Predator: Stalking Shadows by James A. Moore and Mark Morris

Predator: Stalking Shadows
by James A. Moore and Mark Morris
2020 Titan Books

This tie-in novel fills in the gap between the 1990 film Predator 2, which was set in 1997 for some reason, and the 2020 video game Predator: Hunting Grounds, and maybe ties in specifically with a DLC set in 2025. Based on this novel, not much happened over 28 years.

This is the story of marine Scott Devlin, who went from a private guarding the ruins in the aftermath of Predator 2 to running an OWLF command center, the OWLF being the secret Predator hunting organization that Gary Busey worked for.

Ninety percent of the page count is military peeing contests. "You don't have clearance for this soldier", "I don't report to you", "Who's your commanding officer?", etc. Most of the rest is Devlin trying to make sense of the skinned corpses showing up in terrorist conflicts around the globe. A little of this would be OK to show Devlin's perspective, but seeing as how the reader already knows it was done by Predators, way to much page count is devoted to a non-mystery.

Over the decades, Devlin joins Dutch Schafer, Schwarzenegger's character from the first film, and runs counter-terrorism missions that run across the Predators' handiwork, but not so much actual Predators. There's a quick sequence at the beginning with Dutch fighting a Yautja, and a quick fight at the end, with some non-encounters along the way. The best action sequence was a bar fight.

Afterwards there's a lengthy epilogue with Devlin finding love and describing the aftermath of some of the comic tie-ins. At 330 pages it could have easily have lost a third, and the audiobook felt like an eternity, probably because I couldn't skim through the lengthy "What could have done this?" inner monologues. A lot of it felt like a Grammarly commercial in reverse, with the sentences packed with as many redundant words that could fit.

I try to be kind to tie-ins, as they sometimes have impossible stipulations from the franchise owners. I could see this being a case of "Don't add any new characters, organizations, or concepts, and only have them defeat three Predators. 150,000 words. And make sure to introduce female Predators, dog predator things, and why Dutch is able to move without a walker in 2025."

Paperback, kindle ebook, and audible audiobook from Amazon

Predator: Concrete Jungle by Nathan Archer

Predator: Concrete Jungle
by Nathan Archer
Bantam 1995

Predators attack drug dealers and cops in New York City. Believing these attacks are related to the disappearance of his brother Dutch, NYPD cop John Schaefer travels to Central America for clues. He kills a Predator, is captured by a drug cartel which is attacked by Predators, and returns to New York with General Philips, who leads a secret government anti-Predator squad. Philips plans to turn Schaefer over to the Predators to avoid massive attacks on an urban population.

Schaefer escapes, and with his partner Rasche recruit and arm psychotic street gangs to fight the Predators. There's the beginnings of a massive showdown in the city streets, with cops, gangs, and the Army facing down multiple Predator ships, but the fighting just kind of stops, the Predators collect their dead, and leave.

Based on the 1989 comic with a couple of added scenes. Many of the story elements appeared later in the superior film Predator 2. Not as exciting as it should have been, the plot is iffy, and the voice is what one would expect for a comic book novelization in the 90s. In addition to constant tough guy bravado, we get constant italics to denote sarcasm. I'm so sure that's a good literary technique.

Included in the Predator Omnibus, available from Amazon.

Series Showdown: Aliens vs Predator vs Aliens vs Predator

 The Alien franchise probably does better over all, but there's no competing with John Shirley.  Even though it's an outlier, Predator claws it's way to the next round.

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.

Predator: Forever Midnight by John Shirley

Predator: Forever Midnight
by John Shirley
2006, DH Press

Space Marines visiting an alien colony get attacked by Predators, who have been using the planet as their hunting ground for centuries.  In addition to a race of alien telepaths who were stranded there, there is a culture of descendants of Brits kidnapped in 1804.

Some good work with the alien ecosystem.  The planet Midnight is locked in perpetual day, with a hard canopy of trees on top, rain forest like tangle of greenery in the middle, and tunnels leading to underground rivers below.  Same with the creatures: grubs with acidic digestive systems used as weapons, creatures who stun their prey with humming, flying piranhas, etc.

The Predators, or Hish,  themselves get some elaboration.  They are sequential hermaphrodites, changing sex back and forth from male to female.  They have a "kill gland" that causes agrressive behavior and berserker rages.  Much of Hish culture derives from channeling this aggression.  Their culture is centered around hunting and combat, of course, and they enslave other alien races for their advanced technology.

Some good action, and would have made better source material than the last couple of Predator movies.  The text dips into juvenile one-liners at times, but I did just read a tie-in novel for a Schwarzenegger film after all.

Paperback from AbeBooks, currently at outrageous prices.