It's just nice to hang out with Terry, mang.

I think I like his social commentary more than his actual jokes. He's got this one cyberpunk short in here that predicts rape sim games on Steam which is an extremely granular thing to see coming.

There's a deleted scene (chapter?) with Granny getting lost in the woods that also reminded me I like his folk horror stuff better than his Ankh-Morporkh stuff.

Big Game - Conveys the battle of attrition between one frustrated Navajo serviceman and the Predator hunting him very well. Probably should have been Predator 2!

God's Truth - Black & white short about a sheriff and his deputies looking for an escaped convict in the 1920s Everglades. Probably the best thing in this collection.

Race War - I was psyched for this one: such an inappropriate title was really setting me up for some ill-advised 90s edge. Unfortunately we spend most of the miniseries finding CROSS the ultimate tracker to convince him to go undercover inside the maximum security penitentiary that is having some Predator Problems (uhh, the alien kind). This one feels toothless because despite its meanspiritedness it bumps up against the weird PG-13 these books often operated under. You've got several people dropping the hard-r N-word, a lady cop is called a dyke, but nobody swears? Someone flips someone else off and it has to happen off-screen? Shame - there was filth in this one's heart, but it did not reach my eyeballs.

The Hunted City - Fun concept, a Predator in a noir setting with dames 'n mooks, but the art is so shitty I couldn't tell what happens in the climax.

Blood on Two-Witch Mesa: Decent little flashback tale where Enoch Nakai (the main guy from Big Game) is told by his unc about a family legend. First Western Predator, and pretty good, even if it's quite short.

Invaders from the Fourth Dimension: Really great concept - a schlock filmmaker in the 50s designs a new type of 3D glasses (4D!) to lure in the rubes. A prototype falls in the hands of his young son, who sees "the real monster outta the screen" aka a Predator and his cloaking device. Imagine if Joe Dante did a 50s suburbia Predator full of nods to classic B-movies. Great stuff, but this is really toothless. Joe Dante woulda killed some kids! And even if ya don't, we coulda done with some splatter!

1718 - Nice little easter egg short about the origin of the musket from Predator 2. Between this and God's Truth, one starts to think shorts are the ideal format for Pred stories.

Balla move to jump ahead from the chaotic cliffhanger of the last book and change up the supporting cast from "makeshift traveling acting troupe" to "one guy with a metal hand."

Severian continues his journey to the city of Thrax, where he is to take up the role of town executioner as exiled punishment for his disgrace in book one. He meets colorful folk, gets caught up in intrigue, sees wild shit, gets laid, fights crazy monsters, all that good stuff.

There's an unhurried pace to things, coming from the narration by Old(er?) Man Severian in his rambling recollections. There's not really any stakes in terms of plot cuz you know he'll end up on top, nor much in terms of emotions cuz he never gets involved beyond "yeah that's kinda interesting i should check it out" -- the most investment Severian is able to muster is when he starts talking about different flavors of pussy and how crazy they drive him, culminating in some truly heinous passages regarding the actress Jolenta -- here's where having a flawed, unreliable narrator is able to smooth over some no doubt uncouth ideas about sex the self-described Catholic conservative author might have.

But hey, Wolfe puts together a good sentence, dangit! I'd say he's up there with Dunsany in terms of pure craft. Tell me a story, Uncle Gene, I'm here for it! No stop don't mention women!

Had an actual guffaw at one panel of Newt and her friends running along a busy colony hallway and just looking like a gaggle of fantasy dwarves a-caperin'. Classic "90s artist who is not used to drawing kids" shit going on.

Hey, a little girl whose space colony is overrun by xenos and survives by herself for weeks (?) until the main story we all know kicks in. Could be interesting, right?

Uhh... we skip Newt's survival -- the one thing that could have added something to the story of Aliens (1986) we are all probably quite familiar with -- through a time jump...? What's the point of this book then?

The second half is literally just the third act of Aliens but it looks worse. It's not even particularly from Newt's POV!