Customer Reviews

The Female War: Aliens, Book 3

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a classic example of an excellent aliens book. The die hard alien fans would find this a treat and even the neutral audiences would find something to smile about in this fantastically written book. It has action, gore, sex, surprises and great characters. This book is one of my best from all the aliens books; only 2nd to Aliens vs. Predator:Prey. Read this book and if you like it check these out!
Aliens:Labyrinth, Aliens:Nightmare Asylum, Aliens:Earth Hive, Aliens:Rogue, Alien:Music of the spears, Aliens:Genocide, Aliens:Alien Harvest, Aliens vs. Predator:Prey,
Aliens vs. Predator:War, Aliens vs. Predator:Hunters Planet,
Predator:Cold War, Predator:Concrete Jungle, Predator:Big Game.

While Nightmare Asylum cast a madman in the role of the villain, Female War returns it to the banana headed bugs we've come to know. And it's focused on the biggest one of them all, the queen mother.

While it's a very nice book, I have a few criticisms about it.

The characters, other than Wilks, Billie, and Ripley, aren't very well deveoped. So there's isn't any real sense of loss when one of them gets killed.

The ending offers some closure but also opens up new questions. I think that almost everyone who read this book wonders what happened to the crew? Based on some stuff in Genocide, we know the mission was a success but how does the crew explain hijacking a ship, taking it for a ride to a far away planet, getting some of the marines on board killed during the mission, and setting off some nukes in the Pacific Northwest?

There are also a few criticisms in the aliens in the book. First of all, the queens have 6 arms, not 4. Second, what would be the point of having a queen mother? If the aliens don't have the ability to travel into space and to other planets at whim, wouldn't having an alien that only produced queens quickly put hives in competition with each other over limited territory? Of course, it might make sense if the theory that the aliens are another alien's engineered living weapons . . . But at heart (or whatever vitals they have), these are still the black-shelled monsters we've know and love(?)

But despite these flaws, the book is really good. We didn't exactly spend lots of quality time with the marines in Aliens either and the queen mother is just one really nasty creature instead of an out-of-place being when you actually read the book. Having Riply and Billie right next to the perversion of motherhood of the queen mother was a nice touch. And finding out why Ripley is here when the book is set after Alien 3 is just as interesting as when the crew goes to the ground with the bugs.

Female War had so much potential that it's a real shame to give it such a low rating. Unfortunately, it's one badly enough that it merits it. Wilks and Billie continue to have a lot of "development" scenes, the only problem being that the authors are basically restating their problems over and over. More than half the book is spent just introducing new characters, condensing the interesting stuff into about a hundred pages at the end. The climax seems rushed harried, and unfinished. The fight scenes are fairly well done, but again short and rushed. Stephani Perry's influence is seen in the writing style -- for the first time in this series, a semi-colon has been properly used, and there's not quite as much language or sex. Ripley is semi-interesting, but not developed enough in any way that counts. This book also shares a flaw with the first two in the trilogy -- namely, not enough of the title creatures.

This trilogy has been enjoyable but dissapointing. If you really like Aliens, read them, if not, you're not really missing anything.

Let me also add that this is by far the best and most creative story of the first 3 books, and maybe more as well. I feel that the story in this book should have played into a movie somewhere. It would have been alot better than ALien Ressurection I feel. 5 stars again.

This book has the best story out of the first three of the series. In this one, the two main characters join up with Ripley (from the movies) and return to the home planet of the aliens and capture their queen mother (queen of the queens) to release her on Earth so all the aliens flock to her, creating a perfect target for a nuclear weapon... you get the idea. The one thing you have to keep in mind while reading this book is that is was written before "Alien3" was filmed, and you'll know why I told you this while reading. This one as well deserves 5 stars.

Book arrived ahead of when I thought it would, I have read this before but I am collecting the Aliens series. Came in top quality, good packaging, and I was extremely pleased with the service.Set after the events of Aliens movie but heads on a different tangent to Alien3.

