Customer Reviews

Earth Hive (Aliens, Book 1)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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?

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.

Aliens Novels: Book 1, Earth Hive / 0-553-56120-0

I'm a die-hard fan of the Aliens movies, so it seemed natural to branch out a bit and check out the novel series that was written based off of the film and comic franchise. "Earth Hive" being the first book, I dived in with relish, fully expecting, however, that the end results would be pretty poor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case.

Wilks and Billie are the sole survivors of an alien infestation on a remote colonized world, years ago, when Billie was just a child and Wilks was the marine who rescued her. If this sounds familiar, there's a good reason: Wilks and Billie are basically Hicks and Newt from Aliens. Without getting too deep in the back story, it seems that the original comic writers hadn't initially foreseen that the two would be killed off in Alien 3, so when the novel series came out afterward, they just changed the names of our heroes, added a few tantalizing throw-away references to "the others" who survived a similar outbreak and are missing in action (a marine and two civilians - Hicks, Ripley, and Newt), and then moved forward without changing anything else in the story. In a way, I think this is actually a fortuitous change - Hicks and Newt have a lot of emotional baggage attached to them at this point, and it's probably better to start fresh with this new Wilks and Billie, with comfortably similar back stories.

To continue, it's ten years after the infestation that scarred Wilks face and haunts Billie's nightmares. Wilks is still a marine, but a washed-up one, addicted to anything that can channel his feelings of rage and despair. Billie has been locked in a mental asylum - and not a particularly nice one - on account of the fact that her dreams and memories don't match the official government version of what happened on the colony and the rest of the world thinks she's a loony.

When the alien home world is discovered (how they discovered it isn't exactly fleshed out), "the government" (this is a bit tricky - we have a "Terran Intelligence Agency", which implies a world government, but there are also "borders" to be closed later, when things go FUBAR, and it's generally unclear who controls what) sends out the marines to collect a few samples. (The theme of alien-as-weapon has been omnipresent in the series and is a huge factor here, but the book does charitably note that there are also medical benefits from learning how the aliens survive in the vacuum of space.) Wilks 'volunteers' for the mission under duress, but finds a certain spring in his step at the idea of facing his old enemy and settling a few scores. He also breaks Billie out of the mental hospital and smuggles her along as an 'alien expert'. Neither really expect to come back alive, and both are pretty much at peace with that. Meanwhile, after they break contact with Earth, the Terran authorities realize with glee and trepidation that there's an alien *here*, on Earth, hatching in the bowels of the science lab of a private corporation, which should give you some idea where the subtitle of the book ("Earth Hive") came from.

As a fan of the movie series, this book is like chicken soup for the soul and provides all the little 'fanboy' details that I was desperately longing for. We discover a little more about the mysterious dead alien we saw in the derelict spacecraft in Alien - a space faring race, curious to take samples from the hostile alien home world and falling victim, not unlike our own Earthlings, to their little specimens. We learn more about the aliens' social structure, physiology, and intelligence levels - like the African reed frogs and the Jurassic Park raptors, the aliens are capable of changing gender if the situation calls for it, thus each baby alien is capable of growing to a queen in order to propagate the species. The alien drones have no higher intelligence than an Earth dog; the alien queens, on the other hand, are more intelligent than most humans. And, like everything else, they are capable of evolving.

I expected (or at least hoped) this book would be heavy on the fan details, but I also feared that the actual writing would be pretty poor, if only because adaptation series books have a reputation of coasting on their laurels. Perry does a fine job, however, in weaving a tale that is fairly well-written, and kept at a quick clip and heavy on the suspense. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of details missing here: the government situation on Earth is murky, and it is left to imagination why a derelict freighter orbiting Earth has an alien lurking among the dead crew. It's not clear where the "host" picked up by the corporations came from, nor how he became infected. Worst of all, alien babies born alone only grow into queens when the plot calls for it - aliens babies born on, for example, the ship carrying Wilks and Billie (ok, I'm edging into Book 2 of the series, but it's the same author) grow into drones, for no apparent reason other than that the plot calls for it.

