Are Out of the Shadows, River of Pain and Sea of Sorrows Canon?

[HuDaFuK]

I actually quite like the novel trilogy - well, Out of the Shadows and Sea of Sorrows, at least - but they all have some really glaring things that drag them down in my eyes.

Weren't these some of the marines that left the planet in the first issue of Fire and Stone?

I don't remember that, but I only read it the once a long time ago.

[SM]

Some were covering the colonists escape, but I don't think any got away.

[Nostromo]

Some were covering the colonists escape, but I don't think any got away.

True, possibly 1 made it out though, would need to reopen Fire & Stone and take a peak, maybe worth re reading it, at least the first issues. It seems like one giant coordinated project, it was, wasn't? Nice initiative by Fox, to give the go ahead and probably the stories too?... to Dark Horse and Titan? Sorry I'm a bit lost in the novel world, but really into the Movies, Video Games, TPB's and Audibles.  Somebody wake up Hicks lol.  Fox needs some proof readers, I bet Hudafuk would have caught that friggin harpoon gun glitch, actually, he did. 

[SM]

The harpoon gun glitch is so miniscule most readers won't have noticed.  Not many more noticed the much bigger glitch of the book saying the shuttle only had one hypersleep chamber.

I've advised Fox on continuity issues for the last couple of years, but the only one I know of that they changed was changing Alpha Doradus to Zeta Doradus in Defiance.  And that's even deeper in the long grass than a harpoon or cryotube.

[Nostromo]

Nice.

[Local Trouble]

The harpoon gun glitch is so miniscule most readers won't have noticed.  Not many more noticed the much bigger glitch of the book saying the shuttle only had one hypersleep chamber.

Does that mean they were aware of it before publication?

[SM]

I don't imagine they were, no.

[Xenomrph]

I don't imagine they were, no.

Given that the book's plot was FOX-mandated anyway, I doubt they would have cared even if they did.

[Hudson]

Plus, River of Pain does everything it can, along with most of the stories in Bug Hunt, to cheapen the conflict of Aliens.

Could you elaborate on this?

In terms of River of Pain, the notion that Colonial Marines were already stationed at Hadley's Hope makes it a really redundant/repetitive plot point for Colonial Marines to be returning and then failing at the same thing again. It cheapens Aliens if it's canon, because then we're meant to believe that Aliens is essentially the second time this has happened. And also, John Marucheck? Anybody...? Oops!

w/r/t Bug Hunt, the notion that the Colonial Marines had already battled tons of monsters already, and even the titular xenomorphs (I think in the case of Hicks in one of those stories?) doesn't make any sense when we see how terrified the Colonial Marines in Aliens are. I've never taken the term 'bug hunt' to literally describe the USCMC flying around space and fighting monsters à la Starship Troopers, or the dropship name Bug Stomper to be literal either. It always seemed to indicate a low-key 'seek and destroy' type mission (which is clearly boring to them), versus 'stand up fight' which I would take to mean a frontal assault of some type. I feel like the editor/authors of Bug Hunt were pretty misguided in their interpretation of this.

And there's also a story in Bug Hunt where there are some people who land on LV-426 and take off again. So, during the events of Aliens, there were just some other randos who came and left without being noticed, as easy as that.

[Local Trouble]

That sounds awful.

[SM]

A criminal was trying to find some place to hide with a guy he knew a Hadley and there was a bounty hunter chasing him.

It's not unusual for people to get disappointed when their take on something is shown to not be shared by others.  Such is the reaction by some to two prequels.

[Monster Man]

Whatever happened to Hoop? He was only referenced once in River of Pain but after that he's gone, floating in endless space forever.

[Local Trouble]

A criminal was trying to find some place to hide with a guy he knew a Hadley and there was a bounty hunter chasing him.

Sounds painfully Star Warsy.

[Nostromo]

I wish they'd build more around the The Sea of Sorrows ending, that WY character reminds me of an elder Charlize Theron character, she's really well done, and I'm not talking about Charlize Theron. They fled that planet with 4 samples, 2 facehuggers, 2 aliens. Where'd they go? That male lead character is also really well done. This was one of the most believable stories I've seen in the Aliens universe. Really well done! Loved River of pain as a story too honestly, but it's probably time to move on from LV-426 and the main base.

There's so much more to expand with now now. I'd like to see a continuation of Weyland Yutani but without the testing Aliens on Humans dialogue and scripts,  I'm not too excited about that or anything that shoves an Alien on the screen or story in the first half hour or so. I'd take a Covenant and Prometheus story any time of the day over an Alien Res story.

The Alien world needs some great scripts going forward.

[Frosty Venom]

The Rage War continues on from Sea of Sorrows.