Aliens: Tribes

An facility floating amidst the far reaches of space is filled to the brim with Aliens that are, by and far, not happy to give it up. Since the station is important there is an unwillingness to abandon it, leaving only one option - you have to find someone that things like the Aliens to bring the Aliens down. This leads to problems, of course, because what really happens when you start to employ something worse than the things you begun calling "the most deadly species in the universe?" You end up with tragedy, a little travesty, and then some. In Tribes we find ourselves with the question of "who is really the most monstrous" again in another Alien forum, repeating a story that we saw in Berserker but without the Perry touches. That's somewhat sad, too, because I really like the way Perry puts the touches on the Alien books and I found myself liking this book. I even grew partial to the set-up of this book as I looked at the 60 + illustrations that graced page in and page again, but I wasn't really happy with the way I didn't get a complete Alien story. When you added up the interior pages, taking out the introduction and the blank areas, you had something more akin to Alien comic than one of the Alien novels. And that isn't to down the Alien comics because many of them - especially Labyrinth and some of the Batman pieces - were really done well. I just thought this was a novel because it was shelled with a hardcover and I wanted my Alien fix and I found myself instead facing down the barrel of a gun with only 40 pages. Hmmm. Still, for what it costs now and how good some of the art looked, I really can't complain and neither can anyone who picks it up. The Alien takes good pictures, and anyone that has talents like those displayed in this really deserves praise for what they've done. There are some really cryptic pictures of the Alien that give it a realistic quality that make me think "alive" - and by alive I mean that sexy "I can inhabit any world I wanna" kinda sheen. If you miss the Alien and need a good fix then this is a place to see plaenty of portraits of it saying "hello."

From the moment i opened the cover, i was sucked into a story that gripped me and kept me on the edge of my seat. the story retains the sorrowful human detachment in the face of over-mechanized society the movies Alien3 and Resurrection had, with the commando grunt feel of Aliens. if you like simplistic writing of a comic-like set up that requires pictures to tell most of the story, don't pick this up. but if you enjoy a good, dark book with awe inspiring illustrations, pick this up.

The writing on this graphic novel/book is very good, and the artwork is some of the best I have ever seen.