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A review by verkisto
Aliens: Vasquez by V. Castro
3.0
I knew I was going to read this as soon as I first saw it. A Latina author giving us the backstory of Vasquez from Aliens? Sign me up!
I wish it had lived up to my expectations. It was still a decent read, but only about a quarter of the novel is about Jenette Vasquez; the rest is about her kids. It makes sense, though; the book is titled Vasquez, not Jenette Vasquez, after all.
I've read another book by Castro, and I liked its themes, though I had some quibbles with the narrative itself. The same is true here. She tends to have her characters give speeches instead of giving them real dialogue, and there's a lack of subtlety to how she writes that makes it less effective than it could be.
Still, this is an Aliens book unlike any other Aliens book that I've read so far. Sure, there's Weyland-Yutani there trying to find a way to weaponize and capitalize on the Xenomorphs, but this book is more about family than anything else. Hell, the Xenomorphs don't even play a major role in the book until three-quarters of the way through. I'll take that over another discovery-of-the-aliens or destroy-everything-that-moves Aliens novel.
I wish it had lived up to my expectations. It was still a decent read, but only about a quarter of the novel is about Jenette Vasquez; the rest is about her kids. It makes sense, though; the book is titled Vasquez, not Jenette Vasquez, after all.
I've read another book by Castro, and I liked its themes, though I had some quibbles with the narrative itself. The same is true here. She tends to have her characters give speeches instead of giving them real dialogue, and there's a lack of subtlety to how she writes that makes it less effective than it could be.
Still, this is an Aliens book unlike any other Aliens book that I've read so far. Sure, there's Weyland-Yutani there trying to find a way to weaponize and capitalize on the Xenomorphs, but this book is more about family than anything else. Hell, the Xenomorphs don't even play a major role in the book until three-quarters of the way through. I'll take that over another discovery-of-the-aliens or destroy-everything-that-moves Aliens novel.