Aliens: Bug Hunt

I like to think that there's a lot of things you can do with Colonial Marines and the xenomorphs of Alien mythology. I guess most of it will revolve around shooting things. Which is fine, I like stories about shooting things. But in the form of eighteen back-to-back short stories set in the same universe, it got a little tiring.

The best stories, unsurprisingly, or the ones that thought outside the box. A lot of the others wanted to recreate the atmosphere and the energy of Aliens, and the great battles between Ripley, Hicks, Hudson and the rest of the marines against an army of xenomorphs. That's not a bad endeavor, since there are plenty of expensive movies that try to do the same thing, but going into this anthology I was expecting something more adventurous. The immediate standouts were “Broken,” an origin story about Bishop, “No Good Deed,” the story of an escaped convict and the bounty hunter who chases him all the way to LV-426, “Zero to Hero,” when a zombie-ish outbreak occurs on a mining colony, protected by a team of marines totally unaccustomed to conflict, and the unusual “Episode 22,” a transcript of an documentary episode on the development of the famous pulse rifle that Ripley uses to take on the xenomorph queen in Aliens.

I liked these stories because they took elements of the universe without holding too close to them. “No Good Deed” and “Zero to Hero” both had themes of corporate corruption, which is a significant element to the Aliens universe, but went somewhere very new with it other than Weyland-Yutani asking a bunch of grunts to get a live sample of a hostile creature (seriously, unless they are sending them in with an expert in hostile organisms, what is the point in missions like that?). Stories like “Reclamation” which starred Dwayne Hicks trying to find out what happened to his dead wife (cue my loud and obnoxious snoring) just used pieces of the stories and slapped some familiar tropes on them. I love Dwayne Hicks, don't get me wrong, but please, no more dead wives.

There was a small amount of stories that really went into some challenging territories, which is what I was really after. “Empty Nest” is a very creepy story that I won't spoil for you, but allows for a different kind of response to being faced with a parasitic alien. There is also Scott Sigler's “Dangerous Prey,” a well-researched story told entirely from the xenomorph's point of view, first through the eye of the “protector,” then the egg, the “courier” and then of course a newborn queen. It's exactly the kind of story that I picked up this anthology for - it's unique, well-written, and introduces some ideas that keep you thinking after you finish. The rest of the stories are mostly action-packed thank-you-ma'am jobs that provide some brief entertainment, but nothing really profound. A fun read, but not terribly special