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acidraineburns's review against another edition
5.0
Honestly, I'm not sure why it took me so long to read this book. I have been in love with the movies since my brother first showed me Alien when I was under 10. However, after watching Prometheus and re-watching the four movies that came out before it, my brother talked me into reading the series. Further, he convinced me to read the Predator books as well!
I have never read a series of books based off of a movie, so I was not sure what to expect from this book. I have always loved Ripley and couldn't imagine the Alien world without her. This book follows the story of Billie and Wilks—the only survivors of the infestation on the planet Rim. After returning the Earth, Billie ends up institutionalized and Wilks is in prison. Trying to reprogram Billie's brain, she is made to believe that her experiences on Rim are some sort of reoccurring nightmare/psychotic delusion. In an attempt to stop it, they have decided to take drastic measures and preform some sort of lobotomy on her when she starts seeing the Aliens appear in TV. Wilks, however, is faced with a prison sentence to keep him quiet about his experiences. After putting him through a battery of tests and determining that he was, in fact, telling the truth, the government locked him away from everyone. Now, after years in their current conditions, the government has decided to send an expedition to the Alien homeworld in order to turn these monsters into a weapon. Being the only person with experience with these creatures, Wilks is blackmailed into fronting a team of Marines to the planet.
While Wilks, Billie, and the Marines are taking stock of the Alien homeworld, it is discovered that scientists have an Alien on Earth. Since it is the only Alien, they find out that a drone can turn into a queen and reproduce without the aid of other drones. This, as you may have guessed, causes all ends of chaos.
This book was action packed and didn't lack in plot or character development. In some ways, it could be argued that it is extremely simple. However, I felt the author did an amazing job adding the Alien genre. After watching the other four movies again, I found it interesting that Billie and Wilks remind me of Newt and Hicks in Aliens. Further, when you finally learn Billie's back story, it is nearly identical to that of Newt. I am not well versed enough in the Alien sub-culture to know the connection; however, I would be surprised if there wasn't one.
In this book, as well as the four movies, I found it neat the use of Asimov's Laws. For me, it gave the book a certain level of authority and reputability. It also gave an interesting launching point for things that happened on the Alien homeworld.
This book is told in several different parts. Some of them are from Wilks' and Billie's POV, some from the Marines, but the author also has the reader see things from various government officials and the Alien religious fanatics. Sometimes, if not done correctly, that can drastically muddy a book's plot and bog it down. However, Perry did an amazing balancing job with this device. It gave the book more of a three dimensional feel, and it gave the audience a more complete view of everything that was happening.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book! Since I liked Newt and Hicks in Aliens, it felt as though they didn't actually die and I was able to see their story continue. The next book in the series promises to be something awesome. I look forward to reading it! If you love the world of the Alien movies, I highly suggest this book.
I have never read a series of books based off of a movie, so I was not sure what to expect from this book. I have always loved Ripley and couldn't imagine the Alien world without her. This book follows the story of Billie and Wilks—the only survivors of the infestation on the planet Rim. After returning the Earth, Billie ends up institutionalized and Wilks is in prison. Trying to reprogram Billie's brain, she is made to believe that her experiences on Rim are some sort of reoccurring nightmare/psychotic delusion. In an attempt to stop it, they have decided to take drastic measures and preform some sort of lobotomy on her when she starts seeing the Aliens appear in TV. Wilks, however, is faced with a prison sentence to keep him quiet about his experiences. After putting him through a battery of tests and determining that he was, in fact, telling the truth, the government locked him away from everyone. Now, after years in their current conditions, the government has decided to send an expedition to the Alien homeworld in order to turn these monsters into a weapon. Being the only person with experience with these creatures, Wilks is blackmailed into fronting a team of Marines to the planet.
While Wilks, Billie, and the Marines are taking stock of the Alien homeworld, it is discovered that scientists have an Alien on Earth. Since it is the only Alien, they find out that a drone can turn into a queen and reproduce without the aid of other drones. This, as you may have guessed, causes all ends of chaos.
This book was action packed and didn't lack in plot or character development. In some ways, it could be argued that it is extremely simple. However, I felt the author did an amazing job adding the Alien genre. After watching the other four movies again, I found it interesting that Billie and Wilks remind me of Newt and Hicks in Aliens. Further, when you finally learn Billie's back story, it is nearly identical to that of Newt. I am not well versed enough in the Alien sub-culture to know the connection; however, I would be surprised if there wasn't one.
In this book, as well as the four movies, I found it neat the use of Asimov's Laws. For me, it gave the book a certain level of authority and reputability. It also gave an interesting launching point for things that happened on the Alien homeworld.
This book is told in several different parts. Some of them are from Wilks' and Billie's POV, some from the Marines, but the author also has the reader see things from various government officials and the Alien religious fanatics. Sometimes, if not done correctly, that can drastically muddy a book's plot and bog it down. However, Perry did an amazing balancing job with this device. It gave the book more of a three dimensional feel, and it gave the audience a more complete view of everything that was happening.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book! Since I liked Newt and Hicks in Aliens, it felt as though they didn't actually die and I was able to see their story continue. The next book in the series promises to be something awesome. I look forward to reading it! If you love the world of the Alien movies, I highly suggest this book.
verkisto's review against another edition
1.0
So, this book starts off with two dream sequences. One would have been bad enough, but in order to introduce the two main characters, Newt Billie and Hicks Wilks, Perry puts us through two dream sequences to bring us up to speed. It's a cheap method for character development, though, to be fair, Aliens had one, too.
