Alien River of Pain by Christopher Golden

Alien: River of Pain by Christopher Golden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 352

Publisher - Titan

Source - bought

Source from Goodreads

When Ellen Ripley finally returns to Earth, she learns that the planet LV-426—now called Acheron—has been colonized. But LV-426 is where Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo found the original Xenomorph—the killing machine known as the Alien.

Protected by the Colonial Marines, the colonists seek to terraform the storm-swept planet. Two such residents are Anne and Russell Jorden, seeking a fortune that eluded them on Earth. On Acheron, Anne gives birth to the colony’s first newborn. Rebecca Jordan, also known as Newt.

The wildcatters discover a vast, decaying spaceship. The horseshoe-shaped vessel is of particular interest to Weyland-Yutani, and may be the answer to their dreams. But what Anne and Russ find on board proves to be the stuff, not of dreams, but of nightmares.


My Review

Right guys just to be clear this book is NOT the story of Ripley and the marines going to LV-426 but rather what happens before they get there. The book does open with Ripley and ends with her chat with Gorman and Burke but the meat of the book is the colonists and them pre, during and post finding the ship Kane encountered in the the first movie Alien.

We meet Newt, her parents/brother and some of the adults and soldiers (not those from the movie Aliens) and get to know more of the people, not just wee Newt. I always said I would love to know more about them and the book did give us a fair bit about them,the horror and helplessness against the feriocious Xenomorphs.

What I did like and wasn't expecting was there was more input from the company and representatives than just a message from Burke to check it out. I love anything that gives us a bit more about the franchise be it characters/xenomorphs or any additional bits about them we didn't know.

I am such a huge fan of the series/franchise that I don't think there would be one book/show/movie that I wouldn't try/tune into. When you are a big fan you sometimes let things slip/go but there wasn't any huge complaints or free passes, I think it is a decent offering and liked the Ripley link pre and post main story. I was just a bit disappointed because I thought it was going to be the marines and Ripley going in, I will check out the other books because I love them but also I may yet find the Ripley/Marines book! 4/5 for me this time and I have a few on the tbrm and now knowing there are AVP books too I will be getting them, how could I not!

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