Adam

Solid 3.5While I had a really hard time getting into [b:Way of the Clans 488116 Way of the Clans (Legend of the Jade Phoenix Trilogy, #1) Robert Thurston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1282529625l/488116.SY75.jpg 476389], “Bloodname,” was a much better read overall. This is the second book in the trilogy and our story picks up where the first book left off. This series is clearly a fairly detailed look into the life of the main character Aiden. If you've spent any time reading the iconic Michael Stackpole trilogy called The Blood of Karensky, then you can tell, basically, how the novel “Bloodname” plays out. In this book you can assume Aiden will be competing for a Bloodname and since there is a third book he will clearly survive that challenge.However obvious the title might give away the general climax of this book, the journey to Aiden's Bloodname competition is a pretty wild ride in itself. The last book left off with Aiden participating in breaking Clan Law by being given a second chance of becoming a warrior by posing as a Freeborn. This book picks up with Aiden's first assignment under the name Jorge where he and his Freeborn team are stationed. He fights with the commanding officer of Glory, Kael Pershaw, constantly. He fights with the Trueborn warriors constantly. Aiden rarely suffers their classist attitudes. In strange turn of events a changing up of the personnel on Glory is imminent and none other than Joanna is about to cross paths with Aiden again. She hasn't encountered him in years and at first sight they begin their old bickering and fighting as we would have expected.At the same time as Joanna's planned arrival Clan Wolf invades the planet with the intent on gaining access to Kael Pershaw's genetic line. Aiden sees a major opportunity to finally see battle! Naturally, he takes that opportunity and uses his deed here and it's success to bid for his chance to win a Bloodname. This part of the story was pretty good in that it gave us insight into Aiden's growth as a character as he changes his mind about the Freeborn warriors and loses most of his prejudice. In same ways I felt that he didn't lose all of it, so it's not like a full turn around and a lot of Aiden's Trueborn tendencies are probably impossible for him to shed anyway.While this was a much better book in my opinion, I still struggle getting through Thurston's writing style for some reason. It's taking me far longer than normal to get through a 200 page novel and I feel like there's some aspect to his writing that just feels really dry to me. It's nowhere near the page turner that I get with Stackpole or any of the other authors I've read for this series so far. It's just sort of frustrating, because I feel like Thurston's story is getting pretty good and the last few fifty or so pages of his books are a fast read. But for whatever reason his setup takes a long time for me to read through.Merged review:Solid 3.5While I had a really hard time getting into [b:Way of the Clans 488116 Way of the Clans (Legend of the Jade Phoenix Trilogy, #1) Robert Thurston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1282529625l/488116.SY75.jpg 476389], “Bloodname,” was a much better read overall. This is the second book in the trilogy and our story picks up where the first book left off. This series is clearly a fairly detailed look into the life of the main character Aiden. If you've spent any time reading the iconic Michael Stackpole trilogy called The Blood of Karensky, then you can tell, basically, how the novel “Bloodname” plays out. In this book you can assume Aiden will be competing for a Bloodname and since there is a third book he will clearly survive that challenge.However obvious the title might give away the general climax of this book, the journey to Aiden's Bloodname competition is a pretty wild ride in itself. The last book left off with Aiden participating in breaking Clan Law by being given a second chance of becoming a warrior by posing as a Freeborn. This book picks up with Aiden's first assignment under the name Jorge where he and his Freeborn team are stationed. He fights with the commanding officer of Glory, Kael Pershaw, constantly. He fights with the Trueborn warriors constantly. Aiden rarely suffers their classist attitudes. In strange turn of events a changing up of the personnel on Glory is imminent and none other than Joanna is about to cross paths with Aiden again. She hasn't encountered him in years and at first sight they begin their old bickering and fighting as we would have expected.At the same time as Joanna's planned arrival Clan Wolf invades the planet with the intent on gaining access to Kael Pershaw's genetic line. Aiden sees a major opportunity to finally see battle! Naturally, he takes that opportunity and uses his deed here and it's success to bid for his chance to win a Bloodname. This part of the story was pretty good in that it gave us insight into Aiden's growth as a character as he changes his mind about the Freeborn warriors and loses most of his prejudice. In same ways I felt that he didn't lose all of it, so it's not like a full turn around and a lot of Aiden's Trueborn tendencies are probably impossible for him to shed anyway.While this was a much better book in my opinion, I still struggle getting through Thurston's writing style for some reason. It's taking me far longer than normal to get through a 200 page novel and I feel like there's some aspect to his writing that just feels really dry to me. It's nowhere near the page turner that I get with Stackpole or any of the other authors I've read for this series so far. It's just sort of frustrating, because I feel like Thurston's story is getting pretty good and the last few fifty or so pages of his books are a fast read. But for whatever reason his setup takes a long time for me to read through.

Like the Aliens and Aliens vs. Predator novels that have been released, this Predator novel is not an original work, instead it is based on the first comic book series from the 1989 written by Mark Verheiden: [b:Predator: Concrete Jungle 1022975 Predator Concrete Jungle Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1180307261l/1022975.SY75.jpg 21678265]. While I thought Verheiden's original ideas for Aliens wound up getting a little ridiculous, I think his work on the first Predator comics had some really stellar ideas. In some ways it was a bit ridiculous, but Nathan Archer did an incredible job fleshing out the story. It made the more ridiculous elements flow a lot better. Now, it's been no secret that Verheiden's comics clearly influenced the ideas behind Predator 2, so if you're reading this book well after Predator 2 and thinking Nathan Archer is quite unoriginal, it's quite a bit the other way around.Since I'm sure Dark Horse wasn't allowed to use Dutch originally, Verheiden created, basically, his twin. However, rather than being on a special forces rescue team, he is a New York cop. It was pretty clear he wanted to write about Schwarzenegger and just wasn't allowed to. I thought this was a rather silly idea and it would have been better to just write about someone else, which is why I think the way Predator 2 turned out was much better. They tried to tie the story too closely to the original Predator film when they really didn't have to. I quite liked his partner character though, Rasche. He was one of the best parts of the book, because Shaefer is painfully rather one dimensional. So there isn't much character development there other than he's the only one who can fight the Predators and seem to win in hand to hand combat.Much like Predator 2 it starts off with the Predators attacking drug dealers and killing them all in an incomprehensible fashion. Shaefer and Rasche are on the scene to try and figure out what happened. Rather than keep the Predators a mystery, since we all know what they basically are after seeing the first film Verheiden and Archer reveal the alien creatures right away. However, in Shaefer's universe there is still quite a bit of mystery surrounding the hunters and soon things lead to what looks like a government cover-up. The infamous General Phillips from the first movie shows up again, which I thought was actually a rather cool overlap from the first film.This leads Shaefer to go on his own hunt, butting heads with his commanding officer as is tradition in 80's/90's cop related stories. This search for answers doesn't give Shaefer any insight into his brother's whereabouts, but it does lead him to the original area in Central America where Dutch managed to kill one. There Shaefer faces his own Predator and also kills it, perhaps a bit quicker and easier than Dutch did, which was a bit ridiculous. However, this was a four issue comic book originally... so they didn't have a lot of pages to devote to a long drawn out epic battle.Shaefer then returns to New York City to face all the other Predators and put up a good fight. This is the part that I found rather ridiculous. Predator 2 had a single hunting party, which makes way more sense, but this novel has a full scale hunting expedition with multiple vessels hovering over NYC. I think this was jumping the gun a little bit in epic scale and I'm not surprised this never really happens again in any of the other Predator tales. It kind of makes the Predators unbeatable in so many ways...Overall, Archer did an impressive job fleshing out this somewhat overwhelming tale. The original story tries to do too much and travel to too many places to stay together seamlessly, but with Archer having more space he manages to bring more details into the mix and give it the flow it rather desperately needed.

CityTech is the first big expansion of the [b:Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat 2nd Edition 1978433 Battletech A Game of Armored Combat 2nd Edition FASA Corporation https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387665166l/1978433.SX50.jpg 1981805] world beyond giant ‘Mechs fighting in a relatively empty field. I think the need for some of the CityTech expansion came out of a scenario in the [b:Tales Of The Black Widow Company 530796 Tales Of The Black Widow Company Jordan K. Weisman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601702243l/530796.SX50.jpg 518421]. In one of the scenarios there were buildings that could be destroyed, so within that book they tried to come up with rules for destroying the buildings. They were definitely in their early stages of this, because the CityTech actual rules are way better and much more fleshed out. They also account for the different types of buildings in a better fashion.More than just rules for buildings, CityTech gives a relatively good rules set for urban ‘Mech combat. I still feel like these rules are in their infancy and will eventually need some tweaking a little bit. They also tried to include just about all the rules from the 2nd Edition of BattleTech, while keeping the rule book the same relative length... so I just feel like they might have missed some situations. They mostly did a good job putting it all together though.I think the surprising factor in this book is they also try to give rules to cover infantry and combat vehicles! I wasn't actually expecting that to show up in here. I knew it was in later BattleTech rules sets, but I was surprised to see it show up here. The rules for infantry are a little weird, but I guess they work. I believe they've made some pretty big changes to how these work in later iterations of the game. However, if you want to play any of the old Scenario Books, it's probably best to use these rules otherwise you can drastically affect the balance of a scenario. The inclusion of combat vehicles, such as tanks, were pretty cool. They work, basically, in a similar to ‘Mechs, except they are faster and have way less armor. As expected. However, they do make for an interesting dynamic and you can use them to harass ‘Mechs that might be engaging in other offensives. I figure the balance of vehicle types will come with time.In the end, I really like the idea of urban combat with ‘Mechs and I'm glad they're fleshing the series out a bit more and making the BattleTech universe feel like a more fleshed out place. This definitely coincides with all the novels that have been accompanying the game since it's inception. I look forward to them building on what's already here in the future to really make the rules set more solid.

Despite how much I was guaranteed to enjoy this novel, I decided to hold off on reading it until all the movies were made. I think I'm a little weird in the sense that I prefer to read books after the film comes out, because I find I dislike the films a lot of the times if I read the book first. The book will build up certain expectations for me and if the film doesn't do certain things I really wanted then I find the film less appealing. Now, this was back when they first made The Golden Compass starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, which, after re-watching was a decent representation of the book. But I've only started reading this series because the series on HBO His Dark Materials actually made it to the second book and looked like they'll get through the whole series! So, the following review is a bit of a review for the book and other media built around this universe.

I find it rather interesting that a book like this gets classed as a Young Adult novel, when the themes are really anything but that. The only thing that qualifies this is that it's technically a “coming of age” story and it follows a little girl, Lyra, throughout her journeys.

The book centers around the little girl, Lyra, as she is swept up into a most dangerous tale covering all manner of politics, war, and religion. Lyra's world is a little bit different from ours. In this world human souls are viewed in the forms of daemons that exist outside the human bodies. Daemons take on various animal shapes, but the key difference is that before you hit puberty your daemon can take on various animal forms, after puberty it settles on the form it will retain for the rest of its life. The real problem with having your soul exist externally is that if someone kills your daemon, you die too. You can't live without a soul after all.

The overall world build created by Pullman is really quite awesome and well developed. The world seems a little stunted, like sort of early 1900's technology. They know a good deal about math and science, especially particle physics. They have engines and dirigibles technologically speaking, so think 1930's/40's. However, in this alternate Earth there's something like the Catholic church in terms of political power all over the world. It's almost as if the church won with the Inquisition and really solidified it's control over all governments until they essentially became the main government system. In this world though, this religious organization is called the Magisterium.

Lyra has grown up in a rather sheltered atmosphere at Jordan College, similar to, probably Trinity College in England. So, while Lyra certainly knows about these things, she doesn't fully grasp all the delicate machinations going on around her. A lot of this is due to the fact that she was abandoned by her parents when she was a baby and left in the care of the college professors. The beginnings of her adventure is prompted by the arrival of a woman named Mrs. Coulter who takes her on as an assistant and from there Lyra is made aware of a sinister plot involving kidnapping children and somehow the Magisterium is involved. Everyone is making a big deal about an elementary particle called Dust amidst all of this and she knows her uncle, Lord Asriel, knows something about that science, so she embarks on a grand journey to find him in the North where he is studying the Aurora. There's so much more I could say, but I fear I'd spoil a lot more of it beyond this general synopsis. It's really a great story overall and a wild journey. There are a few small sections where I feel things might get a tad overlong, but for the most part Pullman does a good job crafting an exciting story rife with mystery where we want to keep reading to find out what's really going on!

Now, when it comes to the HBO series, I expected some changes compared to the original novel, as usual, but I wasn't prepared to like them this much! It's similar to when I read the 4th Harry Potter novel, I enjoyed the book, but I really quite liked some of the changes that were made for the film. When it came to the show, I really love how they fleshed the novel out. I don't know how much overlap is brought up in the second book, but in the show they really fleshed out the universe with what the grown ups are doing and all the political intrigue going on outside of Lyra's purview. The novel stays pretty strict to what Lyra sees and what Lyra knows of the world, so in the show we get to see a much bigger world. This would have made the actual story way longer and to some degree I think it might have made the book confusing with adding in far too many characters. But in a setting like television, it really works even better. The fact that Pullman was executive producer on this show probably makes all the difference in the world. There are some character descriptions and such that were changed a little bit, like I think he has the witches flying around on branches in the novel and shooting arrows, but in the show they are far more ethereal in terms of their flight. They also favor the use of daggers, and frankly the way they engage in combat is way more terrifying. The shows slight design adjustment makes the witches feel truly fearsome in their power, moreso than the original idea of the book.

