Alien vs Predator: Prey by Steve Perry

Alien vs Predator: Prey
by Steve Perry
1994 Spectra 

A novelization of the 1990 Dark Horse comic, the first Alien vs Predator mini-series.  Good concept and set up, not so much with the execution.

Here, the Predators use the Aliens to train their young.  They have an enslaved xenomorph queen on their ship, collect her eggs on a conveyor belt, roll them out on the surface of various planets, wait for them to implant themselves in the local fauna, and hunt the drones that emerge.

In Prey, they do this on a planet colonized by humans in the future.  The adult Predator teacher is injured, and the students run amok, hunting both human and xenomorph without following the Predator code, with the humans getting it from both ends.  The recovered teacher joins forces with the colony administrator to wipe out both threats.

I don't know if it's because this was based in a comic with a different continuity, but there wasn't much of an Alien feel to it.  There are no space marines and the corporate head is the hero.  The xenomorphs are different too - the facehuggers have impenetrable skin, and the drones are considered easy targets, not cunning like in the movies.

Not a great sense of location, and the scope of danger was narrowed significantly by the end, with the young Predators being written off quickly and the colonists finding safety.  The action could be confusing, especially with threats being described as "the creature" or "an alien", without knowing which they're writing about.  Some scenes are written from two or three points of view, which got redundant when all three describe the same thing with slightly different words and no new information.

The main character was fine, except for a corporate head being trained in martial arts and following the Bushido code just cause she's Japanese.

This, and the sequels, are available in the Aliens vs Predator Omnibus, in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.