FEMALE WAR IS GOOD BUT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE. THE IDEA OF BRINGING THE QUEEN OF QUEENS TO EARTH IS QUITE A GOOD AND EXCITING PLOT. MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HAUNTED IN THEIR DREAMS BY THE QUEEN OF QUEENS WHO SOMEHOW IS SENDING TRANSMSSIONS TO HER CHILDREN LETTING THEM KNOW THAT SHE LOVES THEM. RIPLEY, WILKS AND BILLIE DECIDE TO ASSEMBLE A CREW AND TRY TO RID THEMSELVES OF THIS PROBLEM. THEY SUDDENLY GET THE IDEA OF CAPTURING THE QUEEN AND BRING HER TO EARTH IN A COMPLEX PLAN TO HELP ERADICATE ALL ALIENS ON EARTH. I WON'T GIVE AWAY ANYMORE PLOT. THE PLOT I LIKED. THE AMOUNT OF TIME GIVEN TO CAPTURING THE QUEEN AND TRANSPORTING HER TO EARTH WAS DISAPPOINTING. THE STORY LINE GIVEN TO RIPLEY IS JUST NOT WHAT I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED FOR THIS WONDERFUL CHARACTER. IF YOU LIKED THE OTHER TWO THEN I RECOMMEND THIS ONE ALSO BUT IT WILL NOT SATISFY AS THE OTHERS.

Aliens Novels: Book 3, The Female War / 0-553-56159-6

Having thoroughly enjoyed the first two books in the Aliens series (Earth Hive and Nightmare Asylum), I have mixed feelings about this book.

We join the series almost precisely where we left off in "Nightmare Asylum" - with Wilks, Bille, and Ripley mooning about on the lunar rescue station and plotting how they can help in the grand scheme of human against alien. Ripley has come up with a daring plan that involves gathering together the Dreamers on the lunar station - those empaths who pick up the telepathic communications of the aliens in their dreams - for a mission that will ultimately doom the aliens on Earth to extinction. A great deal of attention is lavished on the supporting characters, making this motley crew of Dreamers the most fleshed-out supporting characters in the series so far, and providing me with actual concern that they might die on the mission, rather than mentally consigning them off as anonymous cannon fodder like so many before them. The plot expositions is nicely done as well, with the authors considering carefully the logistics of their plan, and how to pull off the technical details of Ripley's daring and drastic scheme.

These details are a case of 'too little, too late', though, because the actual plot of "Female War" is very thin, verging on the ridiculous. You see, empaths sense the presence of aliens, which is why Dreamers have been used in the past to pinpoint nearby alien nests. However, it turns out that the empaths have not been sensing the nearby alien nests *directly*, but have rather been picking up the ambient telepathy waves directed *at* the nearby aliens *from* the Queen of Queens (QoQ) back on their home planet (not the 'home' planet from "Earth Hive", incidentally). The QoQ knows where each of her children are in the universe and send them constant telepathic commands to come back to her. The Dreamers are able to pick up these commands and pinpoint the location of the home world, by remembering star layouts from their dreams. Ripley realizes that if the QoQ can be kidnapped from the home world and dropped on Earth, then all the aliens will flock to her in a single localized spot and it'll just be the work of a few nukes to take care of the alien infestation forever. This plot has more than a few problems associated with it, not the least of which is WHY the QoQ sends this constant signal - what's the point of having all your drones gathered to you rather than spreading out, hunting, and perpetuating the species? Some half-hearted attempts are made to suggest that the aliens might be bio-weapons, with the suggestion that the QoQ might be some kind of return beacon or something, but this never really pans out and frankly seems somewhat silly.

Anyway, Ripley decides to gather up all the Dreamers, or as many as are game, hijack a ship from the lunar station, travel to the alien home world, kidnap the QoQ, drop her off on Earth, and then set off a long-dismantled nuclear bomb to wipe out the aliens when they gather at critical mass. Easy peasy. To heighten the tension and provide motivation, the authors include a pretty implausible scenario: the military is still sending regular sorties down to Earth to engage the aliens (despite the ridiculous odds of a dozen marines against a planet-wide infestation) and to look for survivors (despite the fact that there really shouldn't be any more at this point, and despite the serious risk of contamination of the lunar station if one is infected). These sorties, however, give a useful excuse to take the stolen transport ship out on 'maneuvers', so we let it pass.

