Aliens: Bishop

The thing about the Alien franchise is that it is two incredible movies holding up a sea of spinoffs between great pastiche (idk, the Alien vs Predator video games) and outright crap (hello Prometheus!). Aliens: Bishop is on the great pastiche end of the spectrum, with a natural match between the franchise and T.R. Napper’s gritty and kinetic style.

The best parts of this book center on the Colonial Marines. Kari Lee is an Australian refugee looking to trade dangerous service for her family’s safety and unsure if she has what it takes to make it in the Corps. Captain Apone is a Sun Tzu quoting warrior-intellectual, the younger brother of the tough sergeant from Aliens. Their platoon is chasing after the synthetic Bishop, both because the Marines never leave a man behind, even if he bleeds white, and because he’s a priceless trove of knowledge about the xenomorph. Everything connected with the Marines is top tier military science-fiction, with chaos, fear, and pulse rifles blaring.

A second storyline is more like Alien, following the Vietnamese crew of a smuggling vessel captured by the Chinese space navy and used as hosts for the xenomorphs. Sun, the young medic of the crew, survives through luck and endurance in the face of unimaginable horror. The Chinese Marines get a secondary point of view of this, more arrogant humans believing they can harness the xenomorph.

The weakness in the story is the core line between Bishop and his creator, the arrogant scientist Michael Bishop. Bishop’s growing friendship with Ripley is one of the better secondary storylines in Aliens, and the arrival of the synth’s creator one of the better parts of the otherwise mediocre Alien 3. But the game between synth and creator never really hits home in a satisfactory way. Michael is so obviously malevolent that suspension of disbelief is impossible.

Napper pays homage to the best parts of the franchise, while adding his own Aussie/Vietnamese twist. Embrace it for what it is and enjoy.