Other aspects in the show were condensed a bit more here and there. Probably for a time related issue and a reduction in characters needed. Instead they put more work into building the Magisterium up and giving us insight there. So, I don't mind that some other areas of the novel were simplified a bit. There were two major things in the show that were different though and I rather liked the way the show did it more. The large battle at Bolvangar is heavily simplified in the show, but this is a benefit because it winds up feeling much more epic. Rather than having Lyra run off with the children, she gives the escape signal when the Gyptians attack. This has the witches Iorik, Lee Scorsby all assaulting Bolvangar to free the children, rather than picking up Lyra while she and the children run away. I prefer this take over the original novel and perhaps Pullman does too. In the novel, this is one of the areas where the book started to feel overlong in the sense that it felt like he was forcing the situation where Lyra and the kids overcome all their hardships with hardly any assistance from adults. This if very Young Adult in style, but it's also rather tedious given the situation they were all in. I feel the show corrects this oversight. The other major change is in the final battle between Iorik and Iofur. In the book they make a big deal out of the armor and in the movie they have it, but in the show Iorik fights Iofur naked. I think this was purely a design decision. I think that battle would have taken too long and been too hard to animate given the quality of CGI they've been producing in the show. So, they simplified it a bit. I am disappointed in this, but at the same time, the practical part of me understands and can live with it.

In the show Lyra is played by Dafne Keen, whom I first saw in the movie Logan and was instantly impressed, so seeing her in this show, I was pretty excited. Her portrayal of Lyra is very spot on. Ruth Wilson's portrayal of Mrs. Coulter is probably one of the major high-lights. While I enjoy Nicole Kidman as an actress and I think she did a good job, Ruth Wilson stepped in and really just knocked it out of the park. It's truly an impressive rendition of this character and she's incredibly terrifying. I had never seen Ruth Wilson before and I just wasn't expecting a performance of this caliber. One of the other high lights was James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, and once again the show outdoes the movie for me. His portrayal of Lord Asriel is just so much better. At the end of the novel and show, the show simplifies some of the dialogue a bit in Lyra's last discussion with Lord Asriel and I actually quite like how the show went about it over the book. I feel like the show did a great job cutting to the chase with how Asriel sees himself with respect to Lyra and they even fleshed that whole scene out a bit more. Rather than it just being a single conversation in Asriel's library. Other actors and actresses stand out, but in a lot of cases it is the second season where they stand out the most, so I'll save my praise for after I read the second novel.

In the end, if you're a fan of the show or the book, or the Pullman universe in general all of these things are worth checking out. The book has become quite the classic over the years and I never read it when I was younger, because by the time it was released I was in high school. And you know... reading childish things is just not cool when you're in high school. Well, maybe that is not true anymore, but it was in the pre-internet 90's. So, now I back track and read these things when I am almost 40. I like to think I get a bit more appreciation out of them at my age at least.

This is the first comic book based on the Watch_Dogs game franchise. This was a bit of an unusual release in the sense that it is printed as two oversized comics rather than just a four issue run. It makes sense given the way this story is laid out though, so this format was actually a great idea in terms of pressing. Watch_Dogs 2 was the only game that was out at the time and I've played a little bit of that game, but I think this comic has a bit more of a Watch_Dogs: Legion feel. Watch_Dogs: Legion was my first foray into the franchise and I liked it so much that when I saw this comic I wanted to enter the world a little bit more. The Watch_Dogs games seem to be set only in Britain and one of the best features of this comic series is that it's not set anywhere near the UK.

Return to Rocinha brings us all the way to Rio, Brazil and I love the fact that we're outside of London for this adventure. The cTOS system and the Blume company show up in this series trying to expand their corporate interests. This feels very much like one of the major missions found in Watch_Dogs: Legion and the artist and writer did a solid job bringing us into this world. Wrapped up into this you have a lot of the usual ideas concerning corporatists expansion, “colonizing the new world,” albeit with corporations now. A lone hacker, Sauda, is poised to put a stop to all of this, now that the corporation is trying to get in bed with the drug runners in her area and using the cTOS system to exploit the poor in general. It's all very much the same story as what's going on in London, just a different location and people with fairly different problems for their unique region of the world.

Our lone hacker is contacted by DedSec and they offer to help her take people down. For the first comic issue it seems she is set to do just that, getting dirt on high up people, hacking drones etc. just like we do in the game, but things change. The first comic really serves as a background to our character before major events occur, which course correct her life. The second issue happens some four years later and what a major turn that took! I really don't want to spoil too much, but the second half was the real reason to stick around, because it really adds this depth to your usual DedSec styled mission. They usually do a good job of this in the game writing for Watch_Dogs: Legion.

So, if you're a fan of the game series, I think you'd find this comic a solid run set in that world. It has just about everything else the game does. While I didn't think the games were the most amazing thing I've ever played, I did find them enjoyable. I was definitely curious as to how this would translate to comic form and I think they did a good job with this. I'm not sure we'll get anymore issues from the franchise, but I would definitely read another one if they ever wanted to make more.

This probably sits closer to the 2.5 star rangeNow, I'm not usually one to sit and read novelizations of films, and despite being an avid reader I have realized that these novelizations can be a little bit different from the film itself because, I think, they're based on the original treatment. At least most of the time, so if there are scenes cut or changes are made during filming, the novel can have pretty different things. I read the first comic book series first and I'm glad I did, because at the end of the first issue of [b:Predator: Concrete Jungle 1022975 Predator Concrete Jungle Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1180307261l/1022975.SY75.jpg 21678265] instead of having the usual letters column, they had an interview with someone who worked on the film. (I forget who off-hand and I don't have the comics nearby. I, also, don't know if the collected edition above published the interview.) In that interview it was stated that quite a lot of changes were made during the filming of Predator, especially with the way the creature looks and the ending of the film itself. So, when I sat down and read this novel, while I was shocked at the vast changes made, I was prepared for them!In that interview in the comic book they provided some early sketch ideas for what the Predator would look like, and while it had the iconic mouth, it did not have dreadlocks and it did not have the same type of mask at all... or much of a mask for that matter. In the original story boarding ideas when the movie was originally called Hunter, I imagine this is the script that Paul Monette was working from when he wrote this novel. So, this has the original alien creature and it has the originally proposed ending. In the interview one guy recalls changing the ending of the film after filming had already begun. Stan Winston was brought in for the final design of the Predator we all know and love. But the original design was created by Richard Edlund and ultimately rejected, the description of this designers Predator matches the novel. In order to write the novel and release it around the same time as the film, obviously Monette was writing before or while they were filming, so all these drastic changes that were made... well Monette would have never known. So, I'm sure this is one of the major reasons this novel is rated down pretty heavily, because it really does feel like a pretty different film.As a writer, I think Monette did a good job in telling the story. I've read a few reviews that state you can glean an allegory to the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the time in the 80's and that is probably true since it affected the author through his partner. So, I'm sure some of that worked it's way into the novel to some degree, but maybe less so than some others are supposing in their write-ups.The things that are the same is the general overall story. Commandos drop into a jungle environment to take out insurgents. Meanwhile an alien hunter stalks the commandos and hunts them down taking trophies of the kills. Just about everyone has the same name as the film, the only change in names is the Green Beret that was killed. The original name in the novel is J.S. Davis and in the film it was changed to Jim Harper. I only bring this up, because I feel like there should be a story behind this name change, it's such an innocuous detail to adjust. Who cares if the guy's last name is Davis?For the most part I loved the changes they made from the original script. I think if they had gone with this treatment the movie would have been, almost bad, and not the iconic film that we got in the end. Aside from the creature and ending, I think the best overhaul they did to this script was just take out all the racism. It's incredible how overtly racist this original treatment is. When you read this novel, just try to imagine Arnold calling Carl Weathers the N-word? I just can't imagine it. As far as I could tell Weathers character, Dillon, was the only black man in the book and he was outright Dutch's enemy. He was incompetent, bad at his job, etc. As being the only black character amidst all the other racism, it kind of stuck out pretty hard that this original treatment was incredibly problematic. It was never stated that the character Mac was black and Bill Duke did an incredible job in that role, but in the book Mac and Blain spend some serious time throwing around racial slurs and telling jokes. It really sets a different tone of the story from the type of comradery we got in the movie.In addition to this, the cast is fleshed out with a Native American named Billy Sole. In the film, this came off as an awesome story arc. Here was Billy at one with nature and seemingly having a sixth sense due to how in tune he was with the world around him, so his fight with the Predator was a big deal. In the book, he was a lot of those things, but also not as much. During one of the iconic scenes where Billy thinks he sees the Predator watching them off in the distance, in the book he goes into like a spirit journey and passes out after putting himself into a trance. This just seems like a weird thing to do mid-combat exfiltration. So, I'm glad they pulled that from the film. But then the racism comes up again (maybe)... everyone calls him Tonto. Historically, Tonto is the side kick of the Lone Ranger. The original author of the Lone Ranger, Trendle, doesn't appear to have had that in mind because, according to what I read, he was told by local members of the Potawatomi tribe that it meant “wild one” in their language. But fast forward quite a few decades and portray the character Tonto as not speaking English well and the connotations of the word known by Europeans to mean “stupid” or “moron” from languages like Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Now, I'm just speculating, but I would be shocked to find out if we asked the original author of Predator what “tonto” meant in the context of his script, he would respond with “wild one”.All the racial slurs that are brought into this book, except the N-word, are played off as “terms of endearment”. It's the whole “boys will be boys” type of attitude with the whole thing, which creates a whole different dynamic for the group. Maybe it was a bit different back in the 1980's, but by the late 80's, I feel like a lot of these attitudes were changing pretty fast and to read this now in 2021 it's outright shocking and it just reads as being offensive for the sake of being offensive. Maybe this is a realistic portrayal of a tough as nails commando unit of the times, but boy am I glad they changed all that for the film. The worst thing we get is bad sex jokes and, frankly, I'd rather deal with those than having Arnold call Carl Weathers the N-word on screen.Okay, so that dynamic was drastically overhauled... now onto the creature. In the interview I read, it seemed that during filming they wanted to make drastic changes to the Predator creature compared to the original descriptions. Hence, even changing designers of the Predator suit and everything. The original notion of the “invisible hunter” or “like a chameleon” stayed with the idea in what we got, but the original version is even more fantastical. The concept that the creature was a humanoid lizard stayed true into the film, but in the book it took the notion of chameleon to the extreme. At one point it turned into a bird before it killed Hawkins. Rather than simply having a cloaking device to bend light around it, it literally transforms into other things. There's even one line in the novel where it sort of states that the creature is so unfeeling, because its kind doesn't face death, instead they just transform into other creatures forever. So... they're immortal?? At least, that's the impression I walked away with. I'm glad that narrative was changed and the whole shape shifting aspect, it's just so intensely implausible where the film felt like it tried to stay grounded with the alien species just being a highly advanced hunting culture. The only weapon the Predator has in the book is a spear, there's no other high tech gadgetry like we got in the film. The spear was clearly inspirational, because it does show up in the second film as the Predator arsenal is fleshed out even more during that movie. In any event, I was happy with all the changes they made to the alien creature during filming. While it still had a bit of that man versus monster feel, the film felt more like man versus advanced technology even more so, which is a vibe I like a bit more.The most drastic shift was the ending of the film. First off... apparently Arnold was supposed to be running around completely naked for the final battle. I just imagine Arnold reading this and being like “Can't I, at least, wear pants?” Really though, full frontal male nudity is still a “shocking” thing even in 2021, so back then it was even more of a no no, so the film was adjusted accordingly I assume. In this ending the Predator is killed when Dutch throws the spear at the creature. In the both the film and the book he sort of misses, but catches the creature with shrapnel. In the film, the Predator was not injured that much, but in the book the Predator was severely wounded and retreats to the ship. That's right, in this original ending Dutch makes it to the Predator ship! He fights the Predator their and uses the spear the Predator carried with it. There is still a giant explosion at the end, but in this ending the ship is the thing that is detonated not the bomb the Predator carries with it. It's interesting to see that this is basically the ending they went with for Predator 2. Albeit it was done much better in Predator 2, but the seeds of the idea were clearly there in this ending.One last tidbit, in the film the Predator is eventually crushed. A somewhat comical ending to such a huge threat and in the interview the person that worked on the film said the idea was actually taken from a Looney Tunes episode. Despite that, I think Dutch's character setting up the elaborate traps and being in that situation it makes for a really good ending to the film, despite it's influence.I can't imagine many people are running out to pick up a copy of this novel, it's turned into a bit of collector's item and can sell around a hundred dollars or so at the moment second hand. However, I am glad I read the novel, because it serves at an interesting piece of Predator lore of what the franchise was originally supposed to be. I'm glad they made a lot of the changes they did, it really changed the tone of voice of the film and, I think, the franchise as a whole. They really turned it into something everyone can enjoy in my opinion. (Well, provided you enjoy Sci-Fi movies and the like...)

Honestly, probably hitting that 2.5 range

I've been enjoying delving into a few Cussler books from time to time. I don't know if I will ever finish all of his published books, because other interests catch my fancy more often than fairly run of the mill adventure fiction. Which is where most Cussler books seem to find themselves sitting. Usually they are quick reads and they are an action packed diversion, but there usually isn't very much substance beyond that.

