
What Da Cover Says: For the very first time, the canonical background of the breakout Aliens hero Jenette Vasquez, as well as the story of the children she was forced to leave behind as written by the rising Latina horror star V. Castro (Queen of the Cicadas).
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.
What I Says: I’m a big fan of the Alien movies and one of my favourite characters was Vasquez, she seemed so small but man she was hard as nails and the way she stood up to the big macho guys like Hudson always made me smile. V. Castro is one of my favourite authors and when I saw she had written this book I said “Hell yeah I’m reading this!” It doesn’t disappoint, it kicks ass as much as you’d expect from Vasquez.

Castro does a great job creating this history for Vasquez, from a teen full of swagger and attitude, to ending up in trouble and joining the marines to become the fighting machine she was destined to be. The setting for this future is very similar to what it is today, the treatment and reduced rights of those who don’t have money and power is hard hitting and Castro uses all this to give her characters that extra level of strength. Inevitably Vasquez’s story comes to an end, I was disappointed by this, I don’t know why as having seen the movie I knew what was coming but was still hoping deep down that Castro would find a way to save her….alas she didn’t and the book then follows her children as they continue the Vasquez name.
It is now that the book really comes to life, we have dumbass humans carrying out experiments on the aliens/Xenomorphs, ignoring all sensible warnings as it all comes undone. The scenes with the Xenomorphs were spot on, so easy to picture them and their rage at what the humans were doing to them and knowing it was only a matter of time before they got their chance. The final 50 pages or so just whizzed by, such superb writing it was as if I was actually watching the scenes unfold, proper on the edge of your seat storytelling. Loved it. One of my favourite parts of this book was how Castro has stayed on course with the movies, there are so many little easter eggs to find and this made me aware of just how vast these movies were, something you don’t experience from watching the movies.
If you’re a fan of the movie franchise then give this book a go but be warned as Titan books have a lot of books in this series needing to be read. I’m off now to re-watch Aliens…no idea why haha.
