Aliens – Earth Hive by Steve Perry is a science fiction horror based in Aliens Universe. The story is about the further adventures of Newt and Corporal Hicks if they did not die in Aliens 3 before the film started (still mad about that). The names have been changed to Billie for Newt and Wilks for Hicks due to rights issues. The story is an adaptation of a Dark Horse graphic novel with the same title. This book is the first in a trilogy that will follow Billie and Wilks and eventually meet up with Ellen Ripley. Ellen Ripley is not mentioned but is slightly hinted at in a flashback. The novel uses different perspectives at different times and has them all sync up eventually. The different timelines added to the mystery that worked but could have stretched further so we didn’t know the mission that Wilks and Billie were on at the end was pointless. The pace of the story was steady throughout, the biggest problem for me was I had to read a couple of scenes over because the book would drop you into a scene written in the middle of it with characters that you have never met. The ending was just okay it left a huge problem for Wilks and Billie to fix later or if at all, but it added a new alien species with a twist that did not work. This book did add a flying alien swarm that I enjoyed. Earth Hive was a reread for me, the book remains pretty mixed with my rating staying the same. Aliens – Earth Hive was published on October 1, 1992.

Plot Summary: This story takes place 15 years after Aliens. Billie is now a young adult living in a mental institution, still dealing with the trauma of being the only survivor of the settlement on the rim. The institution tried to wipe her memory, but her dreams haunt her. Wilks is in prison for events that happened on the rim planet to his fellow Marines. Wilks gets released because the government has finally run into the aliens. He agrees to help the government grab an alien for research, but secretly he plans to blow the alien home world up. What Wilks does not know is a secret research facility has already found and brought an alien back to Earth and they want another one and will hijack his mission to get one. Wilks pulls strings to see Billie when he finds out where she is and rescues her by busting her out of the institution. Wilks and Billie are on one mission to destroy the alien race on their home planet, leaving their home world vulnerable to an Earth Hive.

What I Liked: Wilks is a gray character who will break all the laws if he sees an injustice or can stop one from happening. I like that there is a scene about Wilks going out there and shooting them all in the leg which he then shoots them all in the head saying, he slipped. The twist with the Space Marines was good but not that believable after one gets blown up and all the training. I liked the dream sequence that Billie had some were scary. I liked the alien-worshiping cult and how they started hugging the eggs until the hatching turned terror. I liked Blake and Bueller the two space marines and their relationship. I did like the new flying aliens on the alien home planet.

What I Disliked: Billie and Bueller’s relationship was way too fast to say I love you and all the other stuff, I did like where the relationship ended up. I liked the different timeline and thought they should have kept it up so that when Wilks and Billie’s mission is over we get the shock of what is going on with the homeworld. I hate being dropped in the middle of a scene it happened twice and it made me read it over to make sure I knew what was going on. Once was when a new setting and new characters were introduced ( I did end up liking this scene as I read it again, but did not want to read it twice), and in the middle of a dream sequence. The ending has two parts how Billie and Wilks react to the new Earth and the scene with a new alien that they met on the alien home planet that followed them to Earth. The new alien scene was overkill and pretty dumb it had conditions based on conditions, and it was just not a good addition.

Recommendations: Aliens – Earth Hive is a fine book for a fan of the Aliens franchise which I am. I think other readers will be a little disappointed by how little there is of the actual aliens the xenomorphs. I wanted to like this book a little more than I did and therefore can not recommend it. I was inspired to read this book thanks to the new movie Alien: Romulus.

Rating: I rated Aliens – Earth Hive by Steve Perry 2.6 out of 5 stars.