My favourite novelisation of the film Alien:Covenant ( )

I enjoyed this more than the actual movie. While these audiobooks are basically fleshed out versions of the movies, there are some slight differences, which really make the story that much better. The narrator did an excellent job distinguishing between characters and bringing them to life. This was a good listen. ( )

I can still remember when I saw the Alien creature for the very first time when I was just a youngster. It scared the heck out of me to see it on that ship with Ripley. And to be frank with you, it still scares me every time I re-watch the first trilogy of the franchise, which is in my humble opinion best movie trilogy ever created, ever filmed, and ever made, besides first Star Wars trilogy which is to me comes to a close second. Anyway, I haven't seen the Alien:Covenant movie, because I figured I'd get scared of the Alien creature once again, but reading about it was also fun, and also very scary experience. So if you are terrified of that creature and can't find enough courage to watch the movie, I strongly suggest you take time to read this book that's based on it, for at least you won't see the Alien creature prey on his unsuspecting victims, you'll instead get to read about it. ( )

Shameless trash that’s interesting for all the wrong reasons. After burning over half the book on an extended, detailed version of the film’s first few scenes, someone clearly informed the author of an impending deadline or page limit because the remainder blasts through the film as though it is being transcribed, with little time for characterisation, world-building, stakes or drama. I remember actual continuity errors but couldn’t quite motivate myself to write them down. On the up side a charity shop made £2 out of selling it to me. ( )

Alan Dean Foster does a reliably good job of translating big budget action into prose, but he can't cover the flaws in the source material.

Alien: Covenant borrows the look and incident of Alien, but none of its depth or meaning. Its (leaden) theme of creator versus creation runs against the ideas that made the original movie so terrifying, both in abstract and concrete: the depiction of an empty, hostile universe that cares nothing for man's achievements or sentience, but sees him only as a part of a violent cycle of life.

Worse, and like so many "secret origins", it mistakes complexity for deeper meaning, actively detracting from the simpler, more effective story we were told in the first place, with its attempts to tie things down and back together.

Overly familiar and very frustrating, its efforts to flatter the original through imitation at odds with its failure to understand what made that story work. ( )