Aliens: Criminal Enterprise

Aliens (Dark Horse Books)

by S.D. Perry

Caught in a drug scheme gone bad, pilot Thomas Chase volunteers for a short-run mission to the planet Fantasia to save his no-good brother Pete. Everything from synthetic heroin to MX7 is cooked on Fantasia, a rock planet terraformed to hide an elaborate drug manufacturing operation in protected caves guarded by the savage aliens.

When Chase's craft touches down on Fantasia, a chain of events begins that can't be stopped. As criminals and competitors try to take over the drug empire from the dangerous kingpin, Tommy and Pete are caught in the crossfire. Outside the labyrinth of caves, aliens scream for human blood.

Genres: Aliens, Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 9, 2008

About the author

SD Perry (Stephani Danelle, by the way, though she prefers SD or Danelle) has been writing novelizations and tie-ins for most of her adult life. Best known for her work in the shared multiverses of Resident Evil, Star Trek, and Aliens, SD is a horror nerd and an introvert. Her father is acclaimed science fiction author Steve Perry. SD lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

This was my least favorite of this series of Aliens novels so far, although it still wasn't bad. It just seemed a little too...I'm not sure, maybe sad is the word I'm looking for. The characters weren't very likeable, and in most cases were more pitiful than anything else. Plus it just seemed too perverse for an Aliens novel with all of the sex workers and seedy sex and such. It never gets overly graphic, but still felt very odd for the Aliens universe.

Basic premise is a drug dealer has set up a drug operation on a planet oiverrun by Aliens, using the Aliens as security. However, two rivals attempt to hijack the operation. Our main character is a stand up guy who has been roped into all this trying to save his deadbeat brother.

It's not bad, just not my personal favorite.

[Mya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a seedy read, filled with all sorts of criminal decadence, drugs, murder, prostitution-- all painted with the background of a hostile planet filled with aliens. I really enjoyed Perry's dive into the psyches of criminals, psychopaths and wounded people driven by lust, greed, revenge and hope, dark hopes though. Off all the Aliens books that I have read, this one comes closest in my bid to see one made into a film. It would certainly have the action!

The book follows two brothers, shanghaied into working for a drugrunner for of course a dealer who keeps his product and labs on an alien infested planet. One innocent and law-abiding and the other hopeless enamored of the fast lane. It also follows the motivations of a lieutenant drug lord and his doped out cherry of a girlfriend who run the facility.

Two forces, one that wants to steal the shipment and the other who wishes to bring all the criminals to justice invade the facility on the same day and saying that all hell breaks loose would be putting it mildly.

Again, this is perhaps the best of the Aliens books that I have read, however, there was something about the ending that I simply could not stand and which nearly ruined my enjoyment of the book. I won't give details other than of all the survivors in the end, one just made me want to hurl.

[Sierra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I dislike this story. The aliens were really good, the whole set up was awesome, but what I dislike about it was the characters. There is literally only 2-ish characters that are even likable; and one you only kind of understand. Everyone else was despicable and horrid. I mean their criminals and you don't want to root for them to survive, so I guess you root for the aliens. It just not a well balance of struggle and survival, since you don't care if any of them survive except for one person. And yah I mean one, because the second person, you don't really care about. You care about him in retrospect to the first character.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I finally got what I wanted -- an Aliens book that wasn't just a recycled Aliens trope. Instead of making her story about mad scientists or Space Marines on a rescue or Weyland-Yutani trying to capture a xenomorph for research, Perry chose to write a story about a planet of drug-makers. These are illegal drugs, of course, so to stave off the risk of invasion from either rival drugrunners or the law, the guy who runs the planet populates it with xenomorphs. The aliens are really just background, since the real story is about the characters who make up the staff of the lab.

The thing is, the story still isn't that great. It's actually the best of the books I've read so far in this series, but that's like saying I prefer The Phantom Menace to Attack of the Clones; in the end, I'd rather not have to watch either one. It doesn't help that Perry populates her story with people who aren't likable, but I guess that's what one would expect for a drug lab.

If I could do half-stars, I'd probably give this book 2.5 instead of two stars, but this is definitely NOT a three-star book. Breaking Bad it ain't.

