Alien

I feel like this is such a specific kind of book, that I don't really know how helpful a review would be, as I think if you're inclined to read this, then you will, and if you're not, you won't.

At any rate, while this novelization suffers from some of the same issues, it generally improves upon the movie's story by allowing the reader into the characters' heads more, giving better insight and reasoning behind their actions which seem quite ill-advised on film, and it also unfolds the story with more time, care, and detail. And though it's not perfect, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Pros and Cons - Not sure about spoilers so marking just in case.

Pros:- The horror is more horrifying- The action feels fast and urgent- Many of the characters' decisions seem less ridiculous with more explanation- Walter's relationships and discussions with Daniels and David- All the AI stuff was awesome, but see the cons- The pace was perfection. It drew things out just enough to give us more information than the movie, but still had me tearing through the pages. Cons:- The dialogue is almost always clunky and weird (which works for David & Walter, but no one else)- There are generous descriptions of filler stuff, but many of the important stuff is just given a really brief description (is this because it was still in pre-production?). It was really noticeable and bothersome to me. - Some of the descriptions of objects or programs etc are cringingly verbose (which admittedly did amuse me, but also, it took me out of the story for how mega-nerdy and silly it was). - The AI stuff was awesome but just like the movie, it feels like it could have been a standalone thing, rather than being shoehorned into the Aliens universe. - The whole conceit of the crew all being couples was largely squandered. It made no meaningful difference to the story beyond cursory reactions, except for Daniels, and maaaybe Oram. - The privates are never mentioned as being married, so are there two couples between Ankor, Cole, Rosenthal and Ledward? Or are they single? Or married to other people not within the crew? And if so, why isn't this mentioned? - Some character witness their partners die in horrible, violent, horrifying ways, and the events are basically within a 24 hour period but the book makes comments implying that they should have pulled themselves together already, and I'm like... nahhhhh mate, fair go, that's fucked up, yeah.- Just like the movie, it took me forever to get all the characters straight in my head, and most of them get little to no development (more than the movie, at least), and just seemed like fodder for the body count. - There are several continuity errors that I picked, like a person or object just magically changed location, and two separate Aliens get confused into one at one point.

So, my cons list is way longer than my pros list, but for me I still thoroughly enjoyed it, so a personal 4 stars, and maybe an objective 3 stars? I had fun. And a lot of the cons were just tiny niggles, or I actually just found them more amusing than they were true cons.

If you enjoyed the movie but it also frustrated you, I recommend giving this a read. But, if you're not really into the Aliens universe, I don't expect that you'd be even reading this. lol

A surprisingly competent adaption which fails to live up to the movie not because it's bad, but because it is competing with a masterpiece. The horror elements and xenomorph descriptions feel a bit glossed over, but it's nice to get a bit more of the crew.