Aliens: Bug Hunt

By: Jonathan Maberry, Heather Graham, Scott Sigler, Rachel Caine, David Farland, Larry Correia

Narrated by: James Anderson Foster, Eric G. Dove, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Nicol Zanzarella, James Patrick Cronin, Suzanne Elise Freeman, Andrew Eiden, Michael David Axtell, Grover Gardner, Priya Ayyar, Peter Berkrot, Emily Sutton-Smith, Hillary Huber, R.C. Bray

Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it's what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt - kill or be killed. Here are eighteen all-new stories of such "close encounters", written by many of today's most extraordinary authors.

Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe's most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing - one way or another.

Full list of authors include Paul Kupperberg, Dan Abnett, Rachel Caine, Yvonne Navarro, Christopher Golden, Matt Forbeck, Ray Garton, Weston Ochse, David Farland, Larry Correia, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Briane Keene, Heather Graham, Mike Resnick, Marina J. Lostetter, Jonathan Mayberry, James A. Moore, Scott Sigler, and Tim Lebbon.

Full cast of narrators include James Anderson Foster, Eric G. Dove, R. C. Bray, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Nicol Zanzarella, James Patrick Cronin, Suzanne Elise Freeman, Andrew Eiden, Michael David Axtell, Grover Gardner, Priya Ayyar, Peter Berkrot, Emily Sutton-Smith, Hillary Huber, Keith Szarabajka, Greg Tremblay, Kevin Kenerly, and Amy Landon.

©2017 Jonathan Mayberry (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

the bug hunt

great series of stories told by the various authors. a really cool outside the box way of showing you what the Colonial Marines did elsewhere in this incredible story. very cool!

the title is at least half false advertisement

this book should have been called "stories of the colonial Marines" not aliens because literally less than half of the stories actually involved the Xenomorphs and all the good narrators had the crappy stories

worth it

great stories great narrators awesome series for anyone who likes aliens. highly recommended and worth every penny.

It’s ok, bit cliche, but should expect that by now.

It’s a bunch of short stories based, essentially, on Aliens. Lots of Marines, poorly thought out plans, company men, Weyland Yutani, and Xenomorphs. It wasn’t bad, but you could skip it and be no worse off. The story from the Alien perspective was a nice change, several stories were entertaining and almost all well narrated, minus the last one where the female narrator just couldn’t really get male voices right without making them sound a bit retarded. Like a swearing Lenny armed to the teeth. It’s basically pulp action, no real suspense, but again, it’s short stories so tough to build that up properly in a universe you are probably already familiar with.

Aliens: Bug Hunt - A Fantastical Journey in Space

Aliens: Bug Hunt is an imaginative and enjoyable look at the Alien expanded universe through the eyes of the colonial marines. As a testament to the longevity of the franchise, it is an ambitious and exciting take on the legacy brought to life on screen with the original Alien film in 1979, and then again in 1986 with its sequel Aliens. These adventures are a fun take on the source material and stay true to much of the mythos set down in previous works, both on paper and on the silver screen. However, the ones I find the most engaging and well crafted are the ones which prominently feature xenomorphs, and less so their speculative counterparts. While those sections have a magnificent and well thought out premise, especially probing the bounds of what we know to exist in this particular cinematic and literary universe, they don't have nearly the same punch or draw that the originals do. This doesn't mean that the authors behind these particular adventures didn't write well, or create memorable stories, but it does mean I was less enthusiastic about listening to them or connecting with their characters as I was when xenomorphs arrived on scene to sew their unique brand of chaos and horror. Overall I do recommend this as a great listen for anyone interested in probing the boundaries of the Aliens Franchise, getting a glimpse of the action from the side of our friends in the colonial marines.

