Customer Reviews

Genocide (Aliens)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Aliens Novels: Book 4, Genocide / 0-553-56371-8

"Genocide", the fourth book in the Aliens series (after Earth Hive, Nightmare Asylum, and The Female War), marks a switch from the Perry authors of the first three books (Steve and S.D.) to author David Bischoff and to a whole new set of characters. The switch is not beneficial to the series, and I will say up front that this is one of the worst, most poorly written novels I have ever read. With that out of the way, let's begin.

One thing needs to be clear up front: if you are hoping to read a book involving the aliens, this is NOT the book for you. This novel is 281 pages long and outside of a quick and dirty battle in the first 20 pages of the book, you will not see an alien until page 200. Not a single alien battle, not a single drop of adrenaline until page two-oh-oh.

Also, it needs to be pointed out: if you enjoy the aliens series for the fan details and the world building, this is not the book for you. Almost every possible detail fleshed out in the previous three books is completely contradicted here, from the major (babies now need 'royal jelly' to become queens) to the minor (Hiveworld's gravity is now 0.9 times that of Earth's, instead of 1.5, for no reason whatsoever). Most of the changes are unnecessary and repetitive (the term "royal jelly" is used almost once per page), and a lot of little details, like scientists calling the aliens "bugs" instead of "drones" just makes this book feel like it was written by a teenage boy.

Speaking of, it's time to cover what the 200 non-alien filled pages talk about. If you ever hoped to hear painfully corny references to Ghostbusters and Superman in a futuristic novel set after an apocalypse has wiped all of Earth's culture and most of its inhabitants away, this is the novel for you! If you look for terms like "hunky", "hump", and "horny bunnies" in your alien novels, then look no further. Note that there is not *actual* sex in this novel, because sex is for grown-ups and this novel was not written, apparently, by a grown-up. There is, instead, a lot of juvenile 'locker room' talk of sex, a lot of juvenile sexual angst, and a totally realistic angry feminist who secretly likes it when men inappropriately feel her up, because then she has the dual pleasure of decking them AND knowing that she's fulfilled her purpose as a woman by being hawt. Oh, yes, and every woman is described as having a smoking hot rack. As in - and this is a direct quote - "She was a hot, big-busted brunette with her spangled dress spray-painted on."

I really cannot stress enough how truly bad the writing in this novel is. I would regularly stop and read passages out loud so that everyone could groan and accuse me of making this stuff up. It's really that bad. I mean, the *only* description supplied for the alien queen's augmented guards is: "It was big and it was fast, and it was mean. The next one was even bigger, and even faster." Oh, yeah, I feel like I'm actually *there*, what with thrilling details like that.

We trudge on to the plot. Follow me here: The pharmaceutical companies on Earth are using alien royal jelly to create a new kind of steroid. There's a lot of profit in it, and even the military is interested in its applications, but the jelly is running out. So the plan is to gather up a bunch of marines and send them off to Hiveworld to collect a bunch of jelly. For a company who *literally* wants to sell drugs to kids. We've gone from an "Earth in danger of annihilation" plot in the first book, an "innocent people are being murdered by a madman" plot in the second book, and a "we must risk our lives on one last long shot to save Earth" plot in the third book, to this. Drugs for kids and athletes, and the marines might die in the process.

I'm not sure why we're supposed to care that the marines might die, seeing as how they seem to deserve it. The ship captain plays crossword puzzles rather than steering the ship, the commanding officer fails to point out the obvious that if the scientists on board wanted to experiment with creating an alien queen, they could have waited until they were back on Earth rather than dragging it along (note: absolutely nothing exciting or interesting comes from this side-plot), and the grunt marines include such characters as the "Jilted Girl Who Pretends Aliens Look Like Her Ex-Boyfriend" and the "Fun Loving Guy Who Brings His Saxophone For The Trip". Not only does he bring his saxophone on the trip, he takes in on the drop ship down to Hiveworld, although that might be a spoiler, since it's his clever "throwing the saxophone at an alien" that saves the day at the end of the novel. I really wish I was joking about that.

