By Alan Dean Foster

Titan, out now

Someone doesn’t want the Covenant to leave Earth on its colony mission to the stars… but who?

If you were asked to name the most unlikely combination of items you’d encounter in a tie-in book this year, chances are a mention of the Isle of Wight in an Aliens novel would probably be quite high on the list. There’s something about that bucolic island off the south coast that doesn’t quite fit with the high-tech world of Weyland-Yutani and their off-world missions. And yet it seems quite natural when Alan Dean Foster mentions it towards the end of this highly unusual prequel to Ridley Scott’s latest accretion to the saga he created nearly forty years ago. (Foster talks about this and more in the interview that will be up on SFB early next week.)

Prometheus featured Peter Weyland’s company; Covenant features Weyland-Yutani, and Foster makes the amalgamation of the two companies and the resulting tensions a key element in the novel. The book also includes a Prophet who is not exactly what you expect of such people, and a sharp focus on one of the key Covenant crewmembers, Sergeant Lopé as he tries to discover who’s trying to stop the Covenant from leaving.

The story flits around the world, notably to England and Japan, as well as into space where the Covenant is preparing to depart, with some clever explanations of some aspects of Alien: Covenant, and intriguing new characters for the Alien universe. The only one who doesn’t work is a very olde-school British character who’s rather cliched in his speech patterns – among what is a well thought through extrapolation of how the British Isles will look in a few decades’ time, it rather sticks out. Old boy.

And as for how the Aliens themselves feature? Well, that’s one thing I’m certainly not going to spoil…

Verdict: A fast-paced intriguing read and another enjoyable addition to Titan’s Alien novel line. 8/10

Paul Simpson