Dirk Pitt has been a major player in creating Clive Cussler's fantasy America, which dominates just about all things in the world. In this case I think Cussler was rather inspired by stuff like The Manchurian Candidate and in this book Dirk faces off against an ambitious Russian plot. Even though I'm reading this in 2021, I have to remind myself this book was written back in the 80's and that came with a certain level of Cold War baggage in a good portion of fiction coming out at the time. So, make sure you read this book through that kind of a lens, otherwise things can feel even more ridiculous than they already are. There are two layers of bad guys in this book, the Russians and an Asian shipping company that has teamed up with the Russians to gain control over the American presidency.

The overall action/adventure interspersed with politics and mystery is pretty good. I think he crafted an interesting story with decent players, but there's a bit of a dryness about Dirk that makes him seem a bit cliché. I'm hoping this will ease up a bit in future novels, but he's written like a sort of Captain America meets James Bond, but his day job is ship salvage. Yet, he often gets entangled in some of the biggest world events and with sheer luck outperforms every specialized government task force. He's the type of character who is nationalistically loyal to a fault and often so stoic he has the emotional range of tic-tac. Still, this is on the heels of the 70's/80's... so it's not unusual and whenever Dirk shows some emotion you just know it's a big deal! Because, you know, “real men” don't do that.

It's interesting to note that Cussler typically writes with his books set a few years in the future, which I think allows him some leeway with making up fantastical technology. I think this is also one of the reasons his books have a bit of that James Bond feel aside from everything surrounding Dirk Pitt as a character. The villains have some fantastically devious plan and in this book they are using this wild mind control technology, that I'm certain would not work based on what we know about neuro science today. Cussler's projection that computational power would only increase was certainly true, but the computers in his world really do work like magic. There's a medical scene where a computer does the diagnosis and it just made me think of that Simpson's episode where Homer and Bart were convinced they had leprosy. Cussler's computers, basically, worked the same way.

Unfortunately, sexism is generally unavoidable in these types of books. It's interesting, because I do think Cussler tries to be a bit “progressive” on that front with presenting women in higher powered positions or technical jobs. He generally seems to try and include their existence in the greater world, which is an effort I think is pretty nice. But then we stumble upon lines like “‘Not without my colleagues,' she said with feminine resolve.” Who knew such things were gendered... And then there's the line where after another character (not Dirk) fought off a female martial artist even though the male character in question was not even presented as being well versed in that type of combat said: “‘Lucky for us there's still a few things we can do better than they [women] can.'” It was just, such an inherently ridiculous statement. I'm really interested to see how things turn around over the years as a good editor will just get rid of such bad writing regardless if the author believes it or not. I have read a post 2000 Cussler novel and thankfully it was much better about this stuff... so I look forward to the time when Cussler creates a more realistic world. It's just tough to tell what he thinks through the writing... on the way hand he seems to celebrate women in the work force... but on the other is he mad about it? It's just content that didn't even need to be in the book to make the story just as good. So, why even write it?

That being said, I do think this book is about 70 or so pages too long. This tends to feel like one of those action movies where the big bad guy is defeated, but the movie keeps going and the audience is in suspense with “...oooohhh, but is he really dead?!” Shock, they're not dead, or some other evil doer you didn't expect was there all along now they have to fight them! Granted, this book isn't that complicated with a bait and switch, but it did drag in a few areas and Cussler could have tied things up nicely earlier if he wanted. Dirk's girlfriend Loren, kept getting captured and Dirk had to play the knight in shining armor more than once within the same story and that is just... well... kind of bad writing in my opinion. It's bad enough that you have the cliché damsel in distress, but to have slog through that process twice is daunting.

Anyway, overall story arc was not too bad. I was generally entertained, but it could have been a lot better in my opinion. If you're a Cussler fan you'll probably read this at some point, but if you're new to his books and didn't like this one... try others, especially if you grew up with more modern fiction. Sometimes it's hard to go back in time, so try a newer book. Cussler does a decent job of writing fairly stand alone novels and I'm just reading them in order because that's what I tend to like to do with stuff. But if you don't care, by all means, skip this and jump around.

After the other installments of the new comics published by Dark Horse I was definitely ready to pick this up right away. This is a little bit different than the others, in the sense that this is the first mostly just graphic novel installment without having it released as individual issues first. It's also interesting that this is labelled as Cyberpunk 2077, yet the the date we run into is 2023, so this is set in the Cyberpunk 2020 setting?

This reads more like a quick short story adventure rather than a really fully formed idea. I think that's part of the problem with it, it's almost so minimalist in it's aim that you never really get to know any of the characters. It's a fast paced quick read about a lonely maintenance worker that stumbles into a situation with a cyberpunk. It's pretty clear that he's sort of instantly into her, but is clearly to shy to do much about it. At first she treats him as beneath her, not surprising, but then he gets duped into something that enhances him and suddenly he's quite the asset.

The story rushes past and you never really get to know anyone beyond their most basic existence. I guess, if you wanted a comic with a Cyberpunk flair, but with little substance this serves as that kind of adventure. But if you're hoping for a deeper dive into the world of Cyberpunk to fleshed out better, then this will be pretty disappointing. I'm usually down for a good adventure and the basic idea and premise of the tale is pretty good and would make for a more compelling fleshed out episode... but I think the pace is part of the point. It's that whole whirlwind of getting scammed fast and hard and you just don't know, so they bring the reader along for that ride.

The art is pretty interesting, it's definitely different from the standard comic experience. I think it fit the depiction of what the authors were trying to present. I preferred the art in the other comics, but this fits pretty well for a messy fast paced story at the end of the day.

I don't mind a quick jaunt into the world of Cyberpunk and maybe I hated this less than other reviewers, but most of them are totally right that the other comics are definitely better. So, if this is your first jaunt into the expanded comic universe, don't judge the other stories by this one. Here's hoping the next round of comics planned are even better!

Rather than review each individual issue, I'm going to review all twelve issues at once. So, as a series and as stories go, this bounces around the 2 to 4 range in terms of stars. Not all the stories are good, but some are quite entertaining.Usually when a publisher re-prints an old comic book series they will just bound it into a single graphic novel. Marvel UK didn't do that with Death's Head though and I have to hand it to them, this is probably one of the more creative ways to repress original issues I've ever come across. Someone else may have done a similar thing, but I've never seen it. Rather than simply re-release the original Death's Head comics from the 80's, they decided to intersect their new rendition Death's Head II, who debuted with his own mini series: [b:Death's Head II Vol.1 (1992) #1 32307643 Death's Head II Vol.1 (1992) #1 (of 4) Dan Abnett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475077599l/32307643.SY75.jpg 52935183]. After the success of that series Death's Head II was going to be getting his own monthly run, but this, no doubt, generated some interest by new readers in the original character Death's Head II is based on. Death's Head II is a much more modern super hero in the way he acts and is designed, but Death's Head, the original incarnation, is very much a character of the 80's and feels like it's straight on the heels of pulp sci-fi from the 60's and 70's.With The Incomplete Death's Head we have our new hero Death's Head II researching his past and finding a database that sucks him into his past lives. It's really through this lens that we all experience the re-telling of these old stories. Death's Head II's side kick Tuck is along for the ride, as usual and it's through her we get to find out what's going on in their “real world”. The title having the world “incomplete” is rather apt, considering this isn't a faithful retelling of every adventure with Death's Head. What we have here is a repressing of the original issues from the main series, 1-10 and then some cross over issues with things like Dragon Claws #5 and his appearances in Doctor Who Magazine.The sad part is that this repress does not tell us the whole story and I had to go read some online articles to get the full scope of who Death's Head really was in the context of the Marvel UK universe, especially since Death's Head II was more my mainstay in terms of characters. Anyway, Death's Head was first created as a character in the Transformers universe. In fact he appeared in 13 issues of the Transformers Magazine appearing sporadically from issue #113 to #151. However, none of those have been re-printed, I imagine they could not get the rights from Hasbro. Strangely, due to their copyright deal with Hasbro at the time, they thought Death's Head had more potential as a character before their universe and rather than risk Hasbro gaining the rights to the character they printed a run of ads starring Death's Head called High Noon Tex, which they did reprint in the first issue of this repress. After this we skip over the Transformers timeline and catch up with Doctor Who Magazine.I remember reading these as a kid, but I was never much of a Doctor Who fan, so seeing the Tardis show up meant very little to me. Re-reading these again as an adult it just blows my mind the franchises Death's Head has shown up in so long ago. The reason Doctor Who was brought in was so that they would have an excuse to “shrink” Death's Head to normal size. Remember, he was fighting Transformers before and they're huge, so he was the same size as them, but then Death's Head crashes into the Tardis and runs into the good Doctor. In their confrontation the Doctor shrinks Death's Head. Thankfully, all of these are re-printed here. From here Death's Head makes his way into the Dragon Claws universe which is set in the year 8162A.D. The Dragon Claws world is interesting, but not so interesting that I'd want to go track down all the comics. They seemed, well, overly generic and even with Death's Head it was a bit boring to read, it's just not a very good setting. At least Death's Head walked away with a side-kick out of it? In any event, Death's Head finally makes his way to his own regular series which made it through 10 issues.For the most part these were pretty good. The year of 8162 is a bit strange and the projection to what Earth would be like during that time is a bit fantastical to say the least. This is what I mean when I say it's right on the heels of some of the good old pulp sci-fi from the 70's. After the Dragon Claws incident we see Death's Head setup shop as... a bounty hunter? Assassin? Free Lance Peace Keeping Agent? Yes, the last one, that's it. Don't call him a bounty hunter though, he'll probably kill you for it. Death's Head is, basically, an anti-hero. He's, to me, clearly had some influence from the likes of Wolverine in his make up, but with a bit more of an aloof attitude that is a bit more light hearted at times. Definitely not your run of the mill killing machine, but that is probably why so many people found the character endearing. I think the character idea of a cyborg killing machine that will take out contracts was a good idea, I think the world build they stuck him into was a bit weak. I think this is largely why I preferred Death's Head II, the world build he interfaces with is a bit more interesting to a certain degree from what I remember. Not all of the ideas were good, but I certainly liked most of them. The original Death's Head doesn't feel like it has an over arching story behind it. He's just this character that shows up or random people are trying to kill him.I feel like they tried to create a story arc with Death's Head hunting down the Doctor, but that was pretty short lived. He feels more like the character of the Transformers, serving as this person that shows up in other people's comics or other people show up in his. In issue 10 of the main series (11 in this one) Iron Man 2020 shows up (Not Tony Stark)... and it's interesting to see what Marvel UK would project for the time line of the greater Marvel universe. Apparently a lot of the major heroes of the Marvel universe would be dead by 2020. Clearly Marvel didn't see it that way.After his main series is repressed they wrap it up with the She-Hulk #24 reprint and Doctor Who Magazine #173. This was a strange choice, and I would have much rather they had reprinted the Stip #13-20, which was repressed as [b:Death's Head: The Body In Question 6617100 Death's Head The Body In Question Simon Furman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1247626157l/6617100.SX50.jpg 6811207]. Personally, I would have preferred The Body in Question. Even though Issue #12 is a 48 page blow-out, they fill it out with wrapping up the Death's Head II story arc since the Doctor Who piece was pretty short.And there you have it, one of the more interesting comic book reprints in my collection. I confess this has spurred my nostalgia for Marvel UK material and I'll be diving more into their universe... maybe not their 80's material, but I'll be seeing what else they put out in the 90's beyond my favorite Death's Head II comics. If you're a Death's Head/Death's Head II fan, then I do recommend checking this out, it's definitely a curious piece of work and I thought the way they did the reprints was quite creative.

I originally read this as individual issues.I absolutely adored the game Horizon Zero Dawn and I remember these comics being announced quite a while ago, but for some reason I just never got around to buying them until very recently. It's now been years since I've played the game and it's expansions and I kind of wish I had played it more often than I did. Usually I take years between a replay of a game, so it's been a while since I've even ventured into the world of Horizon Zero Dawn. That being said, I really liked being transported there again for this four issue comic set about Talanah. If you don't remember, Talanah is the hunter you meet at the Hunters lodge that eventually becomes the first woman Sunhawk (leader of the lodge). This story takes place after that event occurs.Now, for people wondering, Aloy doesn't show up in the story. Instead, she shows up in memory flash backs as Talanah relates her story to another character. This is pretty typical of franchised content. Letting the main writers tell the story of the main character from the games and letting these side stories exist in a cross path feel as the world is fleshed out. Unless the novel or comic is written as a direct tie-in to a game or movie the extra stories fleshing out the universe tend to steer away from the main character in favor of the other characters sort of responding to the change in world state. Trying to write more about the main character has spectacularly back fired on publishers in the past such as [b:Aliens: Earth War 1311881 Aliens Earth War Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979187l/1311881.SY75.jpg 1301171], where they tried to bring Ripley back... and well... then Alien 3 happened! I imagine most publishers aren't interested in going down that road again.So, here we have a side adventure of Talanah and even though she is in charge of the hunters lodge, she decides to take a contract to hunt a machine with black armor. They sort of set up the motivation as her being restless in her new position and needing to get out and “find herself” more. I thought the motivation could have been fleshed out a little bit better, but it was fine enough to send us on a fun adventure through more of the world! That's why I was here after all... The core story is pretty good, feels pretty side-quest-like as far as video games go, and along the way Talanah runs into another character named Amadis. His background story with the Red Raids was actually quite good and he wound up being a pretty interesting character for Talanah to team up with to hunt the machine. I can't say it was an amazingly original story overall, but I would hardly expect that nowadays. Basically, he was a soldier trying to do the right thing and being punished for it and now there's a bounty on his head for his troubles. So, when they cross paths with other hunters there's a bit of a problem.The almost awesome part was that they discovered a machine factory, but then they never go in and then I remembered it was only Aloy who could do that kind of stuff. So, they have to look for another solution to deal with the situation and in that we meet and entirely new machine! This part was pretty cool and it makes me wonder if we'll be running into these things during the next video game installment. At the end of the series it did say Talanah's story continues there and all this did was make me more excited for the next game!The art is pretty solid all around. They did a good job of translating the game environment into the comic book. Ann Maulina's art was sitting around what I'd expect for modern day comic book art. It doesn't get too abstract and manages to keep the fairly standard realism of the game that we'd probably expect as fans of the franchise.In the end, if you're a Horizon Zero Dawn fan, then I can't imagine you'd find fault with this small story. It's a fun adventure at the very least and gives us an excuse to spend a little bit more time in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn. I'm hoping that they will do more to flesh out the world a little bit. I know the wilderness hunting aspect was a big part of the game, but I'd love to see some stories where the cities take a front seat. Maybe even some historical tales showing mankind rebuilding civilization a little bit or something along those lines.

I'm usually not one to buy a lot of these game type books. I rarely by the “art of...” or “complete guide to...” books at all, but this book is quite a different animal. Now, I realize this book was released as part of the pre-launch project for the upcoming video game and I bet a lot of people jumped on it up front and in that frame of reference it might not be as great of a read. I'm sure the thinking was that this would be a good way and somewhat quick way to get players up to speed on the setting. However, the game play itself is a far more powerful tool for this and I wound up reading this book well after I had already beaten the game itself. I think this is actually the best way to engage this book, because it gives you a really great overview of everything that's going on at a much slower pace in a sort of magazine article format. If wanted a bit more depth into the world of Cyberpunk 2077 this is a truly great book for achieving that goal... but if you want an even deeper dive into this universe, read on.For some people this is obvious news, for others it is not, but the Cyberpunk game system is not very new. This is based on a role playing game launched all the way back in the late 1980's, [b:Cyberpunk: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future (1st edition) 41837039 Cyberpunk The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future (1st edition) 3 books in BOX SET Mike Pondsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1537030620l/41837039.SX50.jpg 65308386] and created by the incredible [a:Mike Pondsmith 2680 Mike Pondsmith https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377762979p2/2680.jpg]. To see his work get to the eventual scale of a Cyberpunk 2077 release must have been amazing for him, to see his creation of Night City really come to life in this game.The original setting is very clearly influenced by things like [a:William Gibson 9226 William Gibson https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1373826214p2/9226.jpg] novels and [a:Philip K. Dick 4764 Philip K. Dick https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1264613853p2/4764.jpg] novels, especially for the novel [b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 36402034 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507838927l/36402034.SY75.jpg 830939] which served as inspiration for the incredible movie Blade Runner. The authors behind the Cyberpunk setting are not shy about these influences and state that they were directly influenced by these ideas. The neural implants in the game are clearly directly inspired from things like Johnny Neumonic by William Gibson, found in[b:Burning Chrome 22323 Burning Chrome (Sprawl, #0) William Gibson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349075772l/22323.SY75.jpg 2457086]. The game setting is very ambitious, as you can probably gather, in that it tries to blend a lot of the literature together into one really fascinating world of the near future gone awry.The design of the setting is largely a result of the time in which it was created. If you wonder why Japan is showing up as such a massive force to be reckoned with in this near future, well in the 80's Japan was creating and manufacturing a lot of stuff at the time. There was a massive influx of Japanese electronics and new companies were being created all the time, my father even worked for one of them for quite a few years, but that company is no longer around. So creators like Gibson and others, when it came to imagining a future, they really imagined Japan really controlling a lot of the overall world's market share for research and manufacturing. This was well before China really ended up stepping in. Naturally, Japan is still involved in lots of cutting edge research, but they aren't the manufacturing power house they were in the 80's. The late 80's was also a time when the Cold War was still happening, remember the Berlin Wall hadn't fallen yet. So, I find a lot of the literature and Cyberpunk dark future types of settings are heavily inspired by the notions of societal collapse surrounding things like the Cold War. At that time the Cold War had been going on for so long that it probably seemed like an endless affair by the time these authors put pen to paper. You can find wild post apocalyptic sci-fi going back decades with things like [b:Level 7 820073 Level 7 Mordecai Roshwald https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347381876l/820073.SY75.jpg 805927], which probably inspired things like [a:Hugh Howey 3064305 Hugh Howey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1327581631p2/3064305.jpg] to write the Silo series kicking off with [b:Wool 12287209 Wool (Wool, #1) Hugh Howey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327889474l/12287209.SY75.jpg 17263666]. I hope I'm setting the stage pretty well for the general idea behind the setting and some of it's building influences over the years. And probably, most important of all to make a proper Cyberpunk universe complete... the rise of computing technology. Computers had existed for quite a while by the late 80's, but they were getting ever more powerful and more personal computers started to exist, which gave rise to the Hacker and this concept of hacking the systems gave rise to movies like... well... Hackers! (Albeit that came out well after Cyberpunk.) A good book that covered the history of these early days and is easy to read is [b:Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace 984598 Masters of Deception The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace Michelle Slatalla https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348610312l/984598.SY75.jpg 970097].The Cyberpunk RPG game seems to do something similar to another game created in the 80's called [b:Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat 2nd Edition 1978433 Battletech A Game of Armored Combat 2nd Edition FASA Corporation https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387665166l/1978433.SX50.jpg 1981805], in the sense that they seem to advance their game in a very similar way. In the BattleTech universe, what they did as a designer was instead of creating new rules sets and tweaks every few years such as what D&D was doing at the time, BattleTech would advance the in world time line of the game. Cyberpunk does something similar, with the first edition of the game being set around 2013. I'm not sure how much this first edition took off as I was pretty young and never heard of it at the time, but it seems, historically speaking, their big claim to fame was the 2nd edition with [b:Cyberpunk 2020: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future 56352135 Cyberpunk 2020 The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future Mike Pondsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1608504980l/56352135.SY75.jpg 539037]. The 2020 edition of the game really fleshed out the universe quite remarkably and you'll see the names of some familiar characters referenced in these old game books. A number of game books can still be purchased direct from the publisher R. Talsorian Games and if you want to delve even deeper into this world, I highly recommend you do so! The 2020 setting is the sub-story from the video game of Johnny Silverhand and his fight with Arasaka. I really liked the way they incorporated that history into the video game so that anyone new to the setting could get that history, such as myself who was a bit late to the Cyberpunk party despite consuming quite a few of the settings influences since I was a kid. After 2020 the third edition was released as [b:Cyberpunk v3.0 6260514 Cyberpunk v3.0 Mike Pondsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387751820l/6260514.SX50.jpg 6443670] and this is now out of print. Even the publisher has not reprinted it and it's probably quite hard to find at this point. It seems this edition was not as popular, though it had it's fans, but it sounds like it sort of faded away since it's release in 2005.Now we get to the modern era, the real 2020! Cyberpunk is going through a re-launch process. It's sort of launching two time lines at once, which did not work out so well for BattleTech when they tried to do this under the management of WizKids games, and I can only hope Cyberpunk is more successful. Based on what they've produced, I think it is going much better. First Cyberpunk launches the 4th edition of their RPG with an introductory box set [b:Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit 52405345 Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit Mike Pondsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1564337514l/52405345.SX50_SY75.jpg 72412306] and full rules book [b:Cyberpunk RED 55989706 Cyberpunk RED Mike Pondsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610752643l/55989706.SX50.jpg 87216945]. According to what I've read, this skips over anything that happened in V3.0 and tweaks anything they wanted to keep a bit. This “Red” time line involves things like the 4th corporate war, and by 2077 there are still after effects of this! Cyberpunk Red takes place around the 2040's and while it has its own events going on, they've designed the new game in such a way that you could really play in the 2077 setting as a tabletop adventure because the time lines are close enough in setup. The video game on the other hand is set in the future of 2077 and I do wonder if there are plans to expand beyond Cyberpunk Red and create RPG books built around the 2077 setting? We haven't really seen anything like that yet, however this book The World of Cyberpunk 2077 could really be used to design quite the campaign setting with your own players if you are armed with the new 4th edition rule book. And therein is what makes this book really special. Not only does this book serve as a deeper insight into the world, setting, and general history of this long running game, it can even serve to help someone create a really cool adventure! While, I think this book was initially designed to “get people into the setting,” I think it can also be used as a bit of flavor for people already playing adventures on the tabletop! In that respect I found this book really enjoyable.It's an expensive book, but it is kind of worth it because it is printed as a large format art book. It has a lot of pictures from within the game and also a lot of concept art that parts of the game are based on. There's actually quite a bit to take in and the write-ups are really well done. They did what William Gibson usually does in his novels where he writes as if you already live in the setting and then slowly introduce you to what's going on as your journey through each chapter and write-up. I loved this format as I had fond memories of this being a pretty standard tactic for novels of this style.In the end, I thought this was a well done book, part of me wishes it had a section where it addressed how far back the Cyberpunk series goes, since that's something the 4th edition rule book does cover, but if you don't know the tabletop RPG and this book doesn't mention it, new players might think this is just a video game. That's really the only thing somewhat missing from this book, because otherwise I thought it was a great read and I think it's an even better read if you read it after playing the game. I know that's backwards from the intent, but I got way more out of this after having played the game first.

Colonial Marines is a series that probably sits around a 2.5 for me really. This series had a lot of really great ideas, but there were a lot of weak parts in this series. I also don't think it really met expectations for what I wanted out of a story about the Colonial Marines in general. I was sort of expecting a series about a marine task force being sent to different areas to clean up Alien infestations and at first it seemed like that's what we might get... until the Alien human hybrid people showed up.You heard that right... there are humans that have been transformed by the use of Royal Jelly and now they've teamed up with the Aliens to spread the species. Yeah, I thought this was kind of a stupid concept too. I had some interesting hope for the series at the very beginning, because it starts with an escape ship docking with a different space station. At first I thought this was being tied in with the end of [b:Aliens: Tribes 716971 Aliens Tribes Stephen R. Bissette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1177607494l/716971.SY75.jpg 703222] where the mad scientist got away... but, alas, that very interesting thread was not to be. Instead this was just some random ship, also infested with Aliens, and the fanatical worshippers now turned into hybrid Aliens.After just this first issue, I had to commend the artist involved, because they did an excellent job on drawing the space ships and other elements of technology in the Aliens universe. It felt very in line with Alien/Aliens/Alien 3. This was a far cry from so much of the art from previous series where the space ships just looked goofy and the technology looked like it might be out of the Jetsons or some other silly cartoon.Unfortunately, instead of having an elite team of marines, we get a story about a ragtag bunch of misfits, so hardly the intense action packed action I was expecting. Here a Lt. Henry is put in charge of this group to bring them on a mission and they are barely ready to take orders from anyone, least of all a new lieutenant. Basically, when the Aliens show up against the marines this serves as quite the detriment because these marines are ready to quit after the first encounter. None of them are interested in sticking things through. Given the Aliens time line and this being well after the Alien infestation of Earth, it was sort of a far cry from the crack Alien clean up crews we met in [b:Aliens: Genocide 438269 Aliens Genocide John Arcudi https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174772819l/438269.SY75.jpg 427129]. Granted things didn't work out too well in Genocide, but I would have liked to see a series where they figured it out and turned things around.In any event, this series uses things as an excuse to introduce a character with a familiar name of Vasquez, but this is the story of her sister, Carmen. Carmen isn't as tough as nails and eager for combat as the well known Vasquez from the film. It's cool to switch up expectations in a lot of situations, but having at least one truly competent marine on this force beyond Lt. Henry would have been pretty nice. Oh well...The things this series did right was bring us to different worlds to get even more insight into how humanity has expanded into the future. An Alien infestation spread to a nearby world of the space station and there were these strange hybrid Aliens with something from their ocean. I actually thought this was a really cool idea, the way Alien biology might change a bit depending on the host creature. This was a far more respectable idea over the weird humans transformed by Royal Jelly... which was a stupid thread to bring up to sort of extend the worshippers of the Aliens seen in the very first series, [b:Aliens: Book One 950807 Aliens Book One Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347591922l/950807.SY75.jpg 90689096].During these adventures we met an interesting group of new characters and the idea of combat androids. I thought the combat androids were cool, but I'm not sure how much I think they'd be invented in that universe... not a bad idea overall though. We also met a mercenary named Herck Mondo and I found it very interesting that he's featured on the cover for the issue he is on and inside... he kind of looks nothing like his cover treatment. I thought that was kind of bad... it was like the two artists never looked at each others work.The final problem and what really pushed this into a lower rating for me was the conclusion. The conclusion was terrible. It felt like they were setting up this mystery of the transformed humans working with the Aliens, but I felt like this was never truly resolved. You never really found out who these people were other than you get confirmation they were actually people once. I found this even more frustrating, because this series was originally slotted to be 12 issues, but then suddenly it was changed to 10 and in the letter columns the editor said it was changed because the writers felt the series had run its natural course. They assured us that the series was not cancelled... well... it felt like it was. The ending was extremely weak and felt abrupt. Maybe if they didn't spend time on issues with Herck Mondo and the combat android they could have done something more with the mystery instead of introducing characters you'd never see beyond their one issue...The covers for this series are top notch and it really pulls you in and makes you want to read them for sure... but unless you're an Aliens completionist like me, this series may actually be worth skipping. It doesn't seem to add too much to the grander Aliens universe and this series also never got the novel treatment, while all the other ones did at the time these were being published. I found it pretty strange that this never got novelized... maybe they knew it wasn't great? Who knows. Still, it has some merit and comics don't take too long to read, so I guess it's not a total loss, but I wouldn't say it's a must read.

Some scenarios hit a 2.5/3, but they were in the minority in this book.The Fox's Teeth is the second scenario book for the board game [b:Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat 2nd Edition 1978433 Battletech A Game of Armored Combat 2nd Edition FASA Corporation https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387665166l/1978433.SX50.jpg 1981805]. I believe this was clearly written after the 2nd edition of the game came out, because there are no errors like the first book, [b:Tales Of The Black Widow Company 530796 Tales Of The Black Widow Company Jordan K. Weisman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601702243l/530796.SX50.jpg 518421], which had amusing sections referring to the game [b:BattleDroids: A Game of Armored Combat 55683791 BattleDroids A Game of Armored Combat FASA Corporation https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1602799455l/55683791.SX50.jpg 1981805]. I'm not saying this book has no typos or errors... any BattleTech player has come to expect these things.The Fox's Teeth is the campaign scenario book for one House Davion's elite forces also called “McKinnon's Raiders”. The write-up of Ian McKinnon and his team gave me a bit of hope that they would be pretty fun to play. Tales of the Black Widow really played up Natasha's forces and in the scenarios outlined in that book they did feel like an elite team. However, the creators maybe felt they were bit overpowered. So, when it came to making The Fox's Teeth I think they tried to balance McKinnon's Raiders a little bit, but in a lot of scenarios it seemed like maybe they over compensated. Ian McKinnon and crew wound up feeling like a bunch of bumbling MechWarrior's to play. One of the guys in the command lance had a piloting score of 6 and had to roll a Piloting Skill check any time the ‘Mech moved. Needless to say... he spent a good portion of his time on the ground out of the fight. Hardly the “elite” team I was expecting to play. The only person that felt like they were any good was Kate Nomura as she often lasted in fights, but because her team was pretty bad she couldn't carry them alone.There were only a couple really fun scenarios to play in this book, whereas I think the scenarios in Tales of the Black Widow Company were a bit more fun to play overall. It was kind of a shame that this was the follow-up book. I understand why they might try to re-balance or tweak some things, but I just felt they could have done a bit better. A good portion of the scenarios felt a little lazy where it was often an option for McKinnon's Raiders to simply retreat from the board. There were way too many parts where this was the case.As with the first scenario book the last four scenarios are inter-related and you are recommended to keep track of the damage across the whole campaign. In this campaign McKinnon faces off against a team from the Wolfe's Dragoons and he is heavily outmatched. The first three scenarios are based on observing and capturing a crate of ‘Mech parts, but Ian is so outmatched by the Dragoon's that it would be sheer luck for him to succeed very well. Ian is heavily outmatched in terms of armor and by the time you could ever get to the final scenario Ian's team would be incredibly decimated. They tried to balance this, but it did not work out pretty well. We never made it to the last scenario and we couldn't figure out how to adjust things to be sort of fair... so we just gave up playing this book and moved onto the next one.A quick word of caution for newer players. There's a scenario in here called “Water, Water Everywhere” and my friend and I made the mistake of using modern rules to try this out, but that was a big mistake. Apparently the rules for water have changed a bit since 1986. So, if you do happen to get this book just to try out, remember to make sure you use the old rules or else this level is pretty broken.In the end, this old scenario book probably is worth skipping. It wasn't particularly interesting and Ian McKinnon and crew weren't as interesting as a team as the Black Widow Company were anyway... so there's not a lot of reasons I can think of to dive into this book too much. Unless, like me, you are interested in playing all things BattleTech simply for the sake of doing that. I do find that aspect fun, but I'm unlikely to play through this book ever again.

After Dark Horse went after the license for Aliens it seems to make sense they would show up with a license for Predator (and also Terminator shortly after as well). This series was originally written in 1989, which was a couple years after the movie came out, so it's not like Dark Horse rushed to cash in on the idea. I think the success with the Aliens comics helped them secure this franchise as well.I find it interesting that Mark Verheiden is back behind the writing desk to launch this new series while he is also writing the Aliens series in tandem with this. I don't know if he burned himself out by writing [b:Aliens Book Two 514945 Aliens Book Two Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979098l/514945.SY75.jpg 90689137] and this first Predator series, because [b:Aliens: Earth War 1311881 Aliens Earth War Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979187l/1311881.SY75.jpg 1301171] was pretty weak in my opinion. When this series first came out it was just “Volume 1” it wasn't called Concrete Jungle until later.After consuming a lot of Aliens and Predator stories over the years, going back to read this I think this story was up and down for me. There's some stuff I really liked and some stuff I really didn't, the stuff I didn't like seems massively out of character for the setting, but this is also a problem I have with the early Aliens comics too. Back when these were first being released there really was no real knowledge about these creatures so I think these original comics came off a lot better back when I was younger. I was also in middle school and reading Predator/Aliens comics was just awesome in itself to me. I didn't really know if the story made sense in the given setting or not, but things have been fleshed out so much in these series that back tracking into these old stories sometimes feels misplaced or poorly written... but at the time they were written, I thought they were pretty great.Concrete Jungle somewhat follows the same setup as the first Aliens volume. They don't talk about the main character. So, Dutch is not in this and at the time maybe there was an idea of Dutch fighting the Predator in a future film as Ripley went on to fight the Aliens in multiple films. But, as we all know, that never happened. Honestly, I'm kind of thankful for that, because that setups a world where we don't have to be focused on the adventures of one star character. Predator can have multiple encounters with multiple different people and really flesh out that universe a lot more. In any event, we don't get to continue our adventures with Dutch so instead we meet up with his brother who is a cop in NYC. To me, I thought this was kind of lazy... I don't know if it was a requirement, but Verheiden always seems to try to desperately tie things back to the original movie. So basically, we get this new character who looks like Arnold's twin... so, it's essentially like having Dutch in the comic?? Whatever, let's run with it...In the first issue the Predator shows up in NYC drawn by the heat and the excessive gang violence of the time. If you're sitting there and saying “wow, that sounds an awful lot like Predator 2”, then you are correct. It was interesting reading the letter columns in the original issues (which I don't believe are ever printed in these collected works), because one person wrote in asking about a rumor they had heard about a new movie coming and it being based on the comic. So, it seems like the writers of Predator 2 were aware of the comic series and the entire first issue and explanation seemed to feed the background idea for Predator 2. These original issues were way better, because a couple included interviews with people that actually worked on Predator and I thought these were really interesting things to read and give deeper insight into the films creation and what inspired people as they worked on the original movie.Taking the Predator out of the jungle and putting it in an urban setting was a great idea. I loved this part of the idea. The part I didn't like is that in round about way, Schaefer goes looking for his brother in Central America. He is lead to the site where the first Predator detonated it's atomic bomb and we get to see the aftermath there. Schaef then faces off against a Predator there, presumably the same one he faced in NYC? And while there's a good fight, he rather quickly kills the Predator off. I just found this outlandish and ridiculous. In the movie Dutch couldn't take the Predator under similar conditions and Dutch would have been far more highly trained than his policeman brother! So we spend about a single issue here with that conflict...Meanwhile, back in NYC Schaefer's partner, Rasche, is still trying to track down information about the alien creatures on his end. They got a hold of the Predator mask in the first fight and he gets the idea to look through it out the window and he sees tons of Predator space ships just floating around NYC. I guess Predator's can cloak a whole ship, which does make some sense. However, this felt a lot more like a [b:The War of the Worlds 8909 The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320391644l/8909.SY75.jpg 3194841], and the kicker is the characters even reference this fact! This is the part that I really thought made no sense in retrospect. Predators wouldn't really invade like this, but Verheiden clearly thought it was possible. This is another thread that they would steer clear of in future issues and I'm thankful for that, because it made the Predator more unique and not just some hi-tech Alien invader.The art in this series was great for the most part. It kind of reminded me of the X-Men or Batman styled art around the same time, so it was pretty standard really. The Aliens comics definitely felt a bit more unique artistically speaking. A number of people complained about the coloring being too bright in the letters column... but I disagree. I think it's just right and makes everything feel “hot,” which is kind of how it should be.In the end, this was an interesting story for nostalgia reasons. I'm sort of glad the overall aspects presented in here were sort of abandoned as being too outlandish in the setting, so I remember the comic books getting much better as they really found their own voice for these franchises. I still have fond memories of the day I was finally able to buy the first issue for twenty-five dollars, which was quite a bit at the time. I remember saving up my allowance to finally kill of this missing gem in my collection! If you're a predator fan these comics are worth reading, but you have to go into realizing this is from 1989 and this really was the first material that tried to extend the Predator universe. It may not have made great choices along the way, but it's a decently fun adventure and I appreciate what it was trying to do at the time. And hey, it prompted some really good ideas and scenes for Predator 2, so it's always fun to see where some of those ideas originally came from.

I think I might lean towards the 3.5 on this one, because I do like the overall concept.The Hive series essentially picks up sometime after the world of [b:Aliens: Genocide 438269 Aliens Genocide John Arcudi https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174772819l/438269.SY75.jpg 427129] left off and after reading Jerry Prosser's [b:Cyberantics: A Little Adventure 1835880 Cyberantics A Little Adventure Jerry Prosser https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615431954l/1835880.SX50.jpg 1835866] as a bit of a setup to meet the characters in Hive I was pretty excited to dive in. I remember, as a kid, having a hard time tracking down all the issues in this series. I remember I held off on reading it for quite a while because I could never find issue four or something at the store. It was frustrating because I wasn't buying these too long after they original comics were released.If you've dived into Cyberantics already then you've met our main character Stanislaw Mayakovsky. He's a very famous scientist in the Aliens universe attributed with advancing the technology of Androids to the “modern day” level in the Aliens setting. In Cyberantics we got to experience an early adventure of Ari and her infiltration of an ant nest. Well, in Hive they extend that concept a bit further and in this comic series we find out the “what if Mayakovsky made an android Alien?” I know this is question no one was probably asking... but Prosser sets down to teach us a thing or two. Overall, I really did love this general concept and I wish it had been used a bit more effectively, but Hive is not on a mission of science. Maybe they were trying to avoid the “mad scientist” narrative that has been showing up in prior issues.From the setup in Genocide it seems that Grant's deal with the military is running smoothly and they are actively mining the Alien homeworld for the royal jelly they need to keep producing Xeno Zip. The weird part is there was an allusion to the fact that the drug is illegal? There was no real explanation for this and stated as a rather matter of fact that would just be obvious to us. If you delve into the book [b:Aliens: Tribes 716971 Aliens Tribes Stephen R. Bissette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1177607494l/716971.SY75.jpg 703222] you'll see first hand what the military has been doing with Xeno Zip. The strange part about Hive is that it is not a research mission, instead it is a mission to steal royal jelly. And this is where the books potential kind of falls apart a bit in my opinion.It turns out, in the very first issue, we find out Mayakovsky is pretty down on his luck. He's been somewhat discredited and he's been losing money fast. One day this thief, Julie, shows up on his doorstep promising riches if they pull a major heist. They're going after the royal jelly and all she needs is for him to build an android Alien, just like he built Ari. There are some pretty amusing scenes with the Alien playing fetch with Mayakovsky's dog. I was with them thus far, but then it starts to make no sense and I found issue two pretty confusing for a little while... but basically they're going to steal the ship the military has filled with jelly? But... then why do you need the android Alien. It would have made a bit more sense if they needed the Alien for harvesting the jelly etc... but they really don't use him for that at all.As with all Aliens stories things go awry and bad stuff happens. I was expecting this since in Cyberantics they tell us that Mayakovsky has gone missing and only Ari the ant has been found. This is the record of that lost journey that scientists aren't able to access from Ari's memory core. The whole general concept is very cool though... so I found it entertaining to a certain degree. Another interesting note is that the android Julie and Mayakovsky bring with them has a very different feel than any other androids in the Aliens series, this is explained in Cyberantics with Mayakovsky really abandoning the line of ideas to make Androids more human feeling and he started getting rid of that programming.As a comic book this was worth reading, but Prosser's story is only so so as far as the whole thing is concerned. The art was pretty decent, but it's weird how out there a lot of the space ship art is. I've noticed this problem with other Aliens issues. It's not like we've never seen what space ships look like in the Alien universe, but in a lot of the comics they remind me of space ship art from covers of pulp sci-fi books from the 60's/70's and it just makes the whole thing look totally unrealistic and weird. I really wish they would draw ships to be more normal looking... but maybe that's hard to do? I don't think the technology they were using to hide themselves from the Aliens while they ran through the hive made much sense either... I'm glad that's something that was wholly forgotten after this series.In some cases I found the art somewhat inconsistent, I remember quite a few panels where Julie looked normal and then a couple that stood out as really bizarre, because she looked almost inhuman, but that wasn't even what the goal was in that scene... So, the art was only okay as far as my non-technical mind viewed it.After this the major event that is Alien 3 would take place and thus shatter the Dark Horse story line forever. To the point where they try to back pedal their series quite a bit and make changes so that it lines up with the canon timeline. From hereon out the comics will largely stay away from telling stories about Ripley, which I kind of preferred anyway and I do remember the stories getting more of the Aliens feel right. At times some of these comics feel very campy in the way the stuff works, but things eventually turn to a more gritty and realistic sci-fi feel, which was what I preferred about the Aliens series more than anything. Okay... next comic series up is going to be Colonial Marines which is quite different from what I thought it would be...

