by Weston Ochse

Titan Books, out now

Pala Station – on the outskirts of known space for a very good reason. Here Weyland-Yutani experiment on the Xenomorphs…

Sometimes when a book is a prequel or otherwise connected to a game, there’s a feel that you’re getting a guided tour of the locale in which it’s set, but the story itself is secondary, and you come away feeling a bit dissatisfied. That’s not the case with Weston Ochse’s first full length contribution to the Alien saga.

Many of the recent standalone novels have done something different with the Xenomorphs or the worlds in which they are found, and Ochse blends his idea with a very fast moving action plot. Colonial Marines feel realistic – a hallmark of Ochse’s work generally – and the depiction of PTSD and combat generally is the strongest we’ve had in this series to date.

The book is a mix of the scientific and the military, like the base on which it’s set, and the former has the definite feel of the Alien: Resurrection early scenes, with scientists not necessarily treating the Xenomorphs as wisely as they should. The horror is palpable here, as we realise just what the experiments are going to entail – and Ochse gives us a great deal of detail on the process. Some of the experiments are intriguing ideas and you can understand why Weyland-Yutani want them carried out, and it’s fun to discover later in the book that some of them actually have worked.

Of course the Xenomorphs are going to get out of their cages – be honest, it wouldn’t be an Aliens tale without that – and we then get the very well told military side to the story, with the humans behaving as people do in real conflict, which isn’t always by any means the way that they either expect themselves to, or are expected to by others. You’ll cheer some deaths, mourn others, and understand many of them in a way you might not expect.

Verdict: If the Fireteam game is half as good as this, it’ll be an excellent addition to the ranks; for those of us who are non-games players, this is a terrific addition to the Alien canon.

9/10

Paul Simpson