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A review by kynan
Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon
2.0
To be clear, I listened to the Audible Studios dramatised version of Tim Lebbon's book. This production weighs in at only 4 hours and 31 minutes which makes me feel like there may have been some abridgement to work down from the 352 pages of the novel.
That aside, this was an interesting little tale, cleverly retconned/shoe-horned into the gap between the Alien and Aliens with a cunning explanation as to why no mention of this was made in Aliens.
Overall, this is a further expansion of the Alien story, although it does feel a little bit like a copy 'n paste of Aliens with some tweaking of names and locations. If you're familiar with Aliens (or most generic thriller/horror film plots) there's very little to surprise you here, but I doubt anyone's reading this for the plot twist!
The production quality of this title was amazing and, in particular, Laurel Lefkow's rendition of Ripley is uncanny. Not just the various tones of voice but the inflection too.
Unfortunately there are a couple of downsides. The aforementioned "plot" sports a number of pretty large holes but so long as you're happy with an action packed adventure and don't dwell on the facts you're all good! The other problem is the weirdly repetitive and increasingly frequent "status reports" that are made by one of the characters. They sound like the "last week, on Alien: Out of the Shadows" intro that would be played at the beginning of a weekly radio play, except that I think they make up a substantial chunk of what is already a limited playing time (I'd be unsurprised to find that there were twenty to thirty minutes of these "recaps"). They felt really jarring and they also feature several of the more obvious problems with the plot.
So, should you read/listen to this? If you LOVE Aliens, yes! If you LOVE random action, yes! If you're looking for hard sci-fi or a credible plot, sadly, no.
That aside, this was an interesting little tale, cleverly retconned/shoe-horned into the gap between the Alien and Aliens with a cunning explanation as to why no mention of this was made in Aliens.
Overall, this is a further expansion of the Alien story, although it does feel a little bit like a copy 'n paste of Aliens with some tweaking of names and locations. If you're familiar with Aliens (or most generic thriller/horror film plots) there's very little to surprise you here, but I doubt anyone's reading this for the plot twist!
The production quality of this title was amazing and, in particular, Laurel Lefkow's rendition of Ripley is uncanny. Not just the various tones of voice but the inflection too.
Unfortunately there are a couple of downsides. The aforementioned "plot" sports a number of pretty large holes but so long as you're happy with an action packed adventure and don't dwell on the facts you're all good! The other problem is the weirdly repetitive and increasingly frequent "status reports" that are made by one of the characters. They sound like the "last week, on Alien: Out of the Shadows" intro that would be played at the beginning of a weekly radio play, except that I think they make up a substantial chunk of what is already a limited playing time (I'd be unsurprised to find that there were twenty to thirty minutes of these "recaps"). They felt really jarring and they also feature several of the more obvious problems with the plot.
So, should you read/listen to this? If you LOVE Aliens, yes! If you LOVE random action, yes! If you're looking for hard sci-fi or a credible plot, sadly, no.