Earth Hive (Aliens, Book 1) [Mass Market Paperback]

Steve Perry (Author), Mark Verheiden (Author), Mark A. Nelson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Aliens | Publication Date: September 1, 1992

Wilks was a space marine with a near-fatal flaw:  he had a heart.  Billie was a child, the only survivor of a far-flung colony outpost.  Thrown together in the last hellish night of an alien invasion, Billie and Wilks helped each other get out alive.  Thirteen years later Wilks is in prison, and Billie lives in a mental institution, the nightmare memories of the massacre at Rim seared into her mind.  Now the government has tapped Wilks to lead an expedition to the aliens' home planet to bring back a live alien.  But the competition on Earth to develop the aliens as a new weapons system is brutal.  When Wilks's team departs on their mission, a trained assassin trails them.  And what follows is no less than guerrilla warfare on the aliens' planet--and alien conquest on Earth!

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Wilks was a space marine with a near-fatal flaw: he had a heart. Billie was a child, the only survivor of a far-flung colony outpost. Thrown together in the last hellish night of an alien invasion, Billie and Wilks helped each other get out alive. Thirteen years later Wilks is in prison, and Billie lives in a mental institution, the nightmare memories of the massacre at Rim seared into her mind. Now the government has tapped Wilks to lead an expedition to the aliens' home planet to bring back a live alien. But the competition on Earth to develop the aliens as a new weapons system is brutal. When Wilks's team departs on their mission, a trained assassin trails them. And what follows is no less than guerrilla warfare on the aliens' planet--and alien conquest on Earth!

From the Inside Flap

Wilks was a space marine with a near-fatal flaw:  he had a heart.  Billie was a child, the only survivor of a far-flung colony outpost.  Thrown together in the last hellish night of an alien invasion, Billie and Wilks helped each other get out alive.  Thirteen years later Wilks is in prison, and Billie lives in a mental institution, the nightmare memories of the massacre at Rim seared into her mind.  Now the government has tapped Wilks to lead an expedition to the aliens' home planet to bring back a live alien.  But the competition on Earth to develop the aliens as a new weapons system is brutal.  When Wilks's team departs on their mission, a trained assassin trails them.  And what follows is no less than guerrilla warfare on the aliens' planet--and alien conquest on Earth!

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553561200
• ISBN-13: 978-0553561203
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Series

More About the Author

I'm married, got kids, grandkids, dogs, all like that. Ex-hippie, long-time martial artist, duffer on the guitar.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great way to start the alien novels, August 31, 2002

By 

"indecisive6" (Huntington, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earth Hive (Aliens, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

As my title implies, this should be the first book you read in the alien series. Earth Hive sets the stage for the two books that dirrectly follow it, Nightmare Asylum and the Female War, as well as every other alien book written by the other authors. In this book, explanation of how the Earth became completely overrun by the xenos is given. Remember the creature who became victom to the aliens in the first movie? The big elephant like creature in the chair abord the derelict spacecraft. Well this book goes into what he is and how their kind plays into this story. This is a great book, and should be read before any of the other alien books in my opinion.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very nice spinoff of the movies, April 4, 1999

By 

Simon Yu, [e-mail] (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earth Hive (Aliens, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

I think one of the main things this book does is show what human civilization is like in the future. It's a subject that really wasn't touched upon by the Alien movies. And it also shows what would happen if some people on earth knew about the xenomorphs. After all, just because Ripley killed what she and others thought was the last bug (at least until Resurrection came out) doesn't mean that it was the last one. The book showed the less-than-surprising way in which a corporation would react: Try to make them weapons. And it showed the horrifying way in which the equivalent of a UFO fanatic would act. Or more accurately a group of them.

The characters are pretty well developed, and there is a good reason for the stock character marines for being so stock. There also some nicely done hints as to the reason laced through the book until the reason is revealed in a rather forceful way.

There are a few things that could have been done better though. There seemed to be an excessive amount of cussing, but in between that, the narcotic vending machines, and the discussion of pleasure droids, it adds to the feeling that society has degraded in the future. It's a bit of a mystery how they pinpointed the "homeworld" of the aliens, especially since it obviously is a different planet from the Hiveworld in Female War. The non-xenomorph alien that pops in is also kind of a mystery, but then again it might be the species the ruined space space ship from Alien belonged to, in which case it's a nice way to tie in the first movie. And the ability of a drone to have changed into a queen seems contrary to what speculation into the movies has come up with, that even without an ovipositer an alien has a limited egg laying ability to lay a queen-baring face hugger egg along with one or two normal eggs.

But these problems are pretty minimal and don't hinder the answer the book provides to another question: What would happen if some of the aliens were free on Earth?

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty solid, what Alien 3 could've been, July 20, 2000

By 

TF - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earth Hive (Aliens, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

I remember reading this book many years ago when it originally came out along with many of Perry's other "Aliens" based novels. From what I recall this was definitely one of the better ones. Pick it up if you were a big fan of Aliens and not Alien 3.

Ok, just to clear up a little confusion. The reason the characters Billie and Wilks seem so similiar to Newt and Hicks is because they are the same characters. This novel was adapted from a series of Dark Horse comics that came out before Newt and Hicks were killed off in Alien 3. Obviously this posed a problem when they decided to release this novel in '92. So basically they just changed the names and left the story alone. So to all the people who think the characters in this book are unoriginal, think again. This was originally a continuation of Newt and Hicks from Aliens.