Earth Hive has a lot of other throwbacks to Aliens, including but not limited to:
--a scene where Wilks shows Billie how to use his weapons;
--"asses and elbows" is used once;
--"It's the only way to be sure" is also used; and
--an android gets torn in half by an alien, in the exact same way Bishop was.
It's ridiculous. I'm not sure what the purpose of all that is, except that maybe the writers really wanted to write the novelization of Aliens and figured this was the closest they'd get.
Now, I don't necessarily want to blame Perry for all this, because this book is actually the novelization of a comic of the same name that was intended to be a sequel to Aliens. The problem was that this book was released the same year Alien³ did, and the publishers of the comic retconned the story to maintain the continuity of Hicks and Newt dying. The problem is that they left the exact. Same. Backstory for both characters, including the scene where Newt's parents find the Space Jockey's ship on LV-426 (here renamed "Rim"). It's so stupidly transparent that I can't even imagine what the publishers thought they were accomplishing here, because the entire time I was reading about these characters, I pictured Hicks and Newt from the movie. I don't see how anyone else couldn't.
Perry doesn't get off completely, though, because at one point one of his characters makes a reference to a character he read in an old book. The name was so specific that I looked it up, and it turns out the character is the lead character in a book Perry wrote. ::eyeroll::
This whole book is a mess, moreso because I'd heard enough good about it to have some high expectations for it. Maybe book two will make a better impression, because there's no way it can be as bad as this one.
Earth Hive has a lot of other throwbacks to Aliens, including but not limited to:
--a scene where Wilks shows Billie how to use his weapons;
--"asses and elbows" is used once;
--"It's the only way to be sure" is also used; and
--an android gets torn in half by an alien, in the exact same way Bishop was.
It's ridiculous. I'm not sure what the purpose of all that is, except that maybe the writers really wanted to write the novelization of Aliens and figured this was the closest they'd get.
Now, I don't necessarily want to blame Perry for all this, because this book is actually the novelization of a comic of the same name that was intended to be a sequel to Aliens. The problem was that this book was released the same year Alien³ did, and the publishers of the comic retconned the story to maintain the continuity of Hicks and Newt dying. The problem is that they left the exact. Same. Backstory for both characters, including the scene where Newt's parents find the Space Jockey's ship on LV-426 (here renamed "Rim"). It's so stupidly transparent that I can't even imagine what the publishers thought they were accomplishing here, because the entire time I was reading about these characters, I pictured Hicks and Newt from the movie. I don't see how anyone else couldn't.
Perry doesn't get off completely, though, because at one point one of his characters makes a reference to a character he read in an old book. The name was so specific that I looked it up, and it turns out the character is the lead character in a book Perry wrote. ::eyeroll::
This whole book is a mess, moreso because I'd heard enough good about it to have some high expectations for it. Maybe book two will make a better impression, because there's no way it can be as bad as this one.
verkisto's review against another edition
2.0
There's a slight improvement to Nightmare Asylum as compared to Earth Hive, but only because there's no retconning that gets in the way of the story. Yes, yes, We still have Billie and Wilks instead of Newt and Hicks, but their backgrounds aren't as much a part of the story here as they were in the first story. It's still not much of an improvement, though, to be honest.
One thing that surprises me about the book is the empathic/psychic connection the aliens have with humans. Is this a new element to the mythology, or was that covered somewhere in the movies? It's not included with any discussion or examination, and I wondered if I had missed something, either in this book or its predecessor.
The plot here is about a crazed general who is trying to train the aliens to become soldiers. He uses threats and violence to keep them in line, with the predicted end coming late in the story, and rather anticlimactically, I might add. At least this guy wasn't trying to create some sort of super weapon out of the aliens, like nearly every other story has had happen.
Like the first book, this novel is adapted from a comic book, so a lot of the plot points can't be blamed directly on Perry. Still, the number of run-on sentences, wooden, cliched characters, and just plain bad writing ("An invisible karate expert slammed a steely fist into Wilks's lower back" is used to describe back pain) is all his. The only interesting thing about the book is seeing how closely it mirrors the plot to Day of the Dead.
One thing that surprises me about the book is the empathic/psychic connection the aliens have with humans. Is this a new element to the mythology, or was that covered somewhere in the movies? It's not included with any discussion or examination, and I wondered if I had missed something, either in this book or its predecessor.
The plot here is about a crazed general who is trying to train the aliens to become soldiers. He uses threats and violence to keep them in line, with the predicted end coming late in the story, and rather anticlimactically, I might add. At least this guy wasn't trying to create some sort of super weapon out of the aliens, like nearly every other story has had happen.
Like the first book, this novel is adapted from a comic book, so a lot of the plot points can't be blamed directly on Perry. Still, the number of run-on sentences, wooden, cliched characters, and just plain bad writing ("An invisible karate expert slammed a steely fist into Wilks's lower back" is used to describe back pain) is all his. The only interesting thing about the book is seeing how closely it mirrors the plot to Day of the Dead.
vintonole's review against another edition
4.0
Book 1 of the Aliens Series; Tweetie Goes to Japan 5-14 @ 8:40
ladylothlorien's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Death, and Blood
samtee222's review against another edition
3.0
It was ok. The sudden love thing was annoying and the word love was thrown around a little too loosely it was used a little too quickly and often that was annoying as well. But as far as the alien thing it was pretty good.
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