The ship of Dreamers travels to the home world in relative peace and quiet and here is where I get a little annoyed. The theme of the victim hunting the hunter via a telepathic link is a time honored tradition, used at least as far back as Dracula. However, it is reasonable to pose, as Stoker does, several serious questions: Is the link merely one-way, or does the hunter have full knowledge of the victim's plans and is laying in wait for them? Are the actions of the victim truly their own if they are under telepathic influence? Will the telepathic victims be able to maintain their own minds in the overwhelming presence of the hunter? These are questions that can and should be posed, and the authors hint at a possible twist: Did the QoQ call them to her intentionally? Are their plans really hers? Is the QoQ aware of their plans and prepared for their arrival? All these hinted questions are then completely discarded, which really bugs me. At the very least, a few non-dreamers should have been brought along as backup, in case the dreamers lost control of themselves on the planet, but no.

Then the silly become ludicrous: the QoQ is not buried deep within a mountain, surrounded by thousands of drones, but rather is resting placidly on the planet's surface, readily available for Ripley to hover a ship over her, goad her into a rage, and trick her into scrambling up into the ship. Despite the fact that even the drones on this planet are giant-sized, the group escapes with implausibly minor casualties. Several point-blank shots to the aliens fail to slosh gallons of acid over the main characters, a serendipitous fact that they chalk up to extraordinarily good luck. The QoQ thus secure, they race back to Earth on the double. There, the plan is to drop the QoQ off near the main cluster of nukes, hope to god that she nests in that general area, and wire the nukes to go off after a six month delay allowing most all of the aliens to travel to this new nest. In the meantime, Ripley and Billie decide to rescue the last little girl on planet Earth and will do their best Rambo impersonations, fighting off waves and waves of hundreds of stampeding aliens without sustaining a single major injury.

If this weren't enough, I have to register a complaint with regard to Ripley in this book. A twist has been introduced in order to explain the one question I didn't care about (How can Ripley be here when she's 'supposed' to be dying on the prison planet in Alien 3?) whilst ignoring the massive amount of new questions this ridiculous twist brings up, not the least of which being Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why? This is, in my opinion, an inexcusably sloppy way to resolve a continuity problem and I would have preferred they just stick with the time-honored tradition that books don't have to match movies. Anyway, they are still stuck with a problem if they want to match the movies, because there's really no way to reconcile the problem that the cast of Alien Resurrection have never seen or heard of the aliens, despite the fact that (according to the books), they destroyed Earth and nearly wiped out humanity.

Really, I didn't regret reading this book. The writing was okay, even if the plot was ridiculous and sometimes rushed. It's worth a look if you just want to finish out the tale of Wilks and Billie from the first two novels. However, if you're not already a big fan, there's nothing really here for you. And even if you *are* a fan, most of the 'alien details' included here are just nonsensical and stupid, which may well leave you frustrated.

~ Ana Mardoll

i have read the whole alien series and this is one of the worst books that Steve and Stephani have made. to me it seems like they ran out of ideas and at the end they put very little details into it. and what makes it worse is that they made a fake ripley, so real alien fans who have seen the movies know that she is dead. so the real fans know that she is fake which kind of ruins the ending.

I read the first 2 and books and loved them. They were great, and had me glued to them. I couldn't put the first one down until I finished.


So I finally picked up the final book in the summer. I read about half way through it and got so bored with it that I put it down and didn't pick it up until a couple days ago to finish it.

The characters ARE NOTHING like they were in the previous books, if you read the first 2 and then read this one you would swear they were completely different. The actions, dialog, none of it seems familiar.

The book also doesn't do a very good job of explaining things, and goes through a lot of dry boring spells and then jumps into action without really setting any imagery for the reader.

Overall I think it was ok, I just would have rather had Steve alone finish it out.