What are we reading?

[Staggerwing]

Started Dutch New York: The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture, edited by Roger Panetta - a companion book to the 2009 art exhibit celebrating the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's discoveries.

After that it will be Revolution on the Hudson: New York City & the Hudson River Valley in the American War of Independence by George Daughan.

Intriguing...

[Gusington]

The first book on the Dutch is very academic so I am basically skimming it. I expect the 2nd book to be better. After that 2nd book comes Six Frigates by Ian Toll, which I have been waiting to read forever.

[BanzaiCat]

I found a nice book called Survivors of Stalingrad: Eyewitness Accounts from the 6th Army, 1942-43. It's very easy to digest as most accounts are only a few pages each. I got the Kindle version many months ago (it's showing as $13.99 now, but I rarely pay that much for Kindle books so it must have been on sale). Most of the accounts are great reads as I've always been fascinated by the battle, especially the last few months (even fictional accounts like War of the Rats and Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History are great reads).

I was thinking of buying the book Alien: River of Pain, which deals with the events on LV-426 before the movie Aliens happened. The reviews are fairly high (four out of five stars), but after reading some of the reviews, it's apparent that the book has issues tying in with Aliens, so I might skip it for now.

[mirth]

It sounds like 'Alien: River of Pain' has some serious plot issues:

According to the book, there was a full contingent of colonial marines at Hadley's Hope, about 10 or 12 of them. They are armed with far more than just the hand guns and seismic survey charges. They have the same advanced equipment (pulse rifles, motion trackers) that the group led by Gorman in "Aliens" has. Right there this is a deal-breaker as it destroys the premise of the helpless civilians laid out in "Aliens" and takes all the suspense out of the struggle. Burke or Gorman might have mentioned there had been marines on LV-426 but nope, somehow it didn't come up.

I have to agree, that's a deal-breaker. If there was a full squad of marines on the colony before it went dark, it's pretty unlikely higher command would sent just one squad in to investigate. The idea that the first squad would not be mentioned at all in Aliens seems ludicrous. Pass.

[JudgeDredd]

Currently Alien

[BanzaiCat]

It sounds like 'Alien: River of Pain' has some serious plot issues:

According to the book, there was a full contingent of colonial marines at Hadley's Hope, about 10 or 12 of them. They are armed with far more than just the hand guns and seismic survey charges. They have the same advanced equipment (pulse rifles, motion trackers) that the group led by Gorman in "Aliens" has. Right there this is a deal-breaker as it destroys the premise of the helpless civilians laid out in "Aliens" and takes all the suspense out of the struggle. Burke or Gorman might have mentioned there had been marines on LV-426 but nope, somehow it didn't come up.

I have to agree, that's a deal-breaker. If there was a full squad of marines on the colony before it went dark, it's pretty unlikely higher command would sent just one squad in to investigate. The idea that the first squad would not be mentioned at all in Aliens seems ludicrous. Pass.

Yeah, that was the most egregious of those mentioned in the reviews. I could understand/get behind a police force (a small one), colony-side, sort of Outland style (Sean Connery), torn between corporate BS and doing his job the way it's supposed to be done. THAT has tons more potential and much more believable at going under the radar or explaining why problems weren't reported and why LV-426 just suddenly went off the air.

I liked the Aliens books that came out in the 90s that more or less mirrored the Dark Horse comics, where Aliens get to Earth and overrun it.

[Gusington]

Get to Earth you say? Is there an omnibus of those Dark Horse comics?

[BanzaiCat]

Get to Earth you say? Is there an omnibus of those Dark Horse comics?

As far as the novels go, I'm thinking of the trilogy by Steve Perry (I doubt it's that Steve Perry). I might be getting the details fuzzy as it's been a while, but the series was good.

Book 1 - Earth Hive
Book 2 - Nightmare Asylum
Book 3 - The Female War

Take a look at this omnibus of the first two books on Amazon.

Dark Horse has done a TON of comics on the Aliens universe, though I don't recall all of them. I still have the Newt's Tale comic somewhere (which tells her story on LV-426 and is pretty good). It's a little weird at first, but the stories overall are pretty impressive.

[Gusington]

Thank you Sir. I have some browsing to do.

[mirth]

I read Earth Hive back in the day. It was decent.

[Gusington]

Wow that omnibus is avawesome available for less than 5 dollah new!

[Gusington]

There are also 2 other omnibusses - how are those?

[mirth]

I never read anything other than Earth Hive. I don't think the others were out back then and by the time they were published I had moved on to other things.

[mirth]

Just buy 'em all, Gus. Ya know ya wanna.

[Gusington]

I am looking through he related books now - there is a sweet encyclopedia of the universe called Alien - The Weyland Yutani Report...anyone have that?