Friday, November 04, 2011

THE REAL 'ALIEN 3': THE NOVELIZATION

This arrived in the mail yesterday! It collects 2 previously released novels "ALIENS: EARTH HIVE" and "ALIENS: NIGHTMARE ASYLUM" (which I also have) by Steve Perry, based on the Dark Horse Comic Series "Aliens: Book One" and "Aliens: Book Two". The comics were released a couple years after 'Aliens' came out, but BEFORE 'Alien3'.

Set 10 years after 'Aliens', we find a 17yr old Newt trapped in an Insane Asylum, medicated out of her mind. Hicks is a "washed-up" Marine, viewed as a failure who "allowed" his entire team to be killed under mysterious & controversial circumstances. Meanwhile, the ALIEN is discovered again, brought back to Earth, pursued by Weyland-Yutani, and worshipped by a Cult. Quickly the Aliens escape and Earth goes in the shitter. Then the fun begins!

I highly recommend picking this up and giving it a read - its what "ALIEN III" SHOULD have been!

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Note 1: In the COMIC, it was NEWT & HICKS... but when they adapted the stories into novel form, 'Alien 3' had been released which pissed all over those characters & fans. So, in the novels the names are changed to "Billie" and "Wilkes". Whatever. It's easy enough to mentally change the names back while reading.

Note 2: This story is actually Parts 1 and 2 of a trilogy... however, Part 3 sucked. You can stop reading at the end of "Aliens: Nightmare Asylum" and you'll be just fine... just skip the final page, which I believe is an epilogue.

3 comments:

Tim said...

I loved Aliens: Earth Hive! Switching the names was hilarious, especially when you saw how bad Hicks was burned. It was so obvious :-)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Alien Earth War was rubbish. I remember buying it when it came out (although it had amazing cover art), and it was so dissappointing. Crap art, and a terrible story. I just don't get it, it was still Verheiden who wrote it. Do you know why the quality was so bad?

Anyway, love the blog, always read it on Friday afternoon at work.

Chris

Jim said...

Hmmm, I don't know why the tone & direction took a nose dive with Book 3... I feel the same way as you. Book 2 was INCREDIBLE with gorgeous art!