by Alex White

Titan, out now (US), out 23 March (UK)

It should have been a routine mission – but for Cheyenne Hunt and the crew of the Gardenia, it’s anything but…

Alex White’s return to the worlds of Weyland-Yutani and the xenomorphs is, in part, a sequel to their first novel The Cold Forge, which introduced some of the concepts and characters that appear here. That doesn’t mean you have to read that novel to understand this – although inevitably you’ll get some more out of it – as the important points are recapitulated when necessary.

Ridley Scott’s original Alien film took us to a very different SF world from others we’d seen; it was down and dirty, engineers bitched about their problems, members of the crew indulged in their vices. This wasn’t the pristine final frontier or the “we’ve conquered all of society’s ills” that Star Trek and its ilk often postulated. And White has found a way of bringing that to life in the printed saga too, with other forms of dirty behaviour characterising too many of those caught up here – including some who you might have hoped would be beyond it.

We spend plenty of time learning about the Charybdis complex and its maintainers before the trouble begins, with White picking various point of view characters to make their points about the general standard of humanity even before our favourite HR Giger creations make their appearance – and there are plenty of twists within that.

Add to it a group of Colonial Marines who are working to multiple agendas, and the most unusual xenomorph that we’ve yet encountered, and it’s the recipe for a story that fits well within the universe while still being different from any previous Alien tale.

Verdict: Another strong Alien tale from Alex White. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk