Adam

It was Aliens!! Goddamn Aliens the WHOLE time, I want to kick something

This kicks off the major 6 issue finale to The Massive. It's titled Ragnarok and if you know your Scandinavian mythology you know it's about the end of the world. So, I walked in expecting earth shattering events and Wood pretty much delivered on that.

This sequence was so Deus ex Machina that it was hard to read. Suddenly a second crash is happening and it's worse than before. The world is basically going to be destroyed and most humanity will be wiped out. Then they find The Massive, finally, but it's super anti-climatic and it seems to be a vehicle for just throwing in some Noah's Arc parallel's for...uhm... reasons. At this point things have degenerated to bad writing. I feel like Wood wanted to end on this grandiose note for his environmental message, but couldn't think of a way to do that without lots of religious parallel's and super natural things happening.

All of a sudden these pieces of the ocean floor start floating to the surface and humans start fighting over the “new land”. Typical humans... Anyway, this happens until the new land floats above the water and flies off into outer space. Guess what... they're Mary's people... You never get to see them, talk to them, or interact with them. They just up and leave. Then the world ends and maybe Mary had some sort of representations of Gaia, because she's been alive since the beginning of the Earth's formation? But it was, once again, kind of poorly explained and there were no answers really about Mary or her people... because we're “just not supposed to know”. In other words, lazy writing masquerading as mystery. Oooohhh....

By the end of the whole event our characters are basically living in that movie Water World. All around them is ocean and they are looking for precious land. The world is literally entirely different, but I have expected Kevin Costner to jump out of the ocean and throw some answers around. Whatever, I felt like Wood watched Water World and wondered how they got there and came up with this comic book series.

What started off with what appeared to be a hard science based comic set in a post climate apocalypse turned out to be a major bait and switch for me. I thought this was going to be a truly character driven series of humanity trying to survive and our characters coming to terms with a violent world where they were trying to be pacifists. Exploring that breaking point for Cal would have been truly amazing. Instead we get some weird super natural explanation about an Earth that wants to wipe out humanity. I don't mind fantastical things at all, but I always find it annoying when someone sets up a setting that seems as real as possible and just halfway through decides to up and deviate from that out of nowhere. Whatever, some people might love this turn of events, but I thought it was stupid. Oh well... this book could have been so much more.

After the rough review I gave the final installment of The Massive, I'm sure people are surprised to see me back writing a review for the follow-up series. Well... when I first got into this series I liked it so much that I just bought all the comics before I ever got to reading the final installment. Had I read the original 30 issues first, I probably would have skipped this six issue series. However, it turns out that I quite liked this series, so I'm glad I just bought everything.

I really wasn't sure what to expect from this series going in. Was this a prequel or was it more of an epilogue of The Massive finding its way through a vastly changed world. I think I sort of would have been interested in both, more because I would wonder if an epilogue series would salvage the story for me. But, this is not an epilogue, instead this is actually a prequel. All of this happens pre-crash, so there really isn't any supernatural nonsense going on at all throughout these issues and, boy, was that a breath of fresh air!

Ninth Wave is merely a collection of adventures pre-crash. This is gives us insight into what Ninth Wave was all about before the crash ever happened. We get to see what they stand for and why Cal is a wanted terrorist by U.S. standards. Each issue had a totally new adventure and I was surprised at how much Wood managed to pack into each issue. I felt that each mission was well told and fairly complete. In fact, everything was really exciting and even some areas where it covered political intrigue. Such as we found out what Bors and Cal locked horns in the main series. Mary and Mag are ever present along with a couple other crew members that we don't see much of, such as Rimona, who I thought was very cool. The stories mainly revolve around these few people, and given the short nature of each tale, it makes sense.

So, if you were highly disappointed in the conclusion of The Massive, but were sucked in at the beginning, I would actually highly recommend these issues. This has much more of the flavor of the beginning of the series and the overall writing is just plain well done. It's not like Wood lost his craft, because he tells great stories in this series.

I've finally made it to one of the biggest events in BattleTech history, the Clan Invasion. I can sort of see why in the re-launch of BattleTech in 2020 they're really kicking things off with the Clan invasion rather than kicking it off with the Fourth Succession War as in the 80's. However, the new publications aren't going to be just a re-launch, they are still going to be extending things beyond 3150 to a new era of BattleTech. However, this initial invasion is hitting us around the year 3050. The prior novel by Robert N. Charrette, [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], left us off around the year 3040 and really focused on just what was happening in the Draconis Combine. However, to get an idea of what's going on in the rest of the Successor States then I highly recommend checking out [b:Battletech: 20 Year Update 2645266 Battletech 20 Year Update L. Ross Babcock III https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538985028l/2645266.SX50.jpg 2670005] and this gives you a quick run down of what's going on between 3030 and 3050. The “20 Year Update” is not usually brought up in the novelization sequence, but I think it really helped the set the stage for me going into Lethal Heritage. Much as the House Books help you understand more about the novels during the Fourth Succession War.Anyway, Lethal Heritage kicks off setting the stage with the kids of a lot of the main characters found in the prior novels. This novel truly stars Phelan Kell, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita and Kai Allard. Sure Morgan Kell, Justin Allard, Melissa Steiner and others certainly make an appearance in these novels, but the stories really focus on their and kids and what happens to them during this invasion.The novel kind of runs through a hundred pages or so of character development, introducing the children, but starting around the time they graduate university. The real excitement really begins with a regiment of Kell Hounds and Victor Steiner-Davion being stationed on a world near the Periphery to fight off pirates and raiders. However, the real reason they're stationed there is to potentially meet a challenge from Theodore and Hohiro Kurita, so it starts with potential political intrigue, as one expects from BattleTech at this point. That challenge never comes because out of the Periphery a new enemy suddenly appears. More powerful and better equipped than literally any House of the States. These invaders quickly lay waste to any regiments on planet and in this process Phelan Kell is captured! Though everyone in the States believe he is dead.This wound up being a really interesting way to approach the story. With Phelan being a major character we got to see some first hand knowledge about how the Clans operate and who they are. This was really interesting, because it tried to maintain that “gray area” of who is good/bad in some ways. So, while the rest of the States are trying to figure out who these invaders are and not ruling out aliens, we get to see they are just humans. Sure, this took away some of the mystery for us readers, but, I actually didn't mind that, because the characters we got to meet and the insight into the Wolf Clan was actually really awesome. I found myself skipping ahead to find out what happened to Phelan (I know, I'm not supposed to), that's how good his story arc was.The other story arcs are great too, but Phelan's was probably my favorite. With such a massive invasion force and the States responding, I was actually impressed that Stackpole managed to keep everything together and it never felt overly chaotic in reading this novel. Typically with this many story lines running simultaneously you'd think it would make for a bad read by being all over the place, but Stackpole did an impressive job keeping it together while making all the arcs really great to read.The Clans swiftly take huge portions of the Lyran Commonwealth, Rasalhague and the Draconis Combine, but eventually the States start to figure out how to fight these invaders that outmatch them. There are a couple defeats for the Clans which causes a bit of a pause. The infamous battle on Twycross shows up here and it was a pretty impressive battle with Victor and Kai being major players. At this point the Clans start to realize they may have underestimated the Successor States despite the clear technological advantage the Clans have.I think the ComStar arc was supposed to be sort of shocking, but if you've experienced ComStar in the prior novels it's not surprise. Basically, they try to play both sides. Early on they wind up clearly striking a deal with the Clans to save their precious HPG network.While there are a bunch of Clans invading, we mostly get to experience Clan Wolf. We see some parts of Jade Falcon, Ghost Bears, and Smoke Jaguars, but they're more of in reports of other people facing against them. Only the Wolf Clan gets major character development.The ending of the book was really great and I don't want to give it away, but needless to say I am really looking forward to delving into the second book in this landmark BattleTech trilogy. I loved Stackpole's Warrior Trilogy and I think he's only gotten better at crafting these stories over time. While I think a lot of new fans might want to dive into BattleTech with the Clan Invasion, I still recommend reading all the earlier novels. They're actually all really great reads and I think they really help setup the character histories quite a bit.

After reading the adaptation of [b:On Basilisk Station 35921 On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, #1) David Weber https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390456253l/35921.SY75.jpg 965345] to graphic novel format, I was a little less excited for this series. It wasn't a bad adaptation, but it wasn't great either. A lot of the problems stemmed from the authors feeling the need to recap so much stuff over and over that it really crushed the excitement and continuity of the story for me. So, it was with a bit of trepidation that I wandered into the next series: Bred to Kill.The major difference with this story is that it is not originally written by [a:David Weber 10517 David Weber https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1227584346p2/10517.jpg]. In fact it's not even a novel, this is actually an all original tale from the comic book writers. I have to admit, I liked this one a lot more this time around. It was a bit weird seeing advertisements for the next novel adaptation all over the first series and then all of a sudden they're publishing this thing... but I do love the character Honor Harrington and I'm certainly not opposed to diving into some fanfic that expands her universe a little bit.This story comes right after the first novel and it's sort of like an extra mission of sorts. I was lucky enough to get the “free comic book day” issue #0, so I could see the full prelude to what sort of motivated this journey. Basically, in later novels there appears a race of genetic slaves, that are human, but also not considered human. It sort of seems inspired by things like “I, Robot,” but instead of making sentient machines, they literally genetically engineer a slave race of humans.In the case of “Bred to Kill”, Honor winds up getting caught up in some sort of slave trade problems motivated by her uncle that has gone missing. Basically, her mother contacts her and tasks Honor with finding her uncle. Her uncle was working on freeing the slaves of a pleasure space station and Honor and a couple of her crew members get caught up in the fight.The story did a good job of creating a side story complete with well written villains and blending that political intrigue/action style that a lot of Space Opera stories are known for. At times things move a bit fast and ridiculous to get to the end, but this is only a four issue comic series, so for the sake of time the authors really couldn't do a slow build like a novel would in this fashion. It felt more like the highlights of a longer mission than anything else, so it was a pretty fast and good read. The total opposite of how I felt about the On Basilisk Station comic series.Sadly, after publishing something quite good, there must not have been enough interest to keep going with the series. In fact the grandiose advertisements of a movie treatment are gone from these comics and my writing this many years after the fact, I can say, the movie never came to be. It turns out the company that was planning a lot of this stuff went under pretty shortly after some of these comic projects were launched. I'm glad they were, at least, able to print the full story for “Bred to Kill,” I've run into a few comics launching new franchises that never finish the story due to lack of interest. In some ways, it's too bad that this project didn't keep going, because after a good story like this, I wonder if the adaptation of the second novel would have been a lot better?

I'm glad I'm finding Braun's wonderful stories this late in the game, because I never had to experience the nearly 20 year hiatus she took after the first three novels were published. Given how wonderful the first three books were, I'm somewhat surprised she took this much time off, I don't know her history or anything, but I just think of the 18 more years of great cat stories we could have gotten as readers!

So, given the vast gap in time has Braun lost her touch in crafting a great cat mystery novel? The answer, thankfully, is no. In fact, this story picks up immediately where the third novel left off and we continue the adventures of Qwill, Koko, and Yum Yum as if no time has transpired at all. I was immensely grateful for this, because the first three books were so much fun, that given a hiatus this big, I truly hoped very little would change.

“The Cat Who Saw Red” has us picking up with Qwill moving out of junk town and being given a rather new beat for the paper. This time around he's been assigned to a food column, which is just in time for him to notice his own personal weight gain and try to go on a diet! There is some delightful comedy around this as Qwill tries to navigate being a bit of a restaurant critic amidst trying not to eat too much... sometimes to the offense of the chefs!

As usual the murder mystery brings us to the new location Qwill has decided to move to, an old pottery, now called Maus House that's been taken over by quite a few food fanatics and other people that own places in the local community. It's owned by Robert Maus, a lawyer whose real passion is cooking. It made sense to move there given Qwill's new assignment. However, murder mystery seems to follow him wherever he goes and the old pottery house already had a bit of a cold case on its hands. A death years ago that was ruled a suicide, but some people that used to live there weren't so sure. Now with Qwill and Koko on the scene when people start disappearing again, it's up to them to get to the bottom of it!

As with the prior novels, the characters and mystery were quite fun. I did feel like the culprit was a bit obvious from the beginning, but Braun made up for the fact with a colorful cast of characters and more focus on finding proof. I felt in the prior novels the “who done it” aspect was a bit more unpredictable, but let's be honest, it's been 18 years, so I'll cut her a bit of slack here. The story was still really fun at the end of the day and the journey to find proof of the assumptions was quite a journey. I actually liked this sort of change of pace with a mystery novel, which wasn't so much a mystery as a general crime novel I suppose.

Either way, if you liked the first three books, there's a decent chance you will enjoy the return of Koko and Yum Yum on the case! I'm starting to wonder if the people in the area will begin to fear the arrival of Qwill, because it seems wherever he moves bodies turn up... he may not be the one committing the murders, but it does seem to happen an awful lot!

More in the 3.5 range.

This block of stories from The Massive was a pretty decent continuation of the first six. However, I felt some of the material and writing got a bit choppy. I liked a lot of the stories, but some of the others I felt were a bit more ridiculous than anything else.

On the realistic side, Cal's health has become a real issue for the crew and after leaving Moksha it has made things harder. So, that conflict has added a bit more intensity into the mix. There's a stint where The Massive is possibly sighted in the realms of South America, but some nations are engaged in conflict, so some crew members from those regions want to return to their homelands to help in the fight. This could hurt the Kapitel, since less people to run the ship will obviously make it harder to run the ship and thus harder to find The Massive. All these conflicts were really great storylines amidst the overarching mystery of the Massive.

However, interspersed were some ridiculous tales. The most ridiculous was the once called Megalodon. Even though this came out way after the comic, the movie starring Jason Statham called The Meg was way cooler and made way more sense by comparison! In this particular issue a Megalodon somehow shows up. I feel like the writer just wanted to include sharks in his post apocalyptical world... and amidst a large amount of sharks is a Megalodon? For... uhm... reasons? I have no idea, it felt extremely random and it just pulled me out of the realism this series seemed to be going for since the beginning. I hope this won't be a common occurrence, because I feel like Brian Wood has tried to make a painstakingly realistic climate apocalypse and throwing these more fantastical things in with zero explanation just pulls you outside of that.

The other problem is that the artists kept changing in this block of comics. At the beginning the art change wasn't that drastic. It looked like they hired someone that could do a good job of replicating the art of the original artist, but as time went on it eventually switched to someone who was drastically different. It was extremely jarring when this change happened, because the characters I've gotten used to looked pretty different. Especially Cal, so it was weird. The writing is still good, so I intend to keep up with the story, of course, but just something to forewarn potential readers about.

In the end, it's still The Massive, and it's still good. I hope the following issues return to the more solid footing of the first six, but we shall see how things progress. If you liked the first round of issues, you may still enjoy these, despite some of the changes that seem to be taking place.

Real Rating: 3.5I really usually steer away from movie novelizations, figuring I've already seen the movie and if the book didn't come first, how different could it ever be? In fact, I think this is the first movie novelization I've read and it's because I'm trying to read as much of the published Aliens material as possible and review it all and since I don't have the first Alien novelization, I'm starting with Aliens.Now, Aliens is one of my favorite movies all time. Ever since I was a little kid in the early 90's, I definitely watched it too early, but it's been my favorite ever since. I've been buying all the comics and even all the action figures since I saw the film. As you can tell, by the time I'm reading this book I'm pretty familiar with the film. The one thing that was a big off putting with Foster's interpretation of the script is how overly detailed the writing was at times. When you add in all this over detail it slows the whole presentation down a little bit. Once the action starts in the film it's a high octane ride until the end, but novelizing it like this makes it slow down. I eventually got used to this fact, so it wasn't too bad by the end, it was just weird when I first started.So, is the novelization different from the move? Actually, it has some minor detail changes, since I assume this is based on the original script. The changes they made from the original script for the sake of the film, I think were actually really good changes and the changes make the movie a stronger and more compelling film. By far the biggest change is the absolute lack of swearing in the novel. All of Hudson's iconic outbursts just feel so tame now. Ripley's famous quote at the end “Get away from her, you bitch!” has now become “Get away from her, you!” An incredibly lazy change, in my opinion. This line was so major it was even made into a board game! Get Away from Her, You B***h!One major change was an aspect of the Aliens where their tales acted like stingers and instead of Gorman being knocked out by a crate he gets knocked out by an Alien “stinger”. I'm glad they removed that part of the modification to the Alien biology, since I think that would have been kind of silly and made the bee analogy a bit too much. Other than that, there are subtle changes, like Ripley taking the stairs instead of an elevator at the end.Another aspect of the book that I liked was the time spent on character development for Bishop. There was a lot more introspection and interaction with Bishop than in the film. It seemed like a lot more thought had been put into the way androids worked in the Aliens universe than the film seemed to present, so it was interesting seeing that aspect fleshed out a lot more.I wound up enjoying this a bit more than I expected by the end. It felt really slow at the beginning though and that slowness somewhat marred the exciting aspect of the story. If you want to read something that is similar to this, but adds a bit more then check out the graphic novel [b:Aliens: Newt's Tale 6125120 Aliens Newt's Tale Mike Richardson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327388109l/6125120.SY75.jpg 6303587], which I found to be a pretty good rendition of the film from a slightly different perspective.

Even though this is technically a game sourcebook, I figured it would be an invaluable read to find out what has changed in the setting in preparation to read Michael Stackpole's [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] which launches the infamous Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere. The prior novel [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] by Robert N. Charrette stops around 3040 and is relatively Draconis Combine centric. Although we do get a few updates as to what is going on with ComStar and the changes in the border concerning the Free Rasalhague Republic as a newly formed nation at the end of the War of 3039.So the 20 Year Update seeks to update us about what the setting is like after the Fourth Succession War, which dramatically changed the Capellan border. In this short sourcebook they go into the general state of affairs involving the five houses and some of the more notable free areas and some Periphery states. Once again House Marik did feel like a bit of an afterthought, and we don't get much of a vested interest in their characters through the novels. I really wish there had been a novel written about Janos Marik and Thomas Marik, because the events outlined about the changes in power and attempted assassinations would have made a great book! I'm kind of surprised a novel was never commissioned to tell this tale at all.The other major gripe I have is that the death of Katrina Steiner the former Archon is relegated to a mere line of text in this update. Granted here death was nothing spectacular and she died in her sleep, but she also didn't seem to be very old by BattleTech longevity. Either way it does set the stage for Archon Melissa to step in and it discusses the growth of the Federated Commonwealth. I did like reading about all the updates and future heirs, because I'm sure that will just manage to generate future conflict.I was happy to see Justin Allard and Candace Liao still together after the insanity of the Warrior Trilogy novels. I look forward to seeing what role they and their children play in the future of the BattleTech setting. I was surprised to see no updates concerning mercenary groups. What is the Gray Death Legion up to? What about Wolf's Dragoons?? I think a few pages devoted to these important forces would have made this book all the more comprehensive.As with the other house books at the end they have a list of notable faces in the universe. The only complaint I have here is that it's not sorted by region or anything. Instead it seems sorted by relevance? I guess. I think it would have made a lot more sense to this list at the end of each region update and then anyone else could have been put in to the “other” category.In the end, I quite enjoyed the update and I look forward to seeing how BattleTech progresses in the next big event. I've enjoyed just about every novel from the Fourth Succession War era and I look forward to enjoying the next big round!

I remember seeing the first issue showing up at my local comic store and being immediately drawn to it on the shelf. The whole design looked great, so I picked up a copy, relatively confident since I do enjoy a fair amount of comics Dark Horse tends to publish. During the time this was being published I remember there being quite a few comic series that really drew me in and this was one of them. Sadly, I never got around to completing the full set of this series until recently, so now I return to the beginning to find out what happens!The Massive is a pretty interesting story that is set in a post-apocalyptic world and has a major environmentalist bent. I find it interesting that Image was also publishing [b:Great Pacific Volume 1: Trashed! 16231102 Great Pacific Volume 1 Trashed! Joe Harris https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1465605418l/16231102.SY75.jpg 22223103] at this time, which had a similar slant to its story, albeit they are vastly different books. They're both great though, don't get me wrong. The Massive is a near future post-apocalyptic setting that, I feel, draws some influence from shows like Dark Angel. Not necessarily the same, but the state of the world feels quite similar. There has been some monstrous catastrophe and now humanity is trying to rebuild as best it can. While this is happening fragments of the old society still exist, but lawlessness is amped up due to the fact that people just need resources to survive. Things have turned into a major resource war and what do direct action environmentalists do now? This is where our story, basically, begins.The Massive is the story about two ships at its inception. The Kapital and the Massive are sister ships in the extremist environmentalist group Ninth Wave. Ninth Wave claims not to be extremists etc. and, to me, it sounds like Wood pulled some influence for the actions of Green Peace, especially when they intervene with whaling vessels. Ninth Wave claims to be direct action environmentalists, but from other peoples perspectives they are extremists and criminals. Wood really creates a great backdrop of conflict for this world within which his characters are found, and watching them move around their new situation is really interesting.The first comic starts off with a serious problem, the Kapital has lost contact the Massive and fear it is lost at sea. However, they keep seeing it's profile show up on radar intermittently, I don't know how realistic I find this situation, because as the comics go on they spend quite a bit of time searching for this vessel. At this time I don't know if they ever find it, but they travel all over in search of it. The crew of the Kapital is interesting, because while pacifism is their primary philosophy Callum Israel, the captain, has cut his teeth for years as private military. He left the private military before the world crashed and has been involved with Ninth Wave ever since. Other people on this crew have similar sordid backgrounds, so you have to wonder how much are they willing to fight in this new and far more dangerous world. Will they compromise their pacifist tenets?The art and layout of this story are great. In addition to the usual comic at the end of every issue there is sometimes a journal entry from a member of the crew. Or there are newspaper clippings giving us insight into the history of crew members and Ninth Wave in general. It's a really impressive design overall and it's not something I see in comics very much.If you like post apocalyptic tales with an environmentalist slant this is definitely a good comic series to dive into. It's fairly action packed and the journey to solve the mystery of the missing ship is also very well written. These first six issues are a great beginning and backdrop for a truly intriguing series that I look forward to reading more of.

Probably more of a 3.5After finishing [b:Wolves on the Border 923376 Wolves on the Border Robert N. Charrette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328036806l/923376.SY75.jpg 908394] I was excited to dive into Charrette's next book “Heir to the Dragon”. However, I don't think this book was as good as the prior. It suffers from being an almost too ambitious story, which was a flaw that “Wolves on the Border” had as well, but it wasn't as bad, because the timeline was more condensed. However, I still think “Wolves on the Border” could have been two very excellent novels instead of just one.“Heir to the Dragon,” if you can't guess from the title, is the story of Theodore Kurita's rise to power. Therein lies the greatness of the book and a bit of it's downfall. Theodore's story is awesome and I think Charrette did an excellent job fleshing out his character and his close friends throughout the book. The real problem with the story is Charrette tries to tell a long story way too fast. He tries to tell Theodore's story from birth up until the current era in BattleTech. Chapter's are sometimes three to five pages in length, but will suddenly skip months and years. There are chapters where I feel like there's a cliff hanger, and it's just never really resolved, because we jumped two years! The feud between Takashi and Theodore is well established though. The book maintains the running theme of the expectations of the father and the rebellion of the son. There was a time where Takashi relegated his son to the Legion of Vega, a misfits ‘Mech command, but Theodore won their hearts. I wanted to see more of him working with this group, because they were an interesting group within the realms of the Draconis Combine. But I felt rushed into the Fourth Succession war where all of a sudden the region was being invaded by Steiner forces! Sure, the ‘Mech battles were epic and well written, but I missed the pre-amble and felt like I truly wanted to care more about the Vega troops.From here we watch Theodore grow as a commander and try to circumvent his father's orders and instead win the hearts of loyal troops to Theodore in order secure a more tactically sound position in battles. For this rise of Theodore's power Charrette did slow things down a bit and I felt it was much more fleshed out... and all the more enjoyable because of it! There are even sections where he fills in some unanswered questions from “Wolves on the Border”. I was also pleased to see Michi take a major role in this novel, with two people that have left the Dragoons to follow Michi on his quest to avenge Minobu. However, we never really learn where the Dragoons went. Did they go to Davion? Wolf's whereabouts is left entirely unknown.Eventually we get to the famed war of 3039 where the Dragon fought off a joint Davion and Steiner invasion into their realm. We have major revelations concerning ComStar during this time, like the fact that it is confirmed from the Warrior Trilogy that ComStar has been keeping a Star League era cache of ‘Mechs secret and has been training their own armed forces. In fact their forces are quite formidable, to the point where they were loaned to the Combine in exchange to free Rasalhague making it possible for Theodore to find victory in the war of 3039. Unfortunately, very little time is spent on this massive war and I felt that, perhaps, a full novel should have been devoted to it. Apparently the lack of 3039 detail was not lost on the developers because in a later sourcebook they gave even more detail in [b:Classic Battletech: Historicals War of 3039 688777 Classic Battletech Historicals War of 3039 FanPro https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601080754l/688777.SX50.jpg 675130].So, in the end, the book was great. It was a pretty wild ride and extremely enjoyable. But I really wish this had been it's own trilogy. It could have easily been on par with Stackpole's Warrior Trilogy. This is also the last novel in the first series of books before BattleTech has a major change to it's era. After this they skip to the Clan Invasion of 3050. So, after this I've decided to read the sourcebook [b:Battletech: 20 Year Update 2645266 Battletech 20 Year Update L. Ross Babcock III https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538985028l/2645266.SX50.jpg 2670005] which brings all regions up to date for the next era. If you're really into the lore of the series I'd recommend picking that up as well, because some major things happen with the transition from Federated Sun and Lyran Commonwealth to the massive Federated Commonwealth.

Unlike the prior [b:Dead Space 5850806 Dead Space Antony Johnston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347321886l/5850806.SX50.jpg 6022947] comic series which I got around the time of the release of the first game, Dead Space: Salvage is a new acquire and I totally forgot this existed until recently. I've played all the games and Dead Space was such a wild ride that I was looking forward to diving back into the world, even if it was through the comic book medium or novels. I still haven't read the novels yet... maybe someday.Salvage feels like an over ambitious graphic novel from an art direction. Usually, I'll go over story first in a review, but this art got in the way of the story so much that it's hard to avoid bringing it up. The art in this book looks really nice and it really is quite stunning most of the time, but the real problem is with the characters. All the characters wound up looking so similar it was hard to follow who was doing what or where they were. In the beginning of the book they actually had character profiles, which at first glance seemed interesting to give more background... but as I read further I realized you actually needed these things in order to figure out who was doing what! It was a truly disorienting read, and not in a good way. I'm supposed to walk away from Dead Space feeling like I just experienced some crazy unhinged thing... and I did... but in a confusing non-scary way.Salvage takes place right after the first Dead Space game and before Dead Space 2 came out. Now, I can't really remember the ending or beginning of these games too well, I will have to replay them, but they're not quick games, so by the time I'm done I'll probably forget Salvage... The government has blocked off the area around the planet where the first Dead Space took place, Aegis VII, I believe. In another area nearby, but outside the blockade there is a group of ships engaging in some illegal mining activities. They're hoping the blockade will be removed by the time they're done. I didn't super understand all the tech that was going on, but they put these little chunks inside a teleportation field in space? I guess that thing is used for jumping ships different places? I was kind of confused at this, but all of a sudden the Ishimura comes through the portal scattering all their hard work into space.Despite their major losses, they try to consider the Ishimura as a new salvage opportunity. Apparently, they find pieces of the marker floating around in space around the Ishimura. This where I can't remember the end of Dead Space, did Isaac destroy the marker at the end by venting it into space? I just cant remember what happened, it was so long ago. Maybe I will get my wish and a remastered version of all 3 games will come out. In any event, if you're familiar with Dead Space you know what happens toward the end.There wasn't much in the way of revealing mysteries in this comic, it was more of a side adventure more than anything else. They did try to include aspects of the government conspiracy with the Unitologists going on, but again, that part was so hard to follow due to the art direction. While in some respects the art was better this time around, it was also worse, so it's hard to rate this thing. Maybe once I get around to the novels I'll find them to be a better medium to convey the world of Dead Space outside of video game format.

More in the 3.5 rangeThe problems that were rife throughout [b:Dead Space: Salvage 9298508 Dead Space Salvage Antony Johnston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347551483l/9298508.SY75.jpg 14181138] appear to have attempted fixes. Sadly, it's not really enough to make it truly work. I think the problem with the franchise at this point where they're trying to create a mysterious and horror element combined with some intense politics means that you really can't do all of this in a “short adventure” format like a graphic novel. You really need to sort of pick one thing and run with it. It's almost like the necromorphs should have never showed up in this at all, and instead just focused on character development and background for the new people you would meet in Dead Space 3. Dead Space's world build is complex enough where you don't need 100% horror all the time, but the need for the franchise to think it's fans need that in every aspect of the art is pretty telling. If they really wanted to bridge events from Dead Space 2 and make a quick story, they would have just left that out or left out the Earth Gov people or whatever. They're including too much content in not enough space to make the story feel well told.Or... write a longer story... I'd rather them write a longer story at the end of the day.Liberation mainly tries to follow the new character Carver in his journey until he crosses paths with Isaac. Ellie Langford shows up too, but I felt like she was almost an afterthought in this story... I kind of remember her being more important in the game. However, almost everyone else I don't remember, because it's been so long since I played that game. Carver's journey has him run into necromporhs and other human enemies. I read this a week ago and the story is already largely forgettable... so I was a little disappointed on that front. I liked it to a certain degree, I just wish it was longer. I just felt like they could never do the characters justice in such a short span of time.I think they publisher also realized the artistic problems with Salvage and tried to find someone similar to do this art because the overall general style of Salvage fit the setting pretty well. The art in Liberation is great, if you ignore some of the repetition of the humans. I felt like this was primarily high quality story boarding art for a movie. Which makes sense, because I think Dead Space wanted to have that cinematic feel to almost everything they did. It just doesn't do as well if you're trying to have people with lots of emotion and such, but the scenery shots in this are incredible. They're definitely best so far from the franchise and I really liked looking at that. They also did a much better job of integrating the dialogue into the art for me to know who was talking. There were grammar mistakes all over, but at least I knew who was saying what this time around! Kind of an important feature for comic format.In the end, I did enjoy reading it. I applaud them for trying to fix the problems with Salvage and the story was a bit better this time around. Again, the pacing is just too fast, so it feels rather unsatisfying at the end of the day. If I ever replay the trilogy I might try to read these comics along with it to see how well they integrate. But I think I'll still walk away with the same issues.

I dug out my original Dead Space comics recently and gave them a read. The reason I did this is because I found out there were a couple of graphic novels I missed out on and recently got my hands on. Figured, I should read the original series first though. So, here I am back in the world of Dead Space.

I really enjoyed the game a lot, I even liked Dead Space 3 a huge amount and I think the whole trilogy of games as a whole is an amazing journey. I can't remember if I got these comics originally as they came out or after I had played the game. Either way, it's been years since I've explored this franchise, so my memory might be a bit hazy. This series of comics was to serve as a prequel to the animated movie, which then served as a prequel to the game itself if I remember the sequence correctly. There are advertisements for the movie all over the comics.

If you remember the game Isaac Clarke basically arrives on the Ishimura mining vessel and it's essentially abandoned. The comics focus on the disaster that has befallen the planet. The story behind this, which is told in these comics, is actually really really good. It gives us insight into the background and the conspiracy involving the Unitologists, the crazy religious marker cult. In the comics there's a mining colony setup on the planet, which is awaiting the Ishimura planet cracker. The whole mining methods setup in this game was all really interesting and quite cool. During the mining operations preparations they uncover a marker!

As you can expect, it's not long after the marker discovery that the population starts to go a little crazy. Watching the officials try to manage the crisis was an amazing train wreck to behold. The colony eventually implodes on itself and by the time the necromorphs start showing up, it's way too late to salvage anything. In the later issues before things come to an end the Ishimura ship shows up. They demand to take the marker on board and they still go through the planet cracking process.

This sets us up to enjoy the rest of the story in the movie. Now that the marker is moved to the Ishimura it's only a matter of time before things go awry there, and the movie ends with, I believe, the arrival of Isaac Clarke.

The art in the comics is weird. Under normal circumstances I would probably not really enjoy Ben Templesmith's approach to comic art, but it really works quite well in the world of Dead Space. Ben's art has this sort of unhinged tint to it, which only helps to enhance the underlying madness of the marker. I think, in the end it worked out brilliantly.

If you're a Dead Space fan and want to dive into the lore of what happened from the first game then this is totally worth reading. I think it's an enjoyable read and this is the second time I've read through this and I enjoyed it once again. So, it does have some re-read quality to it.

Probably more in the 3.5 range.Full discloser, I'm usually not a very big fan of the short story approach. I really do tend to prefer novels, but in my quest to read everything BattleTech, I'll dive into the short stories. Having [a:William H. Keith Jr. 20444 William H. Keith Jr. https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1343233912p2/20444.jpg] and [a:Michael Stackpole 19077986 Michael Stackpole https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] throwing their hands in the wring is definitely a benefit, since I quite enjoyed their novels by the time I'm reading this. Their contributions really made a lot of this a pretty worthwhile read.Shrapnel was, if I remember correctly, supposed to be a “magazine” of sorts covering stories of the Inner Sphere. And to a decent degree they achieved that feel, even including an interview with the infamous Natasha Kerensky. I actually wish they had included more of these things, because I really did like the way it added to the “magazine” feel. There are so many great characters, Morgan Kell, Grayson Carlyle etc. would have been really cool to read about and really added to that atmosphere. This volume was printed in the large sourcebook style, rather than the standard novel format, so it feels more like this belongs on my shelf of sourcebooks than with the lore. The major reason for the large format is because this book is loaded with all kinds of BattleTech art! Much of it is pretty good, but if you collected a lot of the BattleTech material from the 80's there wasn't much new art in here. A lot of it is taken from the House Books or technical readouts that many people probably already had. However, there was some art that clearly fit with the stories, not sure which came first, but I thought this was really wonderful. It's one of the few things I miss from that first Gray Death Legion trilogy, they stopped including sketch art in the future novels. I know, it's probably more expensive to print, but it was a really cool feature nonetheless.First off William H. Keith rather dominates the story content for this installment, so if you were not a fan of his writing to begin with, then a lot of this content will be disappointing. However, I like Keith's books, so it was nice to see him expand on some areas. The three stories he contributed are like extra tales from his trilogy. Remember when Carlyle met up with Tracy Kent? Well, I always sort of felt like her character was never fleshed out very much and there was more to her story, and it seems Keith agrees. Here we get a whole story dedicated to her character development “Legion Team”, which was pretty nice. “Dance of Vengeance” is kind of a side story involving the infamous Duke Ricol, which is a recurring character in Keith's tales. “Where Lies the Honor?” is this sort of random one off set on a Combine planet. It was only okay.The other big names was Michael Stackpole with his story “Judas Blind” and this is a side story involving Patrick Kell. Given Patrick's fate in the novels maybe Stackpole figured he deserved at least one last adventure! I completely agree. Here Patrick is playing the role of spy as they try to infiltrate an area of a Combine planet. I thought this was, easily, one of the better short stories, it was also one of the longest, so there was a lot more time to flesh out a good tale. Surprisingly there was basically no ‘Mech combat in this tale and instead it focused on more of a black-ops kind of feel infiltrating a Combine facility.The other stories ranged from being pretty good to only okay. “Old MechWarriors Never...” by Ken St. Andre was a pretty good tale involving the game world Solaris VII, so people that liked that setting will most likely find that enjoyable. He did a great job crafting an interesting story with pretty solid characters under such a small page count.“Black Cats Cross Your Path” by Tara Gallagher and James Lanigan was a pretty cool perspective of how the infantry deal with things. You would think a lot of this magazine would be ‘Mech combat oriented, but they actually had a really good balance of stories in this. I don't think their story was super memorable, but it was a decent tale. It was more of a one off combat scenario than anything else, just that it was infantry oriented made it feel pretty different from much of the novels so far. They also took on the task of writing the interview with Natasha Kerensky and this is truly wonderful. I really liked reading this, so much so, that I wish they had included more of these!“Think Like a Liao” by Susan Putney was a true high-light in this collection of stories. In this story we get some serious insight into Tormana Liao, Maximillian's son. Tormana was just loosely mentioned in Stackpole's Warrior Trilogy, so it was really interesting to see a tale strictly involving him and his adventures when it comes to dealing with his crazy father. I think only one point seemed kind of stupid when the villain explained the plans, a fairly tiring mechanic, but since the story was good overall I'll let it pass.“And then there was the Time...” by Mark O'Green, is kind of a throw away tale. It's barely a page long and just a conversation. I guess it fits the setting... but since it doesn't really involve any major characters it feels an awful lot like filler. His other contribution “Painting the Town” was not just simple filler, it was actually a full on short story. This tells the tale of a Combine force on a desert planet that comes under fire of three Marauders. This is another infantry centric tale about their struggle to survive against near impossible odds and how they made it through. It was pretty good, I liked the characters and I'm glad he was able to redeem himself from senseless filler content.“Dispatch” is another filler element involving Cranston Snord. It's just an intercepted transmission log. This filler content is much better, because it really fits that magazine aesthetic, even though it doesn't really tell much of anything interesting in the grand scheme of things.Bear Peters gives us two stories “The Race is Not to the Swift” and “Final Exam”. “Final Exam” is sort of senseless filler, at least it involves a major personality in the lore Anton Marik. It's just a quick excerpt of him doing something in a military academy for a simulated exam. It was okay. Unfortunately, “The Race is Not to the Swift” was also just okay. I feel like the BattleTech creators have basically forgotten about the existence of the Free World's League and suddenly remember that a fifth great house exists. So, they rush to throw together something involving the worlds of Marik in the end. Bear Peters story is primarily just ‘Mech combat the whole time. The characters are bad, but there's no drama and there's no insight into the Marik worlds or what it's like there. The closest we've ever gotten is from Keith with [b:The Price of Glory 1168390 The Price of Glory (Saga of the Gray Death Legion, #3) William H. Keith Jr. https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589502249l/1168390.SY75.jpg 36063], but then Ricol shows up again and then it starts feeling like it's about the Combine all over again! So, I applaud Bear Peters for trying to include the worlds of Marik... but it would have been nice to have something beyond general ‘Mech combat.So, sadly this was the last issue of Shrapnel to be made, even though I think they planned on making more. In 2019 they resurrected the concept and have been releasing a quarterly version of short stories, but they're not in the large source book format like this and they don't have art aplenty like this either. It's nice to see them revisit this idea.

As usual with my comic reviews, I read this as separate issues originally. Like the first comic series from the world of Mirror's Edge, Exordium is a prequel of the latest game from the series. The game it self is also a prequel to the original game, so we've got layers of prequels within layers of prequels going on this time around.

First off, compared to the first series of comics the art in this is stunning, initially at least. Halfway through, I'm sad to say they changed artists and the style changed pretty dramatically. The new artist was pretty good, but after such stunning art from the original it was hard to go back. For a small run of comics it's always jarring when this happens and I don't know why it happened or why not get a replacement that can draw close to the original artist?

It had been quite a while since I had played Catalyst before finally diving into these comics, but this is before Faith found out about her father and sister. So, seeing them show up in the first comic, but her thinking they're dead here was confusing at first! However, it makes total sense once I remember Catalyst was an origins story.

Exordium centers around an adventure where Faith is caught up with a major mob boss type who has something of Faith's mother. This guy is extremely dangerous and if you're on his good side, things are going well... if not... well then. This story also explores some of the concepts of the runners code. It's sort of like that “thieves guild” idea that shows up in Fantasy novels where you never steal from another runner. So, Faith is willing to help out the mob boss until it means making a tough decision... this is a great book in the sense that it dives deeper into Faith's personal code in life and what friendship really means to her. Also, it has all those trappings of the “you choose your own family” of sorts, but they really do a great job of writing it in a seamless way as the story unfolds.

I thought Exordium was awesome, aside from the artistic switch halfway through, this was a truly great tale. Given the depth of the Mirror's Edge story I'm sort of surprised they never tried to get into the novel territory of the world, because it really is a cool world and I do enjoy escaping to the adventures there. I can't remember how good Catalyst did in the world of game sales, but reading this comic made me remember how much I liked playing those games and I hope there are more stories to tell within the franchise.

Now, I'm not the usual Young Adult reader, but I am a huge fan of Aliens. I have all the novels, movies, toys, comic books, video games... you get the gist. I did miss out on seeing this novel when it was first published, probably due to the fact that I never really dive into the Young Adult universe, but the fact they tried to get an Alien novel in there definitely had me curious.

First, I had no expectations going in, other than I did expect it to be a rather toned down version of the more standard in the franchise. For people that know the world of Alien/Aliens and are wondering how much of that envelope they pushed, they definitely did push. If they made this into a movie it would probably hit the R stage, unlike that time they tried to make AvP a PG-13 film... bad move on their part. So, given the horror nature of the book, I'm not sure I'd hand this off to an eight or nine year old given how violent it gets. But by the time you're in that 12/13 range they could probably handle it. People definitely die (it's Aliens), there are people killed pretty violently, but there isn't much dwelling on the gore or anything like that. The events just sort of happen quickly and the story moves on as the characters run away. It doesn't get overly descriptive. Grant definitely gets that one f-word in that she was probably allowed before this had to get re-marketed. Kudos to her for that. It will prep future generations for Hudson's scenes in the film! (boy do I miss Bill Paxton)

The story is centered around two teens Olivia and Viola Shipp and they're twin sisters. However, Viola suffers from a rare disease that has effectively disabled her and she really can't even leave their home. So, it's an interesting dynamic where Olivia is often on her own experiencing the world, which makes for an interesting change to the usual twins story where they do everything together. Basically, their parents work as xenobiologists and they go around to various colonies checking out whatever native species exist on the newly settled planets as humanity expands into the future. This gives Grant the “new girl in school” angle, which is a relatively common theme in YA.

In terms of world building, I think Grant did a pretty good job. Having the parents be biologists definitely helped give their kids a bit of edge in having specialized knowledge, especially when it comes to that frontier/colonialization story where the kids basically help their parents do their specialized jobs. It was definitely an interesting planet and, as is common in the Aliens franchise, she used it as a vehicle to throw in those ponderings of “what is the meaning of life?” With Aliens it always hits around that predator/prey dynamic, so it's a decent introduction to what you can expect from this kind of a franchise.

It was really fascinating watching Grant go through the “teenage girl experience” formula for YA books though. New kid at school? Check. Hot person as love interest? Check. Overbearing rival? Check. First date? Check. First kiss? Check. Teenage party when parents aren't around? Check! It was amazing watching her work all these elements into the book to feel like an overly typical book, until the Aliens show up, of course. But, I have to hand it to Grant, she did a pretty solid job getting those elements in there and still staying true to the Aliens universe as cheesy as they might have felt.

Olivia is pining after the prettiest girl in school named Kora (yes, I basically had her looking like Legend of Korra by the end), the daughter of the Colony leader. At first I thought it was going to be a rather unrequited love tale, but it surprised me when Kora was absolutely into Olivia and it made me really happy for Olivia. If you think about it, the book probably would have been too long if they had gone down the relationship conflict route as well, so best to have them together on good terms early on, otherwise you risk too much drama. The rival Michel (which I can't figure out if he'd pronounce his name like Michael, Mitchel, or the French Michél... I think I basically settled on Mike by the end of the book), he was over the top odious. Honestly, to the point that was unreasonable. He was the only character that I felt was too much and I really think Grant could have done a better job with him. She definitely wanted to create an asshole, but he was almost too much of one... to the point where it started to not be realistic? Who knows, Grant could have been totally basing his character profile off of someone she knew in real life, and I've just been blessed not have ever met anyone this awful.

The only truly bizarre part of the book was how useless the adults were, all the time. Olivia and Viola's mom had been in the Colonial Marines and since they're off studying potentially dangerous animals, they were woefully under armed. These girls should have had access to some relatively decent hardware and given how many Aliens wound up being around, it still would have been a tough fight for them. But, I think for the sake of these being a teenage survival story, the adults were written as being ineffective and I was shocked when her mom didn't go into full Vasquez level marine mode. I wish she had... she still could have been done in like Vasquez, but we never got to see that, sadly.

Grant also included a common element in the Aliens franchise that dates back to the original toy series. The notion of Alien hybrids with different species. I think Alien 3 was the first place where that was really touched upon with the “dog Alien”, but in the toy line they had all kinds of crazy things like the Snake Alien, Rhino Alien, etc. Like I said, I had ALL of them. In Grant's book, she has these predators called Lion Worms and basically she brings up the age old tradition and does an Alien hybrid. Excellent job on this! Way better than that trash at the end of Alien: Resurrection, in my opinion anyway.

In the end, if you're as big an alien fan and you're my age now and have kids around (I don't, but if I did), this is a great starting point for them. Especially, if you have a daughter. This really has that Katniss Everdeen allure with that strong female character aspect. The Shipp sisters and Kora are all excellent additions to the Aliens universe as far as I'm concerned and I sort of hope there might be a follow-up tale from Grant... just don't Alien 3 that one if you please. I'm still mad they killed off Hicks and Newt in such a nonchalant way... yes, I'm still salty about it.

While the Wolf's Dragoons have shown up in other books and their legend is well known within the game, this is the first novel to finally delve into their story and give us a little insight into one of the most renowned mercenary outfits in all the Inner Sphere. In terms of the BattleTech universe, this book happens before the Warrior Trilogy and it actually might be pretty meaningful to read it between the first and second books of the Warrior trilogy at the very least.