Overall Not too bad

I knew exactly what I was buying when I bought it. The first thing I always, repeat ALWAYS do is to listen to the samples..I tend to go on from there. Listen and read the reviews...etc..I thought everyone did this but after reading some of the reviews not so... I decide if I want to purchase it by doing this.. It's my process.. I make my decision based on the narrator/s. (yes, believe it or not) Because as we ALL know or maybe just some of us, a bad narrator can really ruin the book. My example is Scott Brick. and his doing Mitch Rapp?? Seriously?? Give me a break..yes, yes I know no one is George Guidall but Scott Brick? I just don't get or like his "breathless" style. It's annoying. I avoid all his reads...& yes I know I may be in a minority but it is what it is...ergo I miss out on some really great novels because of it, I know. Especially Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series or Hurwitz's Evan Smoak series...I won't go near them because he reads them...Anyway back to this one...I knew going in that these were short stories about Colonial Marines and NOT the ALIENS...like some on the review side expected... also listening to the sample said exactly that...again...I knew what was coming...It kind of baffles me when you read a negative review and they say things like they were expecting another performance story with multiple characters ie... ALIENS: Out of the Shadows and "River of Pain" as well as the new one "Sea of Sorrows",,(ALL EXCEPTIONALLY DONE & TERRIFIC) So here we have many short stories about the Colonials and what and how they deal with "Bugs" Not all Xenomorph's stories either..(as mentioned in the review SAMPLE) I knew this as well..so given what was ahead...I had been prepared and they are enjoyable short stories about the Colonial Marines and how they deal with these "Space Bugs" . I liked most of the narrators...however some were a little pedantic and not very interesting to listen to...but you do get some great ones...ie R.C. Bray...he ALWAYS Brings it...I'd love for R.C to do the Rapp books that is for sure...sorry...I get riled whenever I think about how I miss that character..in every way...Vince Flynn was on a completely different level in IMHO.
SO there you go...I think if you enjoy the parts in the Alien series about the Colonial Marines, you'll like this book. I would recommend it...

P.S. I've heard this several time throughout whenever the authors go to "ACHERON"...(pronounced AKER-ron), not ("8che-eron") gets mispronounced by the narrator.... Also (Cal - pA' {with along "A"}- mose.)..it's pronounced (Cal' pa-moss)..

Marines and what they deal with from Aliens films

Overall the book was decent. The reading is a little on the bland side. The character performances are read most of the time there are a few readers that breathe life into the characters. Worth a listen if you are interested in Aliens and the marines from the films.

I absolutely enjoyed every minute of this book.

The stories were incredible. Kept me on the edge of my seat. Fast pace and beautiful. I recommend this book to any Alien fan for sure.

Pretty Solid Stories Overall

Overall the stories were interesting and kept me listening, a couple of them were more flat than others. I was surprised how a few of them intertwined with thew movies usually adding a little extra backstory to them so that's cool. Definitely had some good "spooky" elements to some which is nice and might even work for some people not particularly interested in the alien universe but more "thriller" stories.

Aliens fans don't miss this!

If you like the Aliens universe, you'll probably not want to miss this collection. I didn't find a bad one in the bunch!

Not for me

I was only 25 minutes in when I decided I couldn't handle it any more. I *thought* this was a full cast audio story, but it's not, it's multiple narrators. OK, I can accept with that, but what caused me to stop listening was the "he said", "he said", "he said". It just grates.

New Stories, New Terrors

Alien: Bug Hunt is a collection of short stories, presumably fan fiction, and chosen from hundreds that were submitted. I've not read any fan fiction before in this franchise so wasn't quite sure what to expect. Still, I thought I'd give it a shot to see how well or otherwise my understanding of the Alien universe was manifested in this collection. Perhaps one of the factors that swung me in favour of getting this was simply down to seeing R.C Bray listed as one of the narrators. That man could narrate a shopping list and make it sound slick!

I assume that all stories included here were written by amateur writers which is always nice to see. There are some skilfully written stories here worthy of the best professional authors I've read. Further, when the writer has a sound understanding of the universe for which they write and knows how to properly harness the mystery and tension associated with this universe then the result is compelling.

On the whole the quality is excellent. However, given the number of rejected submissions, there were one or two - one in particular I shall not name - that fell short in my view. The one I refer to was a commendable effort but clearly wasn't up to par in both writing style and story. To me, it stood out as poor especially with respect to some basic understanding. One of the most common things non sci-fi people get confused about is the difference between star systems and galaxies. I've heard a number of times people say things like "Oh yeah, Captain Kirk, he would visits different galaxies every episode.". Perhaps I'm being picky but if you're going to write science fiction then at least understand some fundamental aspects of the medium in which you're stories reside. The aforementioned weak story sees the protagonist now residing on a "terra farmed" (shouldn't that be 'Terra formed?') planet in the Andromeda galaxy! As I recall, the Andromeda galaxy is some 2 million light years distant from the edge of our Milky Way galaxy. I cannot say I am an expert in the workings of the Alien universe but I'd guess that the need for Hyper sleep for journeys between planets would indicate that ships in that universe do not even reach light speed let alone go FTL. So, how long would it take to go intergalactic? Hmmm ... right. If you do not fully understand such things then I really think you should not be writing stories and then that story to be included in a professionally published work. Harsh perhaps but I believe you need to be fully versed in what you're writing in first.

