Tag: Pat Cadigan

Book Review – Alien 3 by Pat Cadigan

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Alien 3 First-Draft

Alien 3: The Unproduced First-Draft Screenplay by William Gibson by Pat Cadigan is a 2021 novel that tells an alternative story to the third film in the Alien franchise. The story follows the fates of Ripley, Newt, Corporal Hicks, and the synthetic Bishop after their narrow escape from the Hadley’s Hope colony and their harrowing encounter with the alien Queen aboard their ship the Sulaco. They thought their nightmare was over, but the aliens are nothing if not relentless; though the Queen was ejected from their ship, she has left something behind that is eager to change and grow. As they try to recover themselves at Anchorpoint Station, it slowly becomes clear that the danger hasn’t ended, but evolved.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – November 1, 2023

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m technically between books at the moment, but I believe I forgot to say anything about On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden; I decided to shelve it for the time being, since it’s not really a Halloween read, which means I’ve been holding onto this copy from the library for quite a bit now. I should make short work of it soon enough, though.

Recently Finished

Alien 3 First-DraftI’m happy to report that I was able to finish all the novels I wanted to for the Halloween season (it was only three, but my goals are usually modest), the last one being Alien 3 by Pat Cadigan. My feelings for this story didn’t drop any further since last week, which is good, though they didn’t pick back up again either. It seems like everything interesting was front-loaded into the novel and then it just devolved into a typical Aliens story. It does have me curious about what the graphic novel that adapted Gibson’s second draft is like though. It’s a shame that Alien novels disappoint me more often than not. There’s one more I’m willing to give a chance; if it doesn’t work out, I think that’s it for me and any more novels in this franchise.

Reading Next

The Lost WorldWith spooky season behind us, I want to be moving onto some other reading goals to close out the year. To polish off the small Jurassic Park kick I’m on at the moment, I’m going to start reading The Lost World by Michael Crichton soon. If my new reading regimen keeps up, I’m hoping I can fit another book into November alongside it. Otherwise, I’ve still got plenty of comic book volumes I need to be getting to, between Paper Girls and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, so this might be shaping up to be a more accomplished reading month than normal.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – October 25, 2023

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Alien 3 First-DraftI’ve made some pretty good progress in Alien 3 by Pat Cadigan; I only have a little over 100 pages left to read, so I’m really hopeful that I will have it done by Halloween. I must say, my enthusiasm for this book has mellowed the further I’ve gotten into it. I don’t actually think that I like the changes they’ve made to how the Xenomorph works, as its ability to infect others seems so effective that it feels arbitrary who does and who does not become infected. I was hoping it was more of an on-the-fly adaptation than such a dramatic change. It’s making me think this story had a huge influence on future projects like the film Prometheus too. I’ve also learned that this book is based on the first draft, which had more of an action tone, while the second draft felt more like Alien with only a few creatures; I really wish the novel followed the latter.

Recently Finished

WitchavenAs per my plans, I managed to read through the entirety of The Haar by David Sodergren on Monday. Unlike my last, fairly recent read-through of a book in one sitting, I liked this book a lot, though it didn’t end up being what I expected at all. This will perhaps sound cornier than the execution, but it was infinitely more of a “my monster boyfriend” type of story than I was expecting, though it includes some exceptionally grotesque descriptions of gore and takes itself appropriately seriously. It really resonated with me as a “folk” horror novel, and I really loved Muriel as a protagonist. Though it wasn’t as scary as I was hoping, if you look below the surface of the story as it unfolds it is potentially a lot darker than it lets on, making for something perhaps more ambiguous than you might at first realize. This book has passed as a test reading, at any rate, and I now plan to buy more of Sodergren’s books in the future.

Reading Next

For now, I don’t have many concrete plans. I’m strongly considering reading through a digital copy of the art book for the video game Scorn that came with my copy, since I’ve recently beaten the game, and I still want to read “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman before Halloween too, but I haven’t decided on a full novel yet.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – October 18, 2023

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Alien 3 First-DraftI’m still in the middle of reading Alien 3 by Pat Cadigan; though I’m only about halfway through, I feel I’ve made decent progress over the last couple of weeks, all things considered. I didn’t get much reading done last week though, hence the absence of a post, due in large part to me going out of town to visit family and friends for my birthday and Thanksgiving. At any rate, I’m enjoying this book quite a lot, as I feel it follows up on the lore really well, expanding on it in some ways better than the film we got. There is one caveat that makes me happy this screenplay didn’t end up getting made, however, as for some reason Gibson’s creative choice with Ripley has been to stick her in a coma; nobody puts Ripley in the corner. Besides that, I’m enjoying its focus on Bishop and Hicks, who otherwise meet an abrupt end in the films, making the focus on them a nice AU treat.

