincidence too far.

ClockworkHorror

I'm on the second Dietrich story so far. As soon as I hit Exterminators, I decided to do a read of the first paragraph of each story to see what else I might be in for.:)
I really like how Dan Abnett writes, so I enjoyed Reaper. The setup was good, I felt, though the payoff was meh.
It's nice to have more Alien universe literature, but I've been feeling that it lacks that grounded feel that made the first two movies really shine. Relatable, realistic characters. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. I have a feeling a lot of these authors want to make the franchise more fantastical than it needs to be.
Or they just aren't paying close enough attention.

Did anyone else read the roll call on Golden's story and CRINGE when he got to Spunkmeyer?

BountyHunter

So, what makes some of the stories canon, and others not? Just curious. I'm pretty much only interested in canon stuff.

ClockworkHorror

I don't think any of the stories really feel like canon. It reads like a lot of fanfic.

Xenomrph

Quote from: BountyHunter on May 03, 2017, 02:30:19 PM
So, what makes some of the stories canon, and others not? Just curious. I'm pretty much only interested in canon stuff.

See above:
Quote from: Xenomrph on May 02, 2017, 02:33:37 AM
Which stories are canon? All the ones you like. Yes, I'm talking to you, whoever is reading this post right now. :P

I'm through the Bishop story, I liked it but I think I'd have liked it more if it had a bit better attention to detail. No mention of Michael Bishop, no mention of his first name, no mention of "341-B".

Also re: the Bishop story:
Quote from: SM on Apr 30, 2017, 08:34:21 PM
Spoiler
Perhaps not go into details about stories for the sake who haven't read them yet.
I agree that Bishop violated his programming, and found it a little lazy.  It would've been more interesting if Bishop had found a way to save the hostages, without breaks the rules.
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Spoiler
I think that was kind of the point, though - to show that Bishop was able to break the rules; it's what made him "special". He also recognizes that he can never let anyone know that he can break the rules, or he'd be terminated.
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