by Alex White

Titan, out April 24

There’s a fearsome predator stalking Weyland-Yutani remote station RB-232 – and that’s before the Xenomorphs really make their presence felt…

After Tim Lebbon’s Rage trilogy that featured the Aliens and the Predators, I wondered where Titan’s line of original Alien-based novels would go next, and I’m delighted that they’ve returned to the time of the first three movies, with a story that’s set around the same time as Aliens. Whereas Chris Golden/Tim Lebbon/James Moore’s trilogy a few years back linked together, this one is very much a standalone, both thematically and stylistically – for a start it’s told in the present tense, which is more effective than I’d originally thought it might be.

The story focuses intensively on Dorian Sudler, an apparently soulless accountant working for the company, who’s an expert at arriving at facilities, and cutting away all the fat from them… but in fact who does much more, and takes a sadistic pleasure in the cold manipulation of the people around him, few, if any, of whom match up to his own standards of behaviour or morality. Sudler makes a change from the sort of characters that we’ve had in recent iterations of the saga, and although he’s the type of person that you wouldn’t want anywhere near you, he makes a fascinating central character in an environment where people’s true selves are revealed by adversity.

The other key character is a scientist who’s suffering from a crippling degenerative disease and spends much of her time in a mental link with an android. Her motivations are of necessity rather different from the able-bodied around her, and again, putting her in the crucible of a Xenomorph attack provides considerable opportunity for a different sort of drama – both character and action.

White clearly loves the Alien universe, and there are some well-thought through and described encounters between humans and Xenomorphs – including one of the best descriptions I’ve yet seen regarding the way that the aliens can fold themselves into the tightest of corners. With Dirk Maggs’ excellent adaptation of Moore’s Sea of Sorrows out at the same time as this, fans are being very well served on Alien Day (4/26) this year!

Verdict: A different take on the mythos that works well. 8/10

Paul Simpson