If you didn’t imagine Alien could deliver a series on even footing with Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Doctor Who, Dune, The Orville, Predator, Altered Carbon, Humans, Counterpart, or any other science fiction or space fantasy, and you haven’t caught up with its first season yet, it’s time to check out Alien: Earth (reviewed here). Last year it set a new bar for both television and theatrical presentations of science fiction. If you did watch the series, you’ll be happy to know production is slated to get underway this month on the second season. But while you’re waiting for more of the series, there is plenty to whet your appetite in the Alien universe. Below check out both fiction and nonfiction books as well as other tie-ins, including the two latest novels, Gavin G. Smith’s Alien: Cult (available now here at Amazon) and Shaun Hamill’s Alien: Perfect Organisms (available here and reviewed here at borg).
The next novel in the Alien franchise brings the story of the most infamous monsters of outer space full circle. Sort of. Xenomorphs–the creatures have haunted audiences for four decades, and more recently haunted readers as well. Alien: Perfect Organisms brings another crew and another battered old spacecraft into the fore. This time it’s the Chariot, helmed by Captain Cynthia Goodwin, daughter of another pilot who took her ship where nobody had gone before… once before. In a story that could have been an installment in the Firefly series (with a swap of monsters), she’s got a small ragtag crew and a ship always falling apart. She’s out of money when a too good to be true offer drops in her lap. Sound familiar? That’s not the description of every Firefly episode and novel, but it’s close. It’s also a frequent theme of Alien novels. The best of the ambiance in writer Shaun Hamill’s novel is the makeup of this crew, exiting the cryo sleep phase and becoming human again over a meal. That’s Harris, who is a father figure for the captain, an older engineer more Scotty than Kaylee. He’s keeping the bird in the sky, so to speak. Then there’s Sam, the latest secret lover of a key Alien player–he’s loyal to the captain to the bitter end. There’s Compton the Synth, and White and Cardona rounding out the crew.
When a wealthy businessman (in the Alien-verse that means they could buy and sell planets) asks Captain Goodwin to take on a suicide mission to find his partner, she doesn’t immediately jump at the chance. But the money is more wealth than she can possibly imagine, and only crewman White is hesitant to go. It involves breaking into a planet, a planet under quarantine. The planet is not known on any star charts, the kind of disappearance from the universal record only a mega-corporation like Weyland-Yutani could accomplish. And she must get past the bigger ship blocking entry.
The goal is finding famous artist Corinth Bloch and bringing him back alive. Goodwin was already familiar with his work. His creepy, dark alien designs look a lot like the artwork of one H.R. Giger in our world, the man who designed Alien in its inception in Ridley Scott’s original film. It brings a speck of meta to the story. Goodwin is strangely drawn to the art. It turns out she has a strange relationship with her dreams, although they are more the stuff of nightmares. What inspired H.G. Giger’s monstrous designs? It surely must be different than what inspired Corinth Bloch. Hamill makes good use of holding back on showing us the creatures–a convention that worked with Jaws and works here. And his monster mash finale has the body horror elements fans of the horror side of sci-fi horror will appreciate.
The next novel that should be on the radar of Alien completists is Gavin G. Smith’s Alien: Cult. This novel follows an FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer who stumbles on a Xenomorph-worshipping cult. It’s a very different take on Alien novels, designed for fans of Scott Sigler’s Aliens: Phalanx and Alex White’s Cold Forge. On the Alexandria colony, Hume City police call in Special Agent Tyler Matterton, a rising star in the FBI’s “Esoteric Crime Unit,” a sort of X-Files meets Aliens construct. It’s a future noir tale with Tyler and Synth partner Serena on the case.
After the exciting first season of TV’s new series Alien: Earth, it’s great to see the Alien franchise back in action, and every new novel is welcome. And don’t stop there. Check out borg reviews of all sorts of books and tie-ins in the franchise–there’s something for everyone here:
Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon
Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore
Alien: River of Pain by Christopher Golden
Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White
Alien: Colony War by David Barnett
Alien: Inferno’s Fall by Philippa Ballentine
Alien: Prototype by Tim Waggoner
Alien: Into Charybdis by Alex White
Alien: Enemy of My Enemy by Mary Sangiovanni
Alien: Perfect Organisms by Shaun Hamill
Alien: Cult by Gavin G. Smith
Alien The Complete Collection: The Shadow Archive Collection by various
Alien The Complete Collection: Symphony of Death by various
Aliens: Infiltrator by Weston Ochse
Aliens: Bug Hunt by various
Aliens: Vasquez by V. Castro
Aliens: Bishop by T.R. Napper
Aliens vs Predator: Rift War by Weston Ochse and Yvonne Navarro
Alien3: The Unproduced First Draft Screenplay by William Gibson and Pat Cadigan
The Book of Alien: Augmented Reality Survival Manual, by Owen Williams
Alien Covenant: Origins, by Alan Dean Foster
The Making of Alien by J.W. Rinzler
The Making of Aliens by J.W. Rinzler
The Art and Making of Alien Covenant, by Simon Ward
Alien Covenant: David’s Drawings by Dane Hallett & Matt Hatton
Aliens: Bug Hunt, anthology
Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report, by S.D. Perry
Aliens: The 30th Anniversary Edition
Cinema Alchemist: Designing Star Wars and Alien, by Roger Christian
Aliens: The Set Photography, by Simon Ward
The Movie Art of Syd Mead, Visual Futurist
Jonesy: Nine Lives on the Nostromo
Find the Xenomorph: An Aliens Search-and-Find Book
H.R. Giger: Debbie Harry Metamorphosis
Tech Noir by James Cameron
Need to resupply your collection of Alien toys? Look at all that’s available here at Entertainment Earth.
Or go directly to the source, the movies themselves, all at affordable prices on Amazon, and even less with subscriptions to various streaming platforms:
Prometheus (reviewed here)
Alien: Covenant (discussed here)
Alien: Romulus (reviewed here)
And the series:
Alien: Earth (reviewed here)
Game over? Not even close. Keep coming back for more Alien coverage at borg.