There were a couple of other stories with minor oddities or errors. One story would refer to a pulse rifle then a plasma rifle so didn't seem quite sure of which genre it was writing in. Wasn't plasma rifle a Terminator thing?

Another story, one of my favourites actually and wonderfully written and deeply atmospheric, mentioned Wayland Yutani by name and then for some reason reduced it to its acronym but rather than WY, it was WT in multiple cases. A narrator mis-read - after all, a Y might be mistaken for a T perhaps. A typo maybe as the letters are right next to one another on the keyboard. Can't say but it struck me as obvious how wrong that was.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad book. I am just a bit anal when it comes to accuracy or at least being more diligent. I enjoyed this collection of stories. Two very clever stories stood out in their originality to me. One clever story took the form of a documentary such as you might see on the Discovery channel detailing the development of the M41A pulse rifle. This story exhibited all the technical accuracy and consistency with what we know and filled in the gaps with consistent and plausible information. The other was written from the perspective of a alien colony so was wonderfully insightful, well researched and totally consistent with insect behaviour patterns that would most likely fit the Xenomorph's behavioural patterns.

I also really enjoyed the Duane Hicks back story. Although clearly not canonical, it nonetheless was well written and the excitement seemed to get to the the narrator too in this one as he fairly shouted his way through the combat scenes! Still, a wonderfully dark and personal tale from a known character and it's so good that I can forget it's break with canon with respect to Hicks showing no sign of recognition when he faced the same Xenomorph in the Aliens movie. Still, a great read as I say.

Several other stories fired my imagination and dealt with other types of dangerous alien lifeforms. I like that originality. It's a huge universe out there so why not explore the countless other hostile species likely to exist and tell imaginative stories about those? Great stuff!

All in all, Alien: Bug Hunt is a clever, exciting and compelling collection of stories with just one or two exceptions. Well worth a read and it has made me hungry for more material in this dark and thrilling universe.

not the best

individual stories were ok, but some had a lot of repetition of words like, he said, she said, he said and on and on... ruined the story telling at times

not a performance book.

thought this was going to be another epic performance book but, instead each chapter is read by a different person. not for me.

Outstanding read/listen

loved it,this really expanded the universe for me more like this please ....more ..more ...!

Very, very poor. Please don’t bother

I’m a hardened fan of all things aliens and I can handle some trashy writing if there’s enough xenomorph action and some decent characters but this thing is pathetic.
A mish mash of different stories, one or two of which are ok but don’t come close to making it worth purchasing this audio book. I can’t even understand what some of the stories have got to do with the aliens franchise... chapter 2 being a prime example of this.
Avoid like the plague

not good

stories are too brief, no real point to them, i wouldnt recommend this book .

interesting look at the Alien's world

an interesting look into the world that the xenomorph creation resides in. This book is far more about the colonial marines and their look on the world(s) with the exception of Scott Sigler's addition which tells the story from the mindset of the alien which is a unique and excellent insight. Well worth the inclusion in any alien fan's collection.

Nearly half a book of wretched sub-par fan fiction

Started off well with the first story until the end described a marine stealing a xenomorph egg and hiding it on his person until he returned to his ship - given these eggs are depicted in almost every piece of alien fiction as being several feet tall - I began to have doubts.
What then followed were a series of stories of highly fluctuating quality that doubt quickly turned to regret.

Some of the stories were just highly generic sci fi garbage painted as an aliens story by occasionally dropping phrases like weyland yutani/the company or pulse rifle into them which made them feel even more false.

I felt pretty let down by the misleading title, honestly expecting wall to wall xenomorph short stories - but no, barely over half. I'm just honestly glad the trash stories were mercifully short - but if there was one thing these poor quality stories stories did do was make about 6 of these stories (dangerous prey and dark mother for example) really shine by comparison.

I would not recommend this book unless you are a really devout fan who is willing to wade through a lot of dross to get to the diamonds in the rough...

SO BAD

It was like listening to a child read out their first story they had ever writen.
He said.. She said.. Said he... They said.. I said.. Then they said...
Appalling!