Recently Finished

TombsI postponed getting this post written today because I was determined to finish reading Tombs by Junji Ito. I was hoping to do so this morning, but sleepiness got the better of me (I work nights, so it was bedtime). It does not come as much of a surprise that I quite liked this collection; the VIZ collections with the tag “Junji Ito Story Collection” on the spine have tended to be my favourite, and this one was actually better as a whole than the last couple. This collection had some stories I’d actually gone out of my way to read before, but I did so for a reason, as they’re quite good ones, like “Washed Ashore”. What I found best about this collection was how much its weirder stories were left unexplained, as explaining too much has been a problem with a lot of his other (I believe more recent) stories.

Reading Next

My Halloween reading plans are progressing nicely, though I’m a little worried about getting Alien 3 done on time. I’m also hoping I can get through all or most of The Haar by David Sodergren on Monday when I have a longer stretch of reading time. Even though we’re getting into late October, I still have plenty of time overall, so I’m optimistic.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – October 4, 2023

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Alien 3 First-DraftSince last week, I’ve started to read a couple of new books. First is Alien³ by Pat Cadigan (I don’t want to use the longer title that specifies what it is every time), one of the books I’ve chosen to read for the Halloween season. Right off the bat, I’m enjoying this a lot as an alternative third installment in the Alien film series, most especially because of a scene where a character behaves more sensibly in response to somebody getting a facehugger on their head than anybody else in the franchise; she essentially says “Damn, an alien ate Boris’s face,” and then shoots the facehugger and disposes of the man’s body through the airlock. I’m looking forward to seeing how this story develops.

on-a-sunbeamI also started reading On a Sunbeam, a graphic novel by Tillie Walden. I’ve had this book on my to-read list for a while now, though my interest hadn’t been piqued quite enough to actually pick up a copy. While I was picking something else up at the library a few weeks ago, I noticed they had a copy, so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to make myself read it. So far it’s been an interesting enough coming-of-age story, telling two plot lines about a young woman’s present working with a restoration crew and past at a boarding school. I really like the stylistic depiction of space structures and vehicles, such as many ships resembling large goldfish.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week.

Reading Next

WitchavenI actually have a lot of more immediate reading plans on the go right now for October. The next book I want to make sure I read is The Haar by David Sodergren; I’m really curious about this author and it’s short enough that I think I can squeeze it into my reading schedule this month if I spend my time right. I really love the cover too, so part of me weirdly needs it to be good to coincide with that. I also intend to finally read Tombs by Junji Ito, a story collection that I’ve owned for many months now. I’ve been tentatively planning to read it for a while now but haven’t felt motivated. Now, it is at least on theme with the season.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – September 27, 2023

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing at the moment, I am between books.

Recently Finished

I Wear the Black HatI’ve had a rather productive couple of weeks. Though I didn’t feel I had read enough to warrant a post last week, I have finished reading I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman, which I ended up liking a little more than I was feeling when I last posted about it, as some of the essays started to cover subjects I was a little more familiar with. I especially liked the essay “This Zeitgeist is Making Me Thirsty”, which is an examination of the worldview of the sitcom Seinfeld, something that Klosterman lays out as a lot more bleak than I ever realized. I knew the characters and tone could be rather mean-spirited, but I hadn’t considered the depths of it before.

Man, Fuck This HouseOn Monday, I managed to read the entirety of the horror novella Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman, a story about a family that moves into a house that is already inhabited by an inhuman presence. I’m really happy I was successfully able to read this in a sitting to kick of the spooky season, and I’m hoping it bodes well for getting some other books done during the Halloween season too. Though this book captured my attention thanks in large part to its title, I didn’t think it was very good. Even as something deliberately pulpy and without pretensions, I couldn’t help finding a lot of it pretty stupid. It was still fun, but the horror, such as it was, didn’t really work for me, so it mostly amounted to something audacious and silly with one character getting on my nerves on top of it all.

Reading Next

Alien 3 First-DraftWith horror books being my primary concern now, I think I’m going to start Alien³: The Unproduced First-Draft Screenplay by William Gibson by Pat Cadigan, as I’ve been really curious about this book since I first learned about it and have been sitting on a copy for a little while now. Though I have no experience with Gibson or Cadigan, I’m really intrigued with the story behind this novel. Though I do have some love for Alien³ despite it faltering compared to its predecessor films, I love the idea that a celebrated author in the cyberpunk genre had an idea for what that film should be. I really want to know his vision, especially as it is being realized by another celebrated cyberpunk author.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.