Aliens: Vasquez

A Novel

By: V. Castro

Narrated by: Lauren Rodriguez

Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

A groundbreaking Latinx Aliens novel by a rising star Latina author, featuring the fan-favorite character PFC Jenette Vasquez from the hit movie Aliens and the family she is forced to leave behind

Even before the doomed mission to Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, Jenette Vasquez had to fight to survive. Born to an immigrant family with a long military tradition, she looked up to the stars, but life pulled her back down to Earth—first into a street gang, then prison. The Colonial Marines proved to be Vasquez’s way out—a way that forced her to give up her twin children. Raised by Jenette’s sister, those children, Leticia and Ramon, had to discover their own ways to survive. Leticia by following her mother’s path into the military, Ramon into the corporate hierarchy of Weyland-Yutani. Their paths would converge on an unnamed planet which some see as a potential utopia, while others would use it for highly secretive research. Regardless of whatever humans might have planned for it, however, Xenomorphs will turn it into a living hell.

©2022 Violet Castro (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Weakened conclusion to a bad-ass character. Lacks commitment, closure, and falls short of the Aliens legacy.

Weakened conclusion to a bad-ass character. Lacks commitment, closure, and falls short of the Aliens legacy. Not enough time spent on Xenomorph interaction and I was seriously hoping for more intense and complex confrontations and moments. This book could have been so much more if it had been allowed to simmer better.

has potential but just not quite there yet.

so this has an ok story to it, granted it's a slow burn but the story has great potential. The one real issue I had with this audio book(⁠●⁠_⁠_⁠●⁠) was the slow reading and lake of emotion from the reader. I'll definitely be picking up a hard copy to read it myself again.

So so

It was ok. The voice was a little off putting and slow which took me a while to get into. I like the idea of the offspring of the badass Vasquez coming into their own but man the stories are so predictable and unoriginal. Every book and story is of a group of people that are lied into going on a mission only to discover the real reason they're brought there. Aliens escape, there's a fight, someone gets away. The same thing over and over. Gotta find another direction to go.

Could have been better worth a listen if you a fan

For me overall this was disappointing, when I found out there was a book from the Aliens franchise about Vasquez I was excited. Vasquez was one of the characters I wish would have survived from Aliens, she was bad ass. However, she is barely in the book, most of the story (in my opinion) is irrelevant and unnecessary. The voice acting was bad and it was really hard to get through the whole story. If you are a big Aliens fan its worth a listen but the best part is just about the very end of the book. And unfortunately its not that great.

Boring.

I’ve read every Alien novel that has any affiliation with the original series. This was by far the worst one yet. It started out decent with a nice origins story but continued on with no action. It was just pure boring. The end was anti-climactic and predictable. The reader of the story was solid,

“Meh”

I will say the narrator did do justice to speaking as the original Jeanette V. Aside from that- meh. As for the author- too much melodrama. Too much time spent on non-alien issues. And not hardly any time to explain the training and time with the unit. (Probably because when friends go to boot cam together- NO ONE suddenly commands a “unit” of just a few people in the fleet. Just doesn’t happen. NO time was spent developing those relationships- but yet it was a thing. Lastly- i dont know what to say. It was overall, meh. It kinda sucked. If there was a wee bit less of the preachy/self-righteous- commentary on the history of unfairness. (It was ad nauseam) and more info presented on the actual alien threat- might be a good book.

worst alien book yet

Woke ruins everything. this was the most boring xenomorph out there. it's very heavy on a woman's story living in a man's world, and blatantly pumped full of woke overtones. only 20% of the story actually deals with xenomorohs, the rest is a lame drama that was meant to empower woman with some sort of inferiority complex.

Disappointed

Here's what I think happened- the publisher contacted this author with an offer to write an Alien novel. Author takes an unpublished YA novel and sprinkles in a few (very few) xenomorphs. Boom! Here you go.
I was really looking forward to this, because let's face it, isn't Vasquez everyone's favorite? Well, she's barely in the book. The characters we do get are static and not very likable.
The references to music made it seem inauthentic as an Alien story. Young people aren't partying to The Eagles now, let alone 200 years in the future. It just didn't feel like it was set in the Alien universe.
The narration leaves a lot to be desired. Frankly, it was hard to listen to.
This story is for somebody, but that somebody isn't me.

Omg terrible!

so I made it just past the 3 hr mark then I turned the book off... this book is ABOUT the FAMILY and NOT Janette. see the movie makes it look like the Marines in aliens had been around and seasoned already. This book portrays that Janette was on her VERY FIRST MISSION and was killed about 2 hours into the book. right after training. Then the rest of the book was about the rest of the family. IMO that is very different from the movie. it feels like her charactor got the Raw end of the deal. The narrator did a good job mostly. The very first part of the book was HATING men at the START! This is really disappointing, and not worth the alien name.

I really wanted to like this

I had looked forward to this title since it came up in a curated list for pre-order. The narration fell so much flatter than I imagined could have for this title. The narrator sounded like an older teen who didn't want to be bothered with reading. While the main characters are younger, having a narrator with a younger sounding voice is important, but inflection and tone carry the weight of the story and it just wasn't there, especially when it needed to be. The story had too many moving parts, some of which were completely unnecessary (like Ramon needing to have his main relationship being extramarital when it was clear from early on what was going to happen, we could have saved 10-15 minutes just by skipping the necessary storytelling with that relationship. What I had the most trouble with was the way that Leticia was portrayed as simultaneously a strong/capable/self-reliant woman and the next sentence it's like she can't exist without a man she has the hots for...make up your mind on how you want the character to read.