DNA War

ALIENS DNA WAR IS A GOOD READ. I HAVE READ MOST OF THESE NOVELS AND I FOUND THIS ONE TO BE ONE OF THE BETTER ONES. I THOUGHT IT STARTED BAD WITH SO MUCH TIME DEALT WITH TRYING TO CAPTURE A BAT THAT, VERY QUICKLY I LOST INTEREST IN THIS RIGHT AWAY. BUT ONCE THE STORY UNFOLDED I WAS VERY INTRIGUED AND DIDN'T WANT TO PUT THE BOOK DOWN. I WON'T GIVE AWAY ANY SPOILERS. I LOVED THE IDEA OF USING STEALTH TECHNOLOGY AS A CLOAKING DEVICE TO HIDE FROM THE ALIENS. ALSO LIKED THE IDEA OF HAVING THOUSANDS OF ROBOTS PROGRAMMED TO DESTROY ANY LIFEFORM THAT WAS NOT NATIVE TO ROSAMOND 6. BUT THE THING THAT REALLY HELD MY INTEREST WAS WHY THE ALIENS ALLOWED THE HUMANS TO ACTUALLY SHARE THE SAME SPACE WITH THEM AND NOT TO ATTACK THEM. I THOUGHT THIS WAS A DIFFERENT AND FRESH APPROACH IN THE ALIEN SERIES. I RECOMMEND THIS FOR ALL SCIFI FANS AND ALL ALIEN FANS.

I agree with another reviewer. Read this one immediately after finishing Original Sin. This book is far superior. The characters are fully fleshed out and interesting. Also, I enjoy the changes in the Aliens, as one of Original Sin's faults was that it just copied what happened in the first movie. Here we get an interesting concept, new characters (both likeable and unlikeable), and we get to observe the aliens along with the researchers.

I am a huge fan of Aliens & Predators and thought this book was excellent. My husband and I read it simultaneously, each grabbing it and ducking into a quiet room to hide. I have read so many re-hashes of the same old thing... We really enjoyed the twist with this one--the mystery of the aliens' agenda. The only thing that my husband and I both were fooled by... in the beginning--until the author actually mentioned that the main character was actually a HE, we both assumed the main character was a SHE by actions/dialog. We actually had to flip back and re-read prior pages to figure out why we were led astray. In any case, great book... I have donated many paperback alien/predator books, but this one has definately earned its place on our forever bookshelf!

I buy pretty much any fiction having to do with the Alien films, and it's so nice to encounter one of such high quality as this book. This book is really well-written, it has a great story, and I believe it's appealing for the hard-core fan and non-fan alike.

Aliens: DNA War is Dark Horse Press' second book in its newly launched Alien prose series, a engaging novel far superior to the first volume, Michael Friedman's Original Sin. What makes DNA War so much more enjoyable is that it ignores the revisionist history of Original Sin and avoids Ripley and any established characters. Author Diane Carey has noted in an interview that the events here take place following Aliens 3, but that is not so easily discernible from reading the manuscript. That's to its benefit as you can forget about continuity and enjoy the story. And as DNA War offers interesting characters, mystery, suspense, and action, that isn't hard to do. Carey uses the first-person detective narrative to tell the story of Rory Malvaux, an Earth police investigator acting as legal officer on the Vinza's mission to Rosamund 6, a planet targeted for human colonization, plans that are now in jeopardy due to the arrival a few years past of the Xenomorphs. A research team sent to evaluate the situation hasn't been heard from in months and Rory is on hand to assess the legal implications of the Vinza's mission - certifying the death of the research crew or evacuating what remains of them, as well certifying conditions for launching hundreds of mobile, self-directed, armed robots to hunt down and scour the planet of Xenomorphs. But when the Vinza arrives, Rory and the crew find that the Aliens are not the only problem. The researchers have succeeded in surviving and want Rory and the Vinza crew to leave them to their studies. In fact they are determined to stay in order to prevent the launching of the robots (which can't distinguish humans from Xenomorphs), putting Rory in a legal bind. Making his job all the more difficult is that the researchers are led by his mother, Jocasta Malvaux. DNA Wars never lags, weighs in at a comfortable 270 pages, and with the first person narrative there is no cutting back and forth to different locations and characters. I found myself on more than one occasion disappointed that I had to put the book down for the evening. About the only distraction were a few too many 20th century colloquialisms and a rather silly scene toward the end borrowed from hundreds of comic books in which the hero is caught in a crossfire but manages to escape by having his opponents kill each other. Canon mavens may be annoyed by a couple of new behavioral adaptations attributed to the Xenomorphs. Otherwise, this is an excellent Aliens novel. Carey has indicated that she hopes to write further adventures in Dark Horse's new series. I hope she has the chance.