Cyberantics is probably one of the strangest tie in books to the Aliens franchise. I don't think anything else like this has been done. This is effectively written as a children's book by an author that is a character found in an Aliens comic book series. Back when this was originally released it was published alongside the comic at the time as a “companion” piece. I've gone back in my re-reading trek and read this as a sort of prequel to [b:Aliens: Hive 2100300 Aliens Hive Jerry Prosser https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1227505268l/2100300.SY75.jpg 2105664]. I don't think it really matters which you read first, to be honest.Cyberantics is published pretending to be an annotated re-edition of a book written by Stanislaw Mayakovsky (an integral figure in the invention of key features of androids... sorry artificial persons). There was, obviously, no real first edition ever printed, this is the first edition. However, this book acts as if it is written in universe by one of the main characters that shows up in the Hive comic book series. Cyberantics through it's annotations provides a much deeper background for this character and alludes to their “unknown disappearance” from the scientific community, which is where the Hive story steps in.In the Hive comics we meet a small cybernetic ant built by Mayakosvky named Ari. In Hive she's not the main focus and sort of along for the ride, but with Cyberantics we get insight into her creation and early life. Remember, in universe this children's book was written by Mayakovsky before he disappeared. This book outlines her creation and first adventures with an ant hive. Mayakovsky created her to infiltrate and observe an anti hive for scientific purposes. Mayakovsky also wanted to push the limits of technology in doing so.As you maybe be able to guess Hive deals with a cybernetic Alien undergoing a similar mission. Cyberantics is really cool in the way it sets us up to delve into that story! I'm not sure how confused people were with this publication, because there's nowhere that truly points to it being in the Aliens universe, so people might have read it as something totally different. However, as an in universe curiosity, I actually think Cyberantics is a pretty cool little book. It's one of those things that I've only just recently learned about even, as I tried to compile all the material from these early days of Aliens, which I owned most of already, but there were some odds and ends like this one that even I was blissfully unaware of. So, if you're a big Aliens fan or at least enjoyed the “Hive” comic series, then this is actually a pretty neat little book to have around.

3.5 ReallyWith the re-launch of the [b:Battletech: Clan Invasion Boxed Set 55838955 Battletech Clan Invasion Boxed Set Ray Arrastia https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1604345681l/55838955.SX50.jpg 87056424] in the BattleTech universe I decided to skip to this newer publication instead of continuing my trek through BattleTech in order. Just a quick deviation, especially with the release of the new game book [b:Battletech: Battle Of Tukayyid 55821898 Battletech Battle Of Tukayyid Joshua Franklin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1604172677l/55821898.SX50.jpg 87037194], which I am interested into playing sooner than later. There was an original game book, [b:Tukayyid 2651517 Tukayyid Jeffrey Layton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538035615l/2651517.SX50.jpg 2676260], which brought you through some of the battles, but this was a much smaller adventure compared to the much expanded new hard bound game book. So, why not read the anthology book that sort of brings up the stories behind those battles in a little more detail.Now, this isn't the type of novel you can jump right into, you are, at the very least, better off reading through [a:Michael A. Stackpole 17739 Michael A. Stackpole https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207602690p2/17739.jpg]'s “Blood of Kerensky Trilogy” starting with the novel [b:Lethal Heritage 488067 Lethal Heritage (Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, #1) Michael A. Stackpole https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1210722214l/488067.SY75.jpg 489462]. Reading that trilogy, at the bare minimum will bring you up to speed on the basics of the Clan Invasion. The actual Battle of Tukayyid, however, does not show up until [b:Lost Destiny 473936 Lost Destiny (Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, #3) Michael A. Stackpole https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1175051202l/473936.SY75.jpg 462199] and after this, you can probably read this Anthology without much confusion on why this battle was such a big deal.Now that we've gotten the setting all taken care of as to where this occurs in the world of BattleTech, I must confess that I'm not really a big fan of anthologies or short story things like this too much. I typically buy them for the sake of completeness in my collection. So, take my rating with a bit of a grain of salt in some ways, it is probably quite biased against this general format and if you are someone that loves BattleTech and loves short stories like this, then I have no doubt you will be thoroughly entertained. It's actually a fairly short Anthology at only a little over a hundred pages, so it truly is a quick read and for that I was happy. There are certainly some gems in here, such as [a:Blaine Lee Pardoe 79648 Blaine Lee Pardoe https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1374704209p2/79648.jpg]'s Burden of Honor. I thought this was a really wonderful story with a very interesting twist to it dealing with a Bondsman released to be a Warrior. It's interesting because it does not take the path that Phelan did. For that reason it stood out against the others a bit more due to spending a bit more time on the characters. [a:Chris Hussey 556073 Chris Hussey https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s The Icarus Lament was a powerful tale for similar reasons and I really enjoyed that as well. This one gave us insight into the ways of the Steel Vipers, which involved an interesting relationship between the Khan and a rising commander that was originally from another Clan before being captured. I think these were my two favorites, but [a:Bryan Young 4111572 Bryan Young https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1308351552p2/4111572.jpg]'s The Lions of Prezno was a really excellent read because of the concept behind the story. If you want a quick recap on the influence there was a movie got “Ghost and the Darkness” starring Michael Douglas from 1996 and this will give you an idea of what it's about. I think I found the story cooler, because I understood some of the reference, anyway, kudos to Bryan for the inspiration it made the story really interesting overall. This story covered a particular situation where the Jade Falcons were being harassed by Com Guards in nightly engagements, but the Com Guards were just disappearing and the Falcons were having a terrible time trying to figure out where they were.I tend to enjoy the more political and character driven stories in this setting rather than the blow by blow ‘Mech battles... possibly because I do play the game. BUT, if you like the blow by blow run down, this Anthology is even more for you. This covers key battles on Tukayyid from various Clans and one of the things I really enjoyed was getting a bit of a deeper view into the different clans that were involved. If you've read Stackpole's original trilogy, his story focused mainly on the Wolf Clan and we never really got to see the others in action, well that's what this Anthology seeks to change. Here we fill in the gaps and add key moments for each battle the differing Clans faced. Naturally, a Tukayyid book would not be complete without some battles from the Wolf Clan and [a:Joel Steverson 4465016 Joel Steverson https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] had that honor with their story We Do the Impossible.I have no doubt, that this is an incomplete array, but I think that's intentional because players should be picking up their ‘Mechs and taking the battle to the game board to live out the battle of Tukayyid themselves. In any event, if you're a BattleTech fan, I imagine you will find some enjoyment in this book. It may not be all stories, but I didn't find any to be outright terrible or annoying to read.

This is a collection of the Aliens material originally published in Black & White for the Dark Horse Presents series. The Dark Horse Presents comics are usually a collection of short stories covering various comics instead of just one. In this re-edition they've presented the material in color for the first time. Within are three stories, one of which I believe is the first Aliens material published, before the Mark Verheiden first series kicked off.Theory of Alien Propagation: Originally published in Dark Horse Presents #24 in 1988This was an interesting short story, I think at the time it was released it was exciting because it sort of served as an announcement that Dark Horse would be publishing titles in the Aliens setting, so they wanted to share that. In hindsight the story is sort of just okay. It felt more like Verheiden was just spit balling random ideas about possible Alien birth based on what he had seen in the films. I'm pretty sure all of it is almost entirely wrong, but it sort of set the stage for the upcoming Aliens series he wrote where a number of scientists were studying the organisms, so they were just brain storming ideas. This also features Mark A. Nelson behind the art and it's about as excellent as you'd expect after reading that first series. This was an interesting short story at best, but nothing that truly holds up over time I think.Advent & Terminus Originally Published in Dark Horse Presents #42 and #43 in 1990I actually, for some reason, wound up with the original print of #42 in my collection, probably because I liked the Alien on the cover, so I was able to look at this in the original black & white art, and I must say, I do like the color version better. This is by Paul Guinan and probably the most interesting short story in this entire book. In this series it is revealed that there are these pyramid structures all over the galaxy with buried riches inside and our journey starts with a crew hoping to loot the pyramid. This has obvious historical influence, but given when this was released, it really gave me ideas that in the future maybe the pyramid encountered in the first AvP movie was inspired by this. It also feels like this could have influenced ideas in Stargate as well! This has a very [b:Chariots of The Gods 91202 Chariots of The Gods Erich von Däniken https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348588430l/91202.SY75.jpg 2015387] type of inspiration.In any event this two part story starts with looting a pyramid on a different planet and running into the Aliens, which my love for both Aliens and Egypt in my childhood made this story really work for me. Perhaps the tale is technically stupid, but I liked the idea! I actually quite enjoyed the characters as well and I rather wish the story had been able to be fleshed out a little bit more. However, I think the Aliens universe took a different turn and they would really never return to this idea again, until AvP that is.The Alien Originally published in Dark Horse Presents #56 in 1991This story is actually pretty important to the continuity of the main comic books. This story serves to bridge the gap between [b:Aliens: Earth War 1311881 Aliens Earth War Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979187l/1311881.SY75.jpg 1301171] and [b:Aliens: Genocide 438269 Aliens Genocide John Arcudi https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174772819l/438269.SY75.jpg 427129]. Despite what the letters column in Genocide states about not needing to read this, I kind of disagree. You sort of do. In this series they try to account for the fact that the Earth is not destroyed, as we were told at the end of Earth War.Basically, this story is more of a political story involving the leaders of the U.S. meeting with the Ancient Alien Engineer. Here it is revealed that the bombs set by Orona in the first Aliens series were modified by the Alien Engineer. Here they try to wrap up the story of the engineer as it was left off in Earth War, because for some reason it is revealed that the Engineer is terraforming the Earth with the Aliens for some reason. We find a way to betray the Engineer and take them out so humans can go back to rebuilding Earth. This leads us into the setting for Genocide.I felt like the story was a bit of a cop-out and sort of tried to erase what Verheiden had setup at the end. Frankly, given the way Earth War ended, I think this was a good idea. I felt like it left us more solidly in the Aliens universe as it was originally intended.

This is finally the last thing to read in my re-reading journey of the original Aliens trilogy that started in the late 80's. Female War is supposed to be the graphic novel tied to the novel [b:Aliens: The Female War 343283 Aliens The Female War Steve Perry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403174792l/343283.SY75.jpg 333630], but what it really is is a re-publishing of [b:Aliens: Earth War 1311881 Aliens Earth War Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979187l/1311881.SY75.jpg 1301171], but with the names changed to match the novel.It was no secret that I was disappointed in the re-working of [b:Aliens: Nightmare Asylum 931266 Aliens Nightmare Asylum Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407250784l/931266.SY75.jpg 916254] and with the Female War novel overhauling the original Earth War story quite a bit, I was hoping they might revisit this a bit more than just changing the names of Hicks and Newt... alas, this was not so. As with Nightmare Asylum this graphic novel just changes the names around. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, it was probably too tall of an order for Sam Kieth to step back in and re-draw stuff. A lot of fans were not too enthused with his art in the first place, so even if he was asked, I can see him saying no anyway.This version does start with a pretty interesting interview with cover artist John Bolton, who everyone truly enjoyed. Bolton's covers were so well done, I found myself, and quite a few others in the letters section, saying they wished he had done the interior. Bolton was even asked to come back and draw the covers for this re-release series and he has, once again, done an amazing job.If you want to see my review of the original story content, then look at what I wrote for the Earth War series linked above. Either way, like Nightmare Asylum, this came off like a lazy re-work in an attempt to account for Alien 3 being out. It seems like they should have just left these alone and given up on trying to fix the Dark Horse time line to match the movies.