[Mike Jozic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly entertaining! When I first started in on Criminal Enterprise I kind of anticipated it being a relatively marginal entry into the overall Alien oeuvre seeing as the aliens are very much a secondary consideration in the story rather than the main obstacle or antagonists. Despite that, as the story moved along I found myself genuinely getting attached to characters or, at the very least, intrigued to see where the story would ultimately take them.

There's some action, some subterfuge, a little mystery, betrayals, and a couple of genuinely tense moments that effectively elevated this story above several of the other prose efforts in this franchise.

I was invested. I was entertained. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of those stories I revisit again in the future, sometime.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

The thing with Aliens stories is that they are all pretty samey to a degree. A bunch of 2d characters get quickly whittled down to the last few 'heroes'. To that end, this story is no different. Unfortunately, in an effort to make the characters a little more flesh out, they're all drug-addicted or emotionally damaged losers. All apart from the pilot, Tommy, who spends the whole tale brooding/sulking about the mess his brother has gotten him into. Needless to say, when it all finally hits the fan (180 pages in with not much in the way of build-up), I just didn't care about what happened to any of them. The focus was mainly on three characters so all the rest were barely a feature.
Simply another retreading of the Aliens formula, but this time with no one to root for.

[Danny Dahms · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a lot more smut than I anticipated in an aliens book but overall I enjoyed this one. It wasn’t a completely new angle in the omnibus series but enough of a new one to be good.

I enjoyed the brother dynamic between Tommy and Pete and that no matter what Tommy did, Pete still kept digging himself into a hole. I liked the drug thieves sideplot that ended up in the criminals being completely unprepared and all dying almost immediately. And I like the corporate side with Kaye, who was the opposite of the thieves in terms of competence and preparedness, but the same as Tommy as he grieved his son bc he kept digging himself a hole.

I didn’t care for Didi though and probably would’ve enjoyed seeing her get Alien’d.

[user48573452 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this! I've read all of SD Perry's other Alien novels (I think) and found them to be really anti-climactic due to how poorly the xenos were portrayed, but in this one I feel she did a far better job. The Xenos were much more deadly and I loved how relentless they were.

I could have done without 2/3 of the book being just a huge buildup revolving around sex workers and drug addicts, but once the action finally started I thought it was great.

Story-wise it was nothing special, probably less interesting than SD Perrys other Alien novels that I've read, but I'd say I prefer this simply because the Xenos caused plenty of slaughter!

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

It didn’t amount to much. I didn’t care about the characters not really how it ended. It was building to the actual Alien climax so I got kind of bored by it. None of the tortured characters hooked me rather I was more glad to get this one over with.

[BIGnick BIGnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad offering in the Aliens series but it suffers from excess characters and the protagonists end up getting sidelined by lesser developed characters. The book also ends with a more intriguing situation than the rest of the plot. Worth a read for diehard Alien fans.

[Horror Guy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read as part of the complete Aliens omnibus volume 7

[Exanimis · Rating 5 out of 5]

franchise book #23
Second novel series #5

[clumsyplankton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. It wasn’t what I expected but I really liked it

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's seedy and sordid. Stuff I usually avoid (not judging anyone here--it's my baggage from a strict fundamentalist upbringing). I kept going and just over halfway into the book I started to like it and I ending up loving it at about the 80% mark.

There are no heroes in this book--only survivors. This made it hard to cheer for anyone and, as goodreads reviewer "Sierra" put it: "...so I guess you root for the aliens."

Several people were dragged off alive by the "XTs" but we don't learn in the story what happened to them. It might have been interesting to have a few characters in the alien nest have one last petty fight with each other while they are waiting to "give birth."

[Ceejay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is part of the Aliens series. What a disappointment.If this had been a straight forward SciFi novel, I would have given it three stars.The writing was good, and the story was interesting. However, this was billed as an Aliens novel, and as such, it only rated one star. The Alien creatures were barely secondary characters in this novel.I averaged it out to two stars.

If, as a reader, you're looking for a good old Aliens story, forget about it. Re-read some of the Aliens or Aliens Vs Predators novels, and you'll be better off. I'm not knocking Ms. Perry's writing style or ability, I'm just saying that she missed the mark on this particular book.

[Bine Nguyen]

This Book is awesome and "bloody". There are a lot of killing and shooting. the best part about aliens is they lay eggs inside you, and the eggs hatch in side you body and started to eat you from the inside. When you injure it, their blood is acid that can eat through anything. Great Book!