Having said that, the crisp writing, fast pace, and overall plot are good enough to easily gloss over these little details. I do wish that Perry had employed the technique of labeling each location shift with a time/location stamp - a practice I usually dislike, but the shifts in perspective here are harder to follow than usual. After a few paragraphs, the reader can place their new location, but the shifts can be slightly jarring at times. One more thing I want to praise about the book - Perry avoids the lazy "evil corporation" and "evil government" tropes that must have been a temptation while writing. The corporations here *are* greedy, no doubt, but they are equally sane and are willing to destroy their project rather than unleash it accidentally on the Earth. Equally sane is the Terran government who recognizes that the total destruction of their study samples is preferable to their escape into the general population. True, they aren't motivated out of pity but rather self-interest, but it is at least a *sane* self-interest, and not the "I'll risk everything for more power!" insanity that often gets laid on thick in these sorts of novels. The fact that Perry avoided this shows a great deal of skill on his part, I think.

Bottom line, if you're a long-time alien fan and you're desperate for more details on the alien race, this book will definitely whet your appetite. And you might even be surprised to learn that the actual writing isn't half-bad, either.

~ Ana Mardoll

This was a terrific, thrilling, suspensful, and just flat out great book. I liked how there was four stories going on at once and how they all tied together. Earth hive did not have a happy ending like most books, but rather a twist. I like how Wilks adds humor and character to the story by not obeying anyone, breaking the rules, and having the readers respect. I also like how Massey added conflict, suspence, and a sense of no rules. The way that Steve Perry was able to keep the future technology realistic was another reason I liked this book so much. He kept the concepts and names of technology understadable unlike some of the science fiction books I've read. Earth hive is my favorite kind of book because it involves exploration of a dangerous world, future technology, action, and a twisted ending. "Then when the soilders come back- it will know their plans- it will be waiting." Page 277.
The theme of Earth Hive is that you should not interfere with nature. I disagree with this theme because even though terrable things can happen as a result of expirements, you learn from mistakes. This relates to me because I tried to shoot a water balloon over my house, but it misfired and blew the front window out. I learned to never try that again.
I would highly recomend this book to a person who likes action and has a strong stomach. It is pretty confusing in the beginning but it fits together in the middle. Steve did a terrific job and you'll be on the edge of your seat. Enjoy.

This was a great book, too bad they made Alien: Resurrection into a movie instead of this book and the ones that follow. The book did however embelish on the idea of the movies that the future is all crappy still just with certain better means of space travel, this book made the future out to be something more along the lines of Star Trek, but that all changes when Wilks is reinstated to lead a team to the Alien hive world to capture samples and bring them back to earth. The film features several interesting sub plots that include, corprate espionage, love and tragedy, and yes, the alien conquest of Earth.

If you don't know already this book was written around the time that Alien 3 was in production, so certain characters in the book had to be changed and re-written, namely Wilks and Billie who were actually Hicks and Newt from the Aliens film, It's sad that this book was changed to accomodate the film, since Alien: Resurrection makes no mention of the events that occoured in the books, so this negates this series as canonical.

If your a fan of the Alien film series you should definetly grab this book.

This book is fantastic. The story is basically set in the furture after at least the first two of the movies. It portrays human civilisation of the future with fanatical elements, greedy corporations and expansion into the grittiness of space. Space is by no means a pretty place be it on a nice safe space cruiser or a dangerous alien world. The story is full of gore and a few clever twists. The characters are the standard affair and character comparisons to "Alien Ressurection" are at times relevant. Alien fans will love this book which leads also onto a series. Enjoy and watch out for those tell tale chest pains!

Two words to describe this book are all it needs: it kicks. Being one of the few people who actually enjoyed Alien 3, I thought the book would be out of line with the plot, so I shyed away from it. I picked it up at B&N one day, started reading it on the way home, and proceeded to finish in 4 hours. Mr. Perry has a genius for writing; I especially enjoy his hyperbolic analogies(would bet ten years' pay against a toenail comes to mind) and he does a truly excellent job of developing the characters without becoming too sappy. I seriously recommend that if you are a fan of the Aliens saga, check out this book!

If you LOVED the Aliens(Return) movie, this book is the one for you to read. If you expected Alien3 to be a movie that somehow could act as a successor of Aliens2, but were deeply disappointed,then do read this book. Earth hive is a story that has many parallelsto Aliens2, in fact I would describe it as a clone of A2, with a slightly altered story but with all the tension, horror and 'technical' feeling you got from A2. Strongly recommendable!

this book was one of my favorite books Ive ever read it had all the elements i like in a book plenty of action lots blood good plot. What happens in the book is a group of space travlers encounter an alien species thats bread to kill. Ounce the travlers get back to earth no one believes them that they actshily foot this creater.The book then leads to the surviveers going to the alien planet sorry about my spelling.