Charrette is the fourth author I've read in this universe so far and he did a pretty good job on this novel. I think I still prefer Stackpole over all, but Charrette managed to craft a great story to supplement the game. At this point the major House books have been published by FASA and after having read the Kurita house book, this book is very well written within the universe. This book focuses on the time when the Dragoons were hired by the Draconis Combine and in true Combine fashion they hope to keep the Dragoons trapped within the Combine system, but the Dragoons prove to be a harder quarry to trap.

This story centers around a disgraced samurai Minobu assigned to be liaison officer with the Dragoons. The Draconis Combine is very prejudiced against any mercenaries teaching their citizens and warriors that mercenary's have no honor. Given this stance, I've always found it strange that they bothered to hire mercs in the first place, never mind such high profile ones like the Wolf's Dragoons. However, it does make some sense when they have a history of absorbing merc units by ensaring them in a debt scheme they can't escape. This was never going to work with the Dragoons though because they get their supplies by other means. So, if the Combine wants to control the Dragoons, it was always going to take other means.

Minobu is surprised to find Jamie Wolf and his Dragoons to be incredibly honorable and this sort of creates a bit of a personal conflict for him when it comes to helping Wolf and serving Kurita. I thought Charrette did a great job of also showing that divide in the society about some people that wholly adopt the ways of Bushido and those who mostly follow what they have to, such as Warlord Samsonov, the warlord who's jurisdiction the Dragoons find themselves under. When it appears Minobu is becoming more loyal to Wolf rather than Samsonov they decide to try and split the two up. However, it is too late and Minobu and Wolf have already formed a very strong friendship. The novel really centers around these two and we follow them through the hardships as they both try to find a way to survive as the Combine tries to ensnare the wolves.

The one complaint I have about the story is that, while everything is dated, sometimes it was hard to remember between chapters how big of a time jump happened. It's not really like the Warrior Trilogy or Gray Death where each novel was in a sequence of events. Instead, Wolves on the Border covers years of employment for the Dragoons. So, some chapters will suddenly jump months, especially, when I felt like there might be more to say about a particular scene. Regardless, while this was distracting at times, overall the main point of the story gets across quite well. The ‘Mech battles were very well written and luckily Charrette never fell into the trap like the early authors where they just tried to recount a tabletop game when they first started out. At least Charrette had the foresight to realize this would make for bad reading. There's a lot of political intrigue in this novel, which you should come to expect from the series if you've been reading the books in order. I find some of this the most compelling aspect of the books half of the time.

Due to the fact that the book tries to cover a pretty long time frame compared to the other novels so far, some characters that are introduced are only there very briefly. The fact that the Dragoons are a large company means its it is tough to get to know all the different characters, so some characters aren't as deeply developed as others. Basically, Minobu wound up being the most developed character in the entire book. We do run into some other famous characters, such as Natasha Kerensky, but her unit, the Black Widows, didn't show up as much as I expected. There were still some pretty cool characters that I had wished we'd run into more often. But, I understand that within a single book that would be hard, I almost felt like this should have been it's own trilogy.

In the end, if you've enjoyed the other BattleTech books, then I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy this one too. I'm glad BattleTech has been able to find consistently solid authors to flesh out their world and even though this book felt slightly disjointed at times, Charrette still did a great job crafting the overall story and making it an exciting read.

I remember getting the Mirror's Edge video game when it first came out and I really enjoyed playing it. I remember thinking it interesting how compelling the overall world building was, especially for a game that was mostly designed to do parkour through a city. The world is built around the rise of a corrupt and dystopian city of the future where there's an uneasy tension between the groups of people that decide to participate and those who try to “live off grid”. Naturally, the majority of people are engaging with the city and playing along to the corporate whims in order to make a living. The other option is to live off the corporate tracks and risk living in total poverty. In this game you play as a runner named Faith, she makes her way in the world delivering messages off the corporate networks.

It was interesting to see this get a comic book, I actually wasn't expecting that, because I didn't think this world was going to be developed much beyond the game. I didn't go in with any expectations really, but this comic series serves as a prequel to the video game. I must say Pratchett gave us a great story. In this we see some of Faith's early work with Caleb and delve into a bit more background involving her family. The story had a great blend of the games ideas in that it had a certain degree of mystery and it was just as action packed.

I thought the art was only okay. It was a bit too weirdly blocky, it did kind of fit the overall aesthetic of the game, but I think having a more realistic look would have been more in line with the game. It didn't take away from the great story, just wasn't really my thing, I guess.

In the end, if you were a fan of the first Mirror's Edge game, then you will really enjoy this story delving into Faith's background even more. I'm reading this series well after it came out, so I know Pratchett never put her pen to paper for more in this world, which is disappointing, because after reading this I really did wish there had been more.

I got these original comics a very long time ago when they were first published. I remember these two being some of the first Aliens comics I ever purchased when I was a kid. I had greatly enjoyed the movie and, while I'm not very interested in movie adaptations in comics, this one served to be a different experience overall.

Rather than simply retell the Aliens story, this series tells the story from Newt's perspective, which gives us a much deeper insight into the fall of Hadley's Hope. It's interesting to note that in a mere two issues they've managed to cover quite a bit of ground and make for a truly worthy addition to the Aliens story. At the time this came out this included scenes that were cut out of the original version of the Aliens film, which would be later released. Since this was the only place to get that opening scene with Newt's family discovering the derelict ship, I found this comic a fascinating read and loved every moment of it. Here we see Newt's father succumbing to the fate of the face hugger which kicks off the eventual fall of their colony. Everyone around Newt is killed and then she is left to fend for herself until the Marines arrive.

Once the Colonial Marines show up, there's quite a bit of overlap with the movie, as is expected, but it's interesting in a way, because a lot of scenes are cut out, again, because this is Newt's perspective. So the whole film experience goes much faster here, because, for example, when Newt gets taken by the Aliens she is knocked out until Ripley goes off to find her, so the hunt for Newt that we experience in the film is not in the comic. I think they did a wonderful job sticking to that theme and give the readers the terrifying ride from Newt's perspective, where you know even less about what's going on.

Of course, this is heavily censored in terms of the script. Hudson, played by the amazing Bill Paxton, was often swearing his head off throughout the film, especially as stress levels began to rise, so it was pretty funny to see some of his iconic lines not even bleeped out, but just not have swears. It's amazing the impact some of his lines lose without the harsh language.

The art, overall, is extremely good. They did a great job capturing all the characters in the film and putting them down on paper for us. I think I will always find this particular comic a timeless release and something worth revisiting from time to time. A lot of that love is because this isn't a simple a re-telling of the film, if it was, I think I would see no real point in reading this more than once in my life. I highly recommend this comic for any fan of the Aliens franchise if you haven't read this yet.

4.5 Stars

I remember picking this up at the comic book store when the first issue came out. I knew nothing about this and I just bought it because it looked pretty cool, that's about all I had going on. I have to admit, it was very cool. I had no idea, at the time, that this was created by people that worked on the Stargate TV series, so I'm not surprised this wound up being pretty good. This was meant to be the first round in a mini series, where by the end you knew there was more to this world. It's sad that they never made anymore comics in this series or expanded upon the universe.

The general gist of the story is that a crew of people wake up on a ship with their memories wiped out. The first two issues explore that problem before they unlock who they are. Eventually they find out who they are and that they may not have been the best of people, this creates that amnesia trope of maybe it was better to forget. I see this theme show up a lot in manga, so it's kind of tiresome, but hey, this is a pretty cool sci-fi setting, so I'll run with it. They find out the ship was on route to a particular planet and so they go to investigate. After they are there they find themselves in sort of a corporate war, so to speak, and then have to make tough choices about who they are now, after their memory is wiped out.

When they get to the planet in question, this series definitely starts to take on Firefly vibes quite a bit. The settlement looks like an old Western town in the U.S. complete with saloon! So this series blends quite a few things together from various sci-fi genres and scenarios. The corporate structure has a bit of that Aliens feel, especially with the colonization of worlds and so on, I mean, it's not exactly unique to Aliens, but that's my go to reference half the time in things like this.

So, I had read this back when it came out and I had no idea this ended up becoming a TV show. Even though there were no more comics written in this setting, I'm happy to see there are about three seasons worth of a TV show out there. I just ordered Season 1 after finding out in the reviews by other readers!

I don't know how the show will compare yet, but some people said this mini series was a recap of the first season. It's more like the other way around, the first season is more like an extended version of this mini series. Either way, I look forward to checking out more because this world build seemed pretty fun.

I remember seeing Alien: Resurrection in theaters and I usually don't ever bother with Graphic Novel adaptations for most things, but I'm a pretty die hard Aliens fan, so I usually wind up buying anything published under this title at this point. I was in high school when this film came out and the release time for the comic was absolutely bizarre. You see, it appears this was released before the film hit theaters. In fact there are advertisements for it's release date all over the interior of the comic. I'm not sure why they felt the need to give the story away before it even came out, but here we are...

This film was a lot more promising than Alien 3, where they stupidly decided to tank Cameron's original setup for getting characters back to Earth. Resurrection, sort of, seems to bail on the whole Alien 3 concept of actual evidence of the xenomorph being contained by the end of Alien 3, instead Resurrection fast forwards the clock a few hundred years where the military is conducting covert experiments with the organism. I loved this entire premise because it really gave a nod to some of the comic books like “Hive” and seeing it on the big screen was a pretty awesome experience. The cast was spectacular and Ron Perlman really nailed it in this film and made the whole experience all the more enjoyable in my opinion.

The comic, on the other hand just can't convey this film in a two issue setup very well. The art wasn't all that spectacular and a lot of the characters didn't seem to match their actors at all. I'm not sure why that was the case. Christie seemed like the only one that recognizable. The story seemed fast tracked to a detrimental point, where it felt like they jumped around a lot more than the actual film experience.

In the end, the movie was okay, but this comic wasn't all that great and I felt it didn't do the film justice.

As usual with comics I read this as individual issues, but I'd rather review the full story. Compared to the prior 24 comic book installments I think this series is one of the best so far. This series takes place before the 24: Live Another Day season and gives us some background on what Jack has been up to before being brought back into the TV series.

This is very similar to that 24 mini thing called “Redemption”, which I liked quite a bit. So, “Underground” kind of does the same exact thing, and gives us some insight on what Jack has been up to while he's in exile. Remember though, at the end of Season 8 he was basically branded a traitor. I was shocked when they didn't kill Jack off, but I also truly enjoyed Live Another Day, so that's fine by me.

“Underground” finds Jack hiding in the Ukraine working the docks there. It's interesting, because I believe this came out and shortly after Russia later invaded in real life and took the port area of the Ukraine and is still in control of that even in 2021. We get some insight into the life Jack has made for himself, he has a new love interest, as he always seems to, who is the sister of his boss at the docks. Now, the fun part, is these two have another brother who seems to have crossed paths with the Russian mafia and this kicks off a whole series of events that lead to an action packed story as we've come to expect from 24. I thought it was a great story where Jack tries to help this poor guy out with the mafia problems and in the process gets seen so international police start to go after Jack and to top it off, turns out on a prior operation Jack killed the family of one of the mafia leaders. This was the one thing I thought was stupid, it was like a rehashing of the Drazen story... really, how many families has died in Jack's collateral damage from prior missions??

Either way, it's fast paced and well written story in true 24 fashion. Basically, if you're here, you probably already like 24 and you won't be disappointed. The art is pretty good, I think it's a bit better than some of the prior installments. If you're a fan, then I can't imagine you disliking this, it's a fun read and the story was a lot better than the other ones.

I had no idea these comics had even been released, but I was pleasantly surprised to find they existed given the fact that [b:24: Underground 22808333 24 Underground Ed Brisson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492926327l/22808333.SY75.jpg 42356205] was such a good story. 24 Legacy was a bold move for the 24 franchise, it was the first season made without Keifer Sutherland reprising the role of Jack Bauer. In fact, this was a completely different approach to the 24 story, in the sense that the star involved didn't already work CTU or was really involved with that branch of government.It seemed to me that the 24 Legacy series didn't really take off, which is kind of sad, because it was an excellent installment to the series and it would have been great to see more. Alas, it looks like my only “more” aspect will be these comic books.“Rules of Engagement” is sort of like Eric Carter's “Nightfall”. This series gives us insight and background into Carter's past with telling two different aspects of his life. I have to give praise to the writers because they've managed to make this story work very well with no confusion while switching between two themes rather regularly. Here we see Eric in his much younger years growing up on the streets with his brother and gives us further insight into the split the two brothers rather felt by the time the series aired. In addition, we get to see a bit of Eric's time with the Rangers, which kicked off the problems in the TV series.In the usual 24 style, this was a very action packed and exciting series. The authors did a great job of keeping the action and suspense growing throughout the series and I'm glad I had all the issues in my possession instead of having to wait every month! So, if you enjoyed 24 Legacy, I would say this is fairly essential reading and I doubt you'll be disappointed.

After diving into Jack's past with [b:24: Nightfall 191515 24 Nightfall Mark L. Haynes https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1318694759l/191515.SY75.jpg 185161] we return to more current times for another mission in Alaska. I guess [b:24: Midnight Sun 6473337 24 Midnight Sun Mark L. Haynes https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266714392l/6473337.SY75.jpg 6664483] did so well that another mission involving Jack in Alaska showed up. This time, though, Chloe O'Brien is along for the ride. Here they are meeting up with a tough as nails Agent Amy Seelaki who is part of the CTU branch there. I actually really liked her character and I rather wish she was a regular in the show.If I remember correctly, I believe this story sits before Season 2, because Gael is mentioned in this. In any event there is an old KGB group that is trying to gain access to communications array in Alaska so they can plant a virus that will crash communications all over the place. It's up to Jack and Amy to stop them in time so Chloe can stop the virus if it's already been installed. Again, this follows the usual 24 path, except it's a far more straight forward mission and there isn't really any of the government espionage or double agent stuff happening. Instead, it's just all action through and through. Which, definitely works in the 24 narrative, you don't need constant intrigue, it's kind of unrealistic, so having a story with small missions like this is fun to read all the same.The art the story are done by a different team this time, but they do a pretty good job. The art is pretty good, but I thought the art in the first three 24 comics was a bit better. Either way, if you want to read another quick 24 adventure, this one will fill that void.

This is the 24 mission people have been wanting to read about. The failed mission that kicked off all the problems in the first season! Operation Nightfall was a covert mission to assassinate Victor Drazen. It's the mission where Jack and David Palmer unknowingly crossed paths forever linking their stories together as the first season unfolded.

I don't know why, but I think I walked in having much higher expectations of this story than I got. The overall story was sort of fine and the art was okay, but the way this mission went south didn't feel as well written as the show itself. In fact, I think that was the problem, I think they tried to make it a bit too much like the show with all these double crosses and stuff like that going on. Which is sort of exciting, but for some reason I felt like it didn't work as well. Sometimes it worked really well in this story, just that it happened too often. I think Jack and his team went around killing more people than is realistic for trying to be covert and, while that's “exciting” it just felt weird.

In the end, it was not as amazing as I had expected. Some parts were really good, others were kinda bland. Maybe I just expected too much after seeing Season 1.