Did I mention that, while the marines are surrounded by thousands of hostile aliens, with only an extremely new and experimental force field protecting them, they spread their food out on the ground to have a fun picnic? Did I mention they set up a game of horseshoes? They also stroll leisurely through the hive of the Queen Mother, discussing such things as their personal life, their sex life, and the various moral issues arising from this drug collecting scheme. When one of them *does* die from the inevitable alien ambush, I was just relieved that maybe they'd shut up now.

This book is one of the worst books I've ever read. The writing is terrible, the alien fan material is flat-out wrong (based on the other books in the same series, books that this novel is supposed to be a direct sequel to), and the action genuinely does not exist. You will never feel any suspense while reading this novel, simply because it isn't here. Pass on this book, and go back to the last three novels and to Wilks and Billie.

~ Ana Mardoll

This was a terrible book. I couldn't even finish it, I forced myself to read through about 3 quarters of the way and all it did was bore me. Why do all these books have to be more about the military than the aliens? This book was in no way imaginative, it wrote off Billy, Wilks and Ripley like they were nothing. They make drugs out of alien corpses and "royal jelly" all of this sounded interesting enough but even the three quarters of the book I read through they still hadn't even encountered an actuall live alien except for one flashback that started the book off and setting up the Kozlowski character. Speaking of characters, this book had no characters of any interest, they all seemed to be characters from the films with names of the actors from the movies. It had an nice little action piece that could have been really suspenseful where a soldier goes berzerk on the designer drug called Xeno-Zip (it's made of alien stuff, hence the name) and he becomes a one man war machine and rips apart an entire base and all it's soldiers, this would have been almost suspensful and entertaining but it wasn't, this was highly due to that fact that the characters were so lifeless it really didn't matter whether they lived or died. It was a sad attempt at a follow up to the fantastic Earth Hive series. I'll never understand. Do yourself a favor and not buy this book.

Instead try the Earth Hive series for good aliens novels.

This book was good because it gave the real feeling of how human greed can make people do stupid things, just like in Earth Hive which kicked off this entire series. Still, the action sequences involving the Aliens and their civil war weren't as descriptive as I would have liked. The twists in the plot were quite inventive, but still, I think this book could have been better. Although it is still a very good book on it's own, I think it still pales in comparison to some of the other Aliens novels.

Based on perhaps the most well written Aliens comicbook to date, one wonders how David Bischoff could screw up so badly. Good-bye morality tale of a business man gaining his humanity, hello "I'm Ripley in disguss" macho female marine who wants to kill bugs. Could of been - should have been - a great novel, but is anything but. Only good point, nowhere near as bad as Aliens Vs Predator: Hunter's Planet.

While Genocide's writing is technically better than that of the initial trilogy by Perry (better grammar and structure, et al.), it's no where near as adventurous or fun. The book opens with an action sequence that would have looked good on the big screen, but it was described in a kind of flat, unexciting way. Then, for the next 165 pages...NO ALIENS! This is an aliens novel, right? The characters are better developed than those in the trilogy, but they aren't as interesting, either. A bitter Corporal whose family have been killed by aliens. An optimistic businessman whose signed on just to escape from a loanshark.

And the plot -- In the aftermath of the Earth-Alien War, a pharmacuetical company has started releasing an addictive drug known as fire, a drug that's addictive and enhances human senses, but they're running out of alien jelly, so they send people to the Alien Hiveworld to get some more. The comic was cool looking, and didn't need an excuse to be kind of dumb. This book was overlong, with adequate fight sequences and some interesting "future history" moments.

If you like the series, try this one, if not, stay away.