More of a 3.5My Aliens journey continues into the first series not written by Mark Verheiden and after [b:Aliens: Earth War 1311881 Aliens Earth War Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979187l/1311881.SY75.jpg 1301171] I was, frankly, ready for something different. I remember reading some of Arcudi's later Aliens series and quite liking them, but sometimes going back to these early works they just don't hold up over time. I remember really liking this series when I was in middle school, but I think it's overall cheesy-ness has worn off a bit.Genocide picks up the thread after Earth War and many people will be shocked to see that Earth looks relatively normal and life is coming back to the planet. It starts off with a major public event, the Goodwill Games, similar to the Olympics. So, when first reading this it almost feels like it really doesn't pick up where Earth War starts and at the time I read this years ago it felt like they completely abandoned what Verheiden had written into the Aliens time line. However, if you want to fill a bit of the gap between the two stories you need to track down Dark Horse Presents, luckily it was later collected in [b:Dark Horse Presents: Aliens - Platinum Edition 20734072 Dark Horse Presents Aliens - Platinum Edition Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1443222016l/20734072.SY75.jpg 40062082]. It's a relatively short almost one issue comic story, but it does close up some threads, such as why Earth is still around and what happened with the Space Jockey.For the most part Arcuidi's story is pretty decent. It has a few things that I find to be a bit out of place in the setting, but we'll get to that. Genocide is the story of pharmaceutical companies needing to get their hands on Alien specimens to make some new drug types. This, to me, is an entirely plausible idea and I really liked this overall concept. What they were doing is making a new drug from the Royal Jelly, called Xeno Zip, which gave people enhanced abilities and such. However, when they tried to synthesize it there were some strange side effects where some people went berserk killing people and so forth. Naturally, the military sees all kinds of applications, but for the general population they needed a new influx of the real deal.The developer of Xeno Zip, Daniel Grant, has a proposition for the military to trade them the synthesized version for a free ride to get some more Royal Jelly. What the mission entails is going back to the planet where they retrieved the Super Queen. However, a lots been going on for that planet since they took the original Super Queen. What has happened is two different strains of Aliens have appeared amidst the chaos of no Queen, so our operation is, effectively, heading into a total warzone.On a side note, Daniel Grant is drawn in the early issues as a blond billionaire that is extremely sexist and has a very perverse idea of what the perfect male should be and that they should be in charge. It was fascinating to turn to the letters columns in the original issues to see a number of writers exclaim that they had made a perfect caricature of Donald Trump. Most writers were hoping for this guys demise, because he was so odious. Fast forward to modern times, I wonder if these writers could have ever conceived of the idea that Trump would be president and have a bunch of followers hanging on his every word! I wonder how many of the writers might have voted for him... but either way, I found it fascinating that even back then, when I was too young to know, the perception of Trump was that he was a scum bag billionaire, just like Grant.In any event, as usual with Aliens, with the marines wading into a warzone things go awry. Even though they had lots of advanced technology, they were heavily ill equipped to deal with the situation. This was sort of a bit of my other gripes with the comic series, I felt like the technology was almost too advanced for the Aliens time line. I find it hard to believe that the shield technology presented in this fit within the world of Aliens, it was almost too Star Trek in style. However, they did develop special suits to combat the Aliens acid defense when killing them, and this I find far more believable within the universe. The only problem I see with this is our marines look more like Space Marines from the Warhammer 40k setting, rather than the marines from the movie Aliens.Overall, I thought the story was pretty good. Damon Willis' art complemented it quite well, much closer to what I would expect from a comic compared to Earth War. We're almost approaching the major disruption to the time line when Alien 3 gets released, and after that the whole idea of the Super Queen and Alien homeworld started to be largely abandoned from the series altogether. I believe this is the last issue where that kind of content really appears. So, enjoy this curious thread in the Aliens time line, because, if I remember correctly, the series abruptly leaves any of these concepts behind.

Here it is, the monster ending to the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy! I'm happy to report that Michael Stackpole has done it again and written another incredible story. It's interesting to a certain degree, I feel like Stackpole could have sat and written this book forever and just kept going. It feels like a lot of details are left unsaid for the sake of space at times, one of which I will gripe about later. But in a similar fashion to the end of the Warrior Trilogy this was just as much of a page turner where every chapter had some incredible event!In the prior novel [b:Blood of Kerensky, Volume 2: Blood Legacy 10861327 Blood of Kerensky, Volume 2 Blood Legacy (Battletech) Michael A. Stackpole https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328323442l/10861327.SY75.jpg 266262] I had referred to it as if it were a massive training montage, so we all knew the final battle would occur. However, in true Stackpole fashion it did not turn out exactly as I had expected. The massive training everyone went through at the Wolf Dragoons facility certainly paid off and played a part in the book, but while they thwarted certain goals the clans had, they did not even truly halt the clans in any significant way. Their best fighter, Kai Allard was essentially taken out of the greater fight when he wound up abandoned on an occupied planet. However! We finally get to see some growth and closure with his negative thoughts and the growth of a relationship with the Deirdre Lear, which finally brought some unexpected closure in that arc as well! I had not expected to enjoy this story arc as much as I did.In the meanwhile Kai has no idea what had happened to his parents and the prior novel sort of ended on a bit of a cliff hanger regarding that arc. In Lost Destiny we finally get to see the closure of that rather shocking arc. In fact, it's so shocking I couldn't write about it without spoiling anything and you really should read it to find out the fate of two major personas in the BattleTech universe.The relationship fostered by Victor Steiner-Davion and Hohiro Kurita is brought back into the fold and wound up having a truly awesome arc where Victor is sent in to help Hohiro while his unit is pinned down in Combine territory. This is a huge deal to send Davion ships into Combine space, never mind them coming to the aide of prior sworn enemies! Maybe there is hope for these people yet and the way this book ends, I have to wonder if there might hope for Victor and Omi, Hohiro's sister, in the future as well... Even though that is all political drama, I am nonetheless quite curious to see what the future brings for these strange allies. Will their friendship fall apart? Or is it stronger than it might appear...What of the Clan Invasion though? If the combined efforts of the Successor States can't bring them to heel, then who can. Now, if you've been reading the novels from the beginning, we have seen ComStar stepping up and being a lot more active in a militaristic way. In the Warrior Trilogy, during the wedding, it is discovered that ComStar appears to be training their own Mech regiment. In [b:Heir to the Dragon (Battletech Series) 3890784 Heir to the Dragon (Battletech Series) (Battletech Series) Robert N. Charrette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1267024379l/3890784.SY75.jpg 341704] we see ComStar lending hardware to Theodore for his war. So, it's clear ComStar isn't as much of a benign neutral group as we had previously thought. It turns out they are the only ones that can potentially bring the clans to a halt and the, now, infamous Battle of Tukayyid takes place in this novel. However, I have to note that I was surprised that it did not consume a huge portion of the book. There are entire chapters dedicated to the offensive, but much less than one would have probably thought given the scale and legend of the battle. I think this is why in the relaunch of the Clan Invasion in 2020 an anthology book, [b:BattleTech: The Battle of Tukayyid 56676767 BattleTech The Battle of Tukayyid John Helfers https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610728116l/56676767.SX50.jpg 88587206], which serves to fill in some more detailed battles of the event. It seems to also coincide with the new game book of the same name.The aftermath of Tukayyid are just as shocking and the events surrounding ComStar and Anastasius Focht are just mind blowing. As usual, I was not expecting any of this when I first started this novel. As above, I can't give away any of the details, because they are just so major it ruins the whole impact, but rest assured ComStar is going to have some serious work ahead of them in the future. I'm very interested to see where this goes in the future.One of the things I find interesting is that in the end of it all, the Clan Invasion is merely paused, it's not exactly stopped. Which is why, if you look on in the BattleTech novels there is more Clan involvement to come! I'm definitely looking forward to reading the future novels, because I am very interested to see what is to transpire as a result of this trilogy.There are only a couple moments in this book that I feel are a bit overlooked on the details. The most major aspect is there is quite a bit devoted to who Anastasius Focht really is and they eventually reveal his real name. However, I don't even remember this character showing up or really being named much in the prior novels. I could have missed him... but I had to turn to [b:House Steiner: The Lyran Commonwealth 1639730 House Steiner The Lyran Commonwealth Todd Huettel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601749148l/1639730.SX50.jpg 1634053] to find a proper write-up of the man in question. I suppose he was an important fellow in the past, but I felt like the “reveal” was supposed to have way more impact, so I wasn't shocked in the way I think I was supposed to be.The other concerns Renny Sanderline during the rescue of Hohiro. Renny was introduced as Victor's roommate form college during his graduation in the prior novel. In this book they make a decently big deal of Renny joining with Victor as he rebuilds his unit and goes off to rescue Hohiro. During that battle Renny's ‘Mech gets hit really hard and it falls away and the chapter ends. Renny never appears in the novel again, so I was left wondering what even happened to him. Stackpole, sometimes unfortunately, has a habit of letting characters just die in this fashion. So, I wound up looking around on sarna.net and found out Renny actually isn't dead. I don't feel this is a spoiler, as it was never a secret and it explains why Victor isn't even remotely sad after the fact. For a while, as read further, I was like “wow, that's awfully cold of Victor...,” but since Renny isn't dead, this makes way more sense.In the end Lost Destiny is another incredible BattleTech book! My goal was to read all this material in order... but I may skip to that new anthology concerning Tukayyid, while the original tale of the battle is fresh in my head. If you've been reading BattleTech this far into the universe, I would gather that you're in for the long haul, just as I am, so it's time to get reading since there is quite a long way to go!Merged review:Here it is, the monster ending to the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy! I'm happy to report that Michael Stackpole has done it again and written another incredible story. It's interesting to a certain degree, I feel like Stackpole could have sat and written this book forever and just kept going. It feels like a lot of details are left unsaid for the sake of space at times, one of which I will gripe about later. But in a similar fashion to the end of the Warrior Trilogy this was just as much of a page turner where every chapter had some incredible event!In the prior novel [b:Blood of Kerensky, Volume 2: Blood Legacy 10861327 Blood of Kerensky, Volume 2 Blood Legacy (Battletech) Michael A. Stackpole https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328323442l/10861327.SY75.jpg 266262] I had referred to it as if it were a massive training montage, so we all knew the final battle would occur. However, in true Stackpole fashion it did not turn out exactly as I had expected. The massive training everyone went through at the Wolf Dragoons facility certainly paid off and played a part in the book, but while they thwarted certain goals the clans had, they did not even truly halt the clans in any significant way. Their best fighter, Kai Allard was essentially taken out of the greater fight when he wound up abandoned on an occupied planet. However! We finally get to see some growth and closure with his negative thoughts and the growth of a relationship with the Deirdre Lear, which finally brought some unexpected closure in that arc as well! I had not expected to enjoy this story arc as much as I did.In the meanwhile Kai has no idea what had happened to his parents and the prior novel sort of ended on a bit of a cliff hanger regarding that arc. In Lost Destiny we finally get to see the closure of that rather shocking arc. In fact, it's so shocking I couldn't write about it without spoiling anything and you really should read it to find out the fate of two major personas in the BattleTech universe.The relationship fostered by Victor Steiner-Davion and Hohiro Kurita is brought back into the fold and wound up having a truly awesome arc where Victor is sent in to help Hohiro while his unit is pinned down in Combine territory. This is a huge deal to send Davion ships into Combine space, never mind them coming to the aide of prior sworn enemies! Maybe there is hope for these people yet and the way this book ends, I have to wonder if there might hope for Victor and Omi, Hohiro's sister, in the future as well... Even though that is all political drama, I am nonetheless quite curious to see what the future brings for these strange allies. Will their friendship fall apart? Or is it stronger than it might appear...What of the Clan Invasion though? If the combined efforts of the Successor States can't bring them to heel, then who can. Now, if you've been reading the novels from the beginning, we have seen ComStar stepping up and being a lot more active in a militaristic way. In the Warrior Trilogy, during the wedding, it is discovered that ComStar appears to be training their own Mech regiment. In [b:Heir to the Dragon (Battletech Series) 3890784 Heir to the Dragon (Battletech Series) (Battletech Series) Robert N. Charrette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1267024379l/3890784.SY75.jpg 341704] we see ComStar lending hardware to Theodore for his war. So, it's clear ComStar isn't as much of a benign neutral group as we had previously thought. It turns out they are the only ones that can potentially bring the clans to a halt and the, now, infamous Battle of Tukayyid takes place in this novel. However, I have to note that I was surprised that it did not consume a huge portion of the book. There are entire chapters dedicated to the offensive, but much less than one would have probably thought given the scale and legend of the battle. I think this is why in the relaunch of the Clan Invasion in 2020 an anthology book, [b:BattleTech: The Battle of Tukayyid 56676767 BattleTech The Battle of Tukayyid John Helfers https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610728116l/56676767.SX50.jpg 88587206], which serves to fill in some more detailed battles of the event. It seems to also coincide with the new game book of the same name.The aftermath of Tukayyid are just as shocking and the events surrounding ComStar and Anastasius Focht are just mind blowing. As usual, I was not expecting any of this when I first started this novel. As above, I can't give away any of the details, because they are just so major it ruins the whole impact, but rest assured ComStar is going to have some serious work ahead of them in the future. I'm very interested to see where this goes in the future.One of the things I find interesting is that in the end of it all, the Clan Invasion is merely paused, it's not exactly stopped. Which is why, if you look on in the BattleTech novels there is more Clan involvement to come! I'm definitely looking forward to reading the future novels, because I am very interested to see what is to transpire as a result of this trilogy.There are only a couple moments in this book that I feel are a bit overlooked on the details. The most major aspect is there is quite a bit devoted to who Anastasius Focht really is and they eventually reveal his real name. However, I don't even remember this character showing up or really being named much in the prior novels. I could have missed him... but I had to turn to [b:House Steiner: The Lyran Commonwealth 1639730 House Steiner The Lyran Commonwealth Todd Huettel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601749148l/1639730.SX50.jpg 1634053] to find a proper write-up of the man in question. I suppose he was an important fellow in the past, but I felt like the “reveal” was supposed to have way more impact, so I wasn't shocked in the way I think I was supposed to be.The other concerns Renny Sanderline during the rescue of Hohiro. Renny was introduced as Victor's roommate form college during his graduation in the prior novel. In this book they make a decently big deal of Renny joining with Victor as he rebuilds his unit and goes off to rescue Hohiro. During that battle Renny's ‘Mech gets hit really hard and it falls away and the chapter ends. Renny never appears in the novel again, so I was left wondering what even happened to him. Stackpole, sometimes unfortunately, has a habit of letting characters just die in this fashion. So, I wound up looking around on sarna.net and found out Renny actually isn't dead. I don't feel this is a spoiler, as it was never a secret and it explains why Victor isn't even remotely sad after the fact. For a while, as read further, I was like “wow, that's awfully cold of Victor...,” but since Renny isn't dead, this makes way more sense.In the end Lost Destiny is another incredible BattleTech book! My goal was to read all this material in order... but I may skip to that new anthology concerning Tukayyid, while the original tale of the battle is fresh in my head. If you've been reading BattleTech this far into the universe, I would gather that you're in for the long haul, just as I am, so it's time to get reading since there is quite a long way to go!

