pass the time

by far great, some stories were excellent but others, I got so bored with I just skipped to the next.

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Hit & Miss.. But Mostly Miss

As in any collection of short stories, not all of the offerings will resonate with the reader. This compendium - curated by Jonathan Mayberry - is no different. Clearly, all 15 contributing authors adore their subject matter (Xenomorphs and Yautja).. but only one or two of them were able to generate something that captured my attention. Mostly these stories just played in the background while I did other things.

Similarly, the readings were quite variable (some excellent, some execrable).
In toto, the performances were professional but unspectacular (the casting and technical support from Blackstone Publishing is "creditable").

This is a quality listening product, but rates no better than 4.5 stars out of 10. As a 'Plus' selection, it was a reasonable way to spend a couple of quiet afternoons, I guess.. but spend your Credit elsewhere should they ask for one.

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Liked it but not all the stories are good

Loved the first four stories especially homestead they felt like they could be in the aliens and predators lore but the rest felt really forced and wanted to tell a different story like you could just remove the xenomorphs and predators and replace it with anything and it would work. Good listen though

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I get that aliens hate men, but the authors too?

After the first two I was pleasantly surprised with hearing good short stories we all have hoped to hear.
Then I pains takenly had to listen to this garbage.
The monotone voice actors made bad stories even worse. Sounding more like TicTock narration than audiobook. Particularly “Carbon rights” I had to skip completely due to the narrator drawing out ever vowel.

You have 45 minutes to tell a story, and you base half the stories on man hating politics.

We’ve all wanted a story about female predators, where are they? what place do they have in predator culture?
But not like this! Half of these are pure Cringe.

Physically abused woman only gets the courage to shoot her husband by saving a female predator.
(Poorly written, the husband comes home to see the predator, doesn’t register that it’s an alien and starts to fight with it, mad that someone is in his house…)
A trans gender who is betrayed and poisoned by a married man. Then says to the female predator, “it’s up to us ”girls”.”
A woman who is emotionally abused by her husband who leave her to have a baby alone surrounded by aliens.
On and on.
Men are worse than Xenonorphs to these authors.
Man hating after man hating. And I’m only half way through.
“Hotel mariposa” had the most cringy spiritual bonding hippy ending.

Just give us aliens and predators as the title says.
DO NOT buy. I’m only continuing to listen to see how bad the others get at this point.

EDIT:
I just listened to the next one…
The protagonist is a black woman, who doesn’t trust the scientist because they are… not Wayland Yutani… but rather…white… reminding her of the Tuskegee syphilis testing. Which yes was bad. But would be over 300 years ago and on another planet for this woman, yet she’s still prejudiced.
This leads her to release the predators and an Alien Queen, who being tested on, “were like safari animals reaching the watering hole at the same time” unified to survive.
She sees them as slaves, used for biological weapons.
She literally takes a egg from the queen to “get back at those bastards”… her racist hate, leads her to become a genocidal maniac. But the author writes it as though it’s virtuous. It was disgusting.

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4 people found this helpful