There isnt that much wrong with Aliens Genocide that isnt wrong with the course of the whole Aliens franchise, but this book seems somewhat emblematic with how tired the subject has become. Based upon the Darkhorse Graphic series of the same name, Genocide occurs about a generation after the Female War. (For those whose knowledge of Aliens ends with the first two flicks, an update: prior to Alien3 Darkhorse printed Aliens mini-series, the early ones dwelling on the main characters who survived the 2nd movie; Genocide was the first comic to jettison the original characters of Aliens. The first series had Aliens finally reaching Earth due to corporate greed, governmental collusion and  new for the franchise  a religious cult. Ripley, who sat out the first two series, returned for Female War in which she tracks down the Aliens queen mother and, bringing her to Earth, dispatches her with nukes. As we all know, if there' one way to be sure of anything, it involves nukes. Darkhorse began novelizing the graphic novels after Alien3 was released, and had to rework the stories to account for characters we now know did not survive Aliens.)

With the queen mother dispatched, Earths infestation problem becomes manageable. Grant, a corrupt businessman modeled on Gordon Gecko and Donald Trump, owns a pharmaceutical company that manufactures drugs based on chemicals secreted by the alien queen. When those using the drugs demonstrate an unexpected side effect  turning them into mindless killing machines  the military suddenly renews its interest. You guessed it. Since the mysterious royal jelly can only be obtained on a planet crawling with ferocious alien bugs, its time for greed and arrogance to override good sense and the impulse for self preservation - all other considerations secondary. For reasons never made convincingly clear, Grant decides to accompany the intrepid voyagers to the Aliens planet. (Simply because economic ruin hangs over his head, were supposed to think hell easily face the possibility of hosting a chestburster? I dont think so.) The humans have technology on their side, but the aliens offer a new wrinkle  the death of the Queen Mother has fragmented the aliens crude society, causing the hives to war against another, but not so much that they wont tear apart anybody else they see. Worse, a saboteur has snuck aboard the expedition, threatening to end the missionand Grants life. That said, Genocide punks out. Grant becomes the hero after an unconvincing change of heart. The saboteur is no surprise when revealed (the story telegraphs so much suspicion on one character, its no great surprise when he turns out to be innocent.), and the moral of the story could only be appreciated by people willing to aknowledge being as amoral as the main characters of this story start out as. Where this story shows how tired the whole Alien saga has become is by not doing much scary with them  they fight in the open, and mankind has already learned how to control them if sometimes sloppily (now theyre no scarier than nuclear power). For a better story, get the Darkhorse graphic novel Alien: Hives or Sacrifices  which are more compact stories run on tighter characters.

It is one of the most compelling books in the Aliens series. I just love how the greedy industrialist turns into a soldier. It also shows the greed of the human spirit and the depths of our lust for profit over the value of human life.

I am once again disappointed by an Alien book. I wouldn't even read them, but my brother is a big fan and I like to see what type of books he's reading. I love the human alien combat scenes, I really enjoy the slam bam action, but these books need more character development. I am not a hormonal teenager like by brother, I don't need a bunch of gratuitous sex, which this book had plenty of. Instead, I want characters that I like! With these Aliem books, I haven't found a single character that I actually liked enough to care whether they got torn apart by Aliens. So, all in all, I'd say these are OK books if you like violence and sex and don't want to be involved with the characters at all.

It's always a bit diff to recommend a book if you don't know what the reader`s prefs are. So if you liked the movies A1, A2 and A4, then you'll like this book. Maybe for some people's taste it starts off too slowly, that is, except of a short intermezzo right at the beginning Aliens do not show up. However, in the book's last quarter they do, and there you've got the tension you seeked for. Some new technical stuff has been invented to withstand the Alien threat, and it's a fascination read. Not as good as the first 3 books, but a good read.

I'm not the most "literary" person out there, but even I thought this book was horribly written. It was so bad that it actually took me out of the story several times. It was almost like the author lost a bet and had to include EVERY corny catch phrase imaginable. The characters are unbelievable. There is almost no action. It even makes me wonder if these 5 star ratings are plants (Yes I know that people can have different opinions, but if your opinion is that the sky is green, you're still wrong. Which I would argue is the case here). I've never bothered writing a product review of any kind before, but since this book is now the worst thing I've ever read, I guess it earned a review.