This graphic novel is a sort of a repress of the original Aliens comics published in the 2nd series from 1989: [b:Aliens Book Two 514945 Aliens Book Two Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396979098l/514945.SY75.jpg 90689137]. However, as with the first series it was somewhat re-imagined by [a:Steve Perry 6262 Steve Perry https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1463048818p2/6262.jpg] and just like [b:Aliens: Earth Hive 343281 Aliens Earth Hive Steve Perry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1366133734l/343281.SY75.jpg 333628], the novel [b:Aliens: Nightmare Asylum 20873 Aliens Nightmare Asylum Steve Perry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388857061l/20873.SY75.jpg 22061] seeks to take into account Alien 3 where the fate of Hicks and Newt are established within the film. In order to keep in line with that attempt to fix the Aliens time line this repress of the original comics is supposed to account for Steve Perry's retelling of the original Mark Verheiden tale. With the Earth Hive repressing they brought Mark Nelson in to make some adjustments to the original art and really changed up a few things to make it different. I really pretty much enjoyed the effort they had put into that release, but I am much less impressed with Nightmare Asylum. Perry made a few rather drastic changes, but in this repressing all they did was change the names of Newt and Hicks to Billie and Wilks. Otherwise the story was exactly the same with all the exact same content. The interview with Steve Perry at the beginning was awesome though and truly the best part of buying this edition in my opinion.I really loved the original story that Verheiden wrote along with Den Beauvais' phenomenal art, but maybe it's the way it was drawn that made it hard to make changes, I have no idea. I was sad to see Beauvais wasn't called in to do the art for the cover, it would have been a really wonderful thing to see him return to Aliens even if it was for just one picture. John Bolton is a great artist, don't get me wrong, but the Beauvais covers on the original story still stand out as some of the greatest Alien art to hit the franchise and seeing one more would have been wonderful. The art is still incredible, so if you don't own a version of the original Aliens, Vol. 2 series, then this is probably worth getting. If you were expecting some serious changes to align with Perry's story, then you'll probably be a little bit disappointed.The original story and art is still phenomenal, even by today's standards, this just wasn't the effort I was sort of expecting based on their treatment of Earth Hive. So, forgive the lower rating, even though I highly praise the story and original art, but read my review of the original comics for that commentary.

As usual, I read this as individual issues as I do with most comic book series. I've had these comic books since, I was probably ten or so. I've read this particular series multiple times, but I admit it's been a solid decade or more since I've revisited these. I've rather forgotten how good this particular series is.

This is before Dark Horse got the hang of naming their actual mini series of comics, instead this was just Aliens: 2nd Series, which was rather lame. Luckily by the third series they dropped this approach altogether. First and foremost, I have to say that this series features some of the most eye catching and best cover art work ever featured in the Aliens archives. Even today I still find these covers incredible and every time I pull these issues out, these covers just pull you in! I don't believe Denis Beauvais has ever drawn for the Aliens series again and it truly is our loss. Beauvais' work on this was quite different from Nelson's, especially in the sense that this series is entirely in color! I guess this was a big deal back then for Dark Horse as a publisher. I will say Nelson's black and white art was perfect for the mood of that series, just as Beauvais' color art is perfect for this one in my opinion.

In terms of the story, this continues the tale of Hicks and Newt that was first laid out during Mark Verheiden's first Aliens series. This series, only being four issues, goes at a much faster pace. I remember reading a comment somewhere about the first series that they didn't believe they'd ever be able to re-create the action aspects of the movie Aliens, so when Mark wrote the first series he went for a much moodier approach. However, in this series, it does get quite action packed by the end, and I think having the art in color does make a bit of a difference.

I actually rather enjoyed Verheiden's story ideas for this. While everyone is clamoring about a lack of Ripley in the series, to be honest, I kind of like it. Let's explore some other characters too! Ripley can totally dominate the movies as needed, but in the expanded universe we should see what else is going on! Anyway, in the first series there was a sub-arc that dealt with religious zealots that basically worshipped the Aliens. In this second series Verheiden takes that feel, but casts it onto a crazy general who thinks he can control the Aliens. I sort of feel like his idea for the insane military commander was inspired by stories like Apocalypse Now, because our General Spears in this story has that similar unhinged feel. Here the general and his unit are breeding Aliens that he has “trained” and he has this wild idea of reclaiming Earth with his new “military”. It's certainly an interesting idea, but with Hicks, Newt, and Butler crashing the party they really throw a wrench into Spears' plans.

Naturally, Hick and Newt want nothing to do with the general's plans, but they are certainly willing to play along rather than be used as Alien incubators for more of his army. So, they bide their time to wait for an opening to do something about it. Naturally, that's the climax of the tale and I won't give it away. One of the cool aspects of this story is this base has constantly been monitoring signals from Earth, so throughout the comic we get to see how Earth is fairing after being overrun by Aliens. It really makes you wonder if Spears' plan could ever really be successful...

I will say, the ending is fairly predictable, but I feel like that's sort of the expectation from Aliens stories at this point. At this point there's definitely an expectation that humans will inevitably screw themselves over in this fight, which just makes the Aliens more unstoppable. That undercurrent of the franchise has become quite the staple over the years.

If you liked the first series, there's no reason to think you won't enjoy this one. It's tough to decide who's art I prefer more, but I can say with confidence that Beauvais covers are absolutely my choice. I think they're still my choice after all these years and probably literally hundreds of Aliens comics being published since 1988.

Blood Legacy is the sequel to the excellent [b:Lethal Heritage 501366 Lethal Heritage Michael A. Stackpole https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589502465l/501366.SY75.jpg 489462]. This is the third trilogy Michael Stackpole has written under the BattleTech name and this trilogy is shaping up to be even better than the Warrior Trilogy, which was spectacular.Now that the ilKhan has been killed during the prior novel the Clans have halted their invasion, because according to their culture the war can't continue without a new leader, so a new leader must be elected first. This is going to give the Inner Sphere some time to bolster it's defenses, so it's kind of strange to a see militant society like the Clans to give their foes up to a year. However, it does make for a far more epic battle when things resume, so, I'll allow it. As with the prior novel there were a few separate story lines going on at the same time and this one is no different, except Stackpole adds a wonderful excuse to merge some of the fragmented story, so for most of this book it's split up between what the Clans are doing and what the Inner Sphere is doing.At the end of Lethal Heritage all the prominent leaders of the Successor States were summoned to Outreach to by Jaime Wolf of the Wolf's Dragoons. I'm kind of glad Stackpole didn't waste a lot of time with the leaders of these places going into all kinds of intrigue scenarios, instead they all just go willingly to meet there. It seems somewhat unrealistic based on the prior novels, but he is using the Clan invasion as an excuse to get all these characters together in one room.It's kind of funny, about halfway through this book I realized that this entire thing is really just one giant training montage. If you had told me about a book that covers a few hundred pages of people training, I would have said it was a really stupid idea, but Stackpole managed to make this work. In this novel we get really excellent insight into character development. Especially with regards to old enemies being forced to work together and finding areas of mutual respect. One of the alliances I was surprised to see working together so well was between Kurita and Davion. It seemed like all aspects of those factions started to work well together. Victor and Hohiro found mutual respect and a lot of grounds to work together to achieve their goals. Theodore, even after reading [b:Heir to the Dragon 351472 Heir to the Dragon Robert N. Charrette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1173993273l/351472.SY75.jpg 341704] has turned into quite the incredible leader. In some ways, I'm still shocked he didn't make a play to become Coordinator. Romano Liao has become leader of the Capellan Confederation and given how insane she was portrayed in the Warrior Trilogy, that has only deepened. She doesn't get along with the group and by extension it appears that her song, Sun-Tzu, will not either. It's kind of surprising that Jaime Wolf didn't kick her and her party out after a few frustrating incidents. Thomas Marik from the Free World's League shows up, but once again that entire state feels like an after thought to the writers of BattleTech. The Clan Invasion isn't happening in their territory... so why do they matter? At least that's how it feels, but at least they had a bit of a role to play. Rasalhague, where the invasion is mostly taking place does have a bigger role, even though they are a smaller state.Wolf's training of the next generation on Outreach proves to be precipitous, because they have the inside track on the Clans, being Clanners themselves. They share knowledge on Clan ‘Mech designs and everything, so it appears this reprieve will truly give the Inner Sphere a fighting chance, provided they can make the ‘Mechs in time. This entire section was sort of an excuse to delve into the character development for the second generation.Meanwhile in Clan space the story of Phelan goes in further. In the last book Phelan was inducted into the family of Wolf and is now known as Phelan Wolf. At the end of the last book we also saw the arrival of Natasha Karensky returning to her home Clan. Phelan deeply wants to become a Mechwarrior by Clan standards so he needs to pass a test to make that happen. Luckily, Natasha will be there to help him train. In Clan society apparently they don't think too highly of older warriors. Instead they make room for younger generations and expect the older to become teachers and such. Natasha insists she can still fight despite her age, so they're going to make her take a similar test as Phelan to prove her worth.Once all of those tests are dealt with and a new leader is elected the invasion of the Inner Sphere may resume. I, somewhat, felt the resumption of the invasion was a bit premature in this novel and maybe that should have been saved for the third in a huge climax. But, I guess it came off okay. I suppose leaving the readers hanging till the next novel might have been a little too much or made the next novel way too long. Plus, we get a first taste to see if the meeting at Outreach was worth everyone's time.As usual with a Stackpole novel, some truly shocking things happen concerning some main characters. I got the impression at the end that this story isn't actually as resolved as it appears to be. The Clans also send a shock to ComStar with their end goal and it's going to be interesting to see how ComStar reacts to this in the next novel. ComStar has always only been too happy to help the Clans, but something happens in this novel that might change that. Time will tell... I'll find out in the next book.This is something like the 12th book in the BattleTech universe and I am so glad I have been reading everything in order. You really get a deep sense of the time line and I feel like it's just a much fuller experience reading it this way. So, if you're interested in BattleTech and people are telling you to start with this series, I would say don't, just start at the beginning so you can get all the background, because by the time you get to this book it really helps to have the full history behind you.

I usually don't bother buying the actual copies of the graphic novels of comics series I own and I didn't bother with “Outbreak” for a very long time until recently. This was, until I found out that “Outbreak” was not merely a re-print of the first Aliens series originally published in 1988: [b:Aliens, Book 1: Graphic Novel 15958195 Aliens, Book 1 Graphic Novel Mark Verheiden https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 90689096]. Instead what “Outbreak” tries to do is bring the elements from the first story published in the comics and update it to match it closer to the novelization [b:Aliens: Earth Hive 343281 Aliens Earth Hive Steve Perry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1366133734l/343281.SY75.jpg 333628]. If you recall, the novelization was where the series attempted to bring the original Aliens story written by Verheiden in line with the movies and account for Alien 3.In reading the foreword to “Outbreak” I had pretty high hopes for this comic. I thought they went in and drastically changed some sections of the book to match it closer to Steve Perry's story, making this more of a blend of Verheiden's originally work and Perry's attempt to account for Alien 3. In the intro they even talked about how the artist Mark A. Nelson stepped in and even added more art or adjusted things. I was pretty excited to read this, expecting some pretty serious overhauling of the story and art in certain areas, but that's not entirely what we got.For the most part the story stays fairly true to the original format published in 1988. However, they do go through and change all the “Hicks” to “Wilks” and all the “Newt's” to “Billie”. They did a good job of changing this up consistently. However, they left a lot of the original story in there that wound up having details that didn't mesh anymore, especially if their intent was to line-up with Alien 3. There are panels where Wilks laments the loss of his friends “Drake and Vasquez” on the planet Rim. This makes no sense, it just seems weird to me that they couldn't bother make up new names for Wilks' old squad mates. I don't know if this continuity was just missed or what. I was really happy to see some added detail in some panels to include the character Blake into the mix of the new marines. All the prior characters were male and Perry's creation of the character Blake was really cool, so I was glad to see them make the effort to include her in this series.While the inclusion of Blake was great, I was sort of wondering if they would overhaul entire pages to line-up with what Perry wrote. So, he changed a lot of what happened during Newt's original escape and modified it for Billie. But they made no effort to change this up to match the novel, so it's really just the same thing from the original comic. It's kind of disappointing because Billie is supposed to be older, which makes her relationship with Bueller make a bit more sense. I was also disappointed to see the ending stay the same when Wilks is back on Earth. I thought Perry's ending was a bit more shocking and intense at certain parts, so I thought they'd make the adjustment. Oh well.The most major difference between this rendition and the original is that “Outbreak” is actually in color! I'm sure the middle schooler in me would have been thrilled, because he thought Black & White was lame back then, but I think Nelson's original treatment was a bit better. Adding color makes it feel like a relatively normal comic, something you'd expect. Whereas the black & white of the original felt grittier and just better for some reason.Hopefully, this series of reviews helps to clear up the general confusion that probably exists amidst all of these releases. I don't even know which variants wound up in those large Omnibus editions Dark Horse was publishing for a while years ago. Either way, if you're an Aliens fan and you always wondered what the original series would look like with color, this will, at least, answer that question. As far as turning “Earth Hive” into a graphic novel, it only sort of made that work. The general story is pretty good though... it must be if I was able to read the same thing three times in a row for the sole purpose of putting these reviews together!