October Nightmares IV #22: Alien: Out of the Shadows (2014) by Tim Lebbon - Alienating the Franchise


By Sam Graham

It’s always refreshing when an Alien story comes around that actually does something different. Rather than following the established format of ‘Ripley wakes up. Aliens happen. Ripley fends them off. Goes to sleep’, it’s great to see one that breaks the mould and adds a new layer of depth to a franchise that has such massive scope.

It’d also be great if Alien: Out of the Shadows managed at least one of those things too. But it doesn’t.

Published in 2014 by Titan Books, Tim Lebbon’s foray into the often loved (and sycophantically despised) franchise centres around a group of miners. The story begins on their spaceship in orbit around the planet they’re currently mining. Their incursions find something mysterious underground. They’ve found something unexpected. They don’t know what it is, but reckon it’s worth bringing back to the ship.

I’ll let the picture below describe my thoughts...


Yes, it’s an alien. Surprise.

Hoop, space-mining’s answer to Dr Challis from Halloween 3 susses that shit out, then something happens that would have been quite a surprise if it weren’t for the fact that it’s mentioned in the blurb on the back of the book!

Ripley appears.

Yes.

Ripley appears.

Turns out this book is set in the 57 year stretch that Ripley first went for a lie-down between Alien and Aliens. Hoop and his crew of disposable friends find her escape pod drifting through space and bring her aboard.

From this point on (and because Aliens came out 28 years before this book), you already know how it will end:


  • Ripley will be the sole survivor.
  • Something will happen to Ripley that renders her unable to remember any of the events of this book.


Also, Ash the sympathetic synthetic is back too (even though he died, was plugged back in, then set on fire). Turns out he’s an AI on board Ripley’s pod.

When did that happen in the film?

It didn’t. That’s when.

He’s after the Alien still, so goes out of his way to thwart Ripley and Hoop et al.

The book has some decent set pieces. They go down into the mine and explore the ruins of an ancient race that, like the Engineer in the first film, were exterminated by the Xenomorph. A new strain is shown. One that was birthed from the planet’s natives, but it jumps the shark a bit with extended chase scene involving a handful of wounded miners and a whole horde of space ants which, in all other media incarnations, are faster than a Friday night curry.

The story’s biggest problem is Ripley. By having Ripley in it, the story is stuck on rails. You know it must end a specific way to filter in to the Aliens film. I’ve always said that having a returning character be the anchor to a series is a double-edged sword, and this is why. Though the franchise was initially propped up by her, now its weighed down (Don’t believe me that a recurring character becomes a problem? Hellraiser). The story can’t take any risks, it can’t deviate from the form, because Ripley must survive and she must wind up back in her escape pod with her memories conveniently knocked out of her.

I’m placing none of the blame on Tim Lebbon though. Tim’s writing style is great. He doesn’t over-do it. He doesn’t shy from it. He keeps it simple and doesn’t overly describe the look and feel of things, because face it, the only people who would read this book are already fans of the franchise. They already know what the look and tone is. If you check out his bibliography you’ll see that he’s a prolific guy. I’d happily pick up another of his works. One of his originals preferably.

It’s Titan who are at fault here. Lebbon is just a hired gun. Titan are the ones who cooked up this half-arsed, more of the same story. Sadly though, I fear that it’s our own fault as an audience. Look at all the flak Prometheus got for being different. I would say something about Alien: Covenant too, but that film deserved all it got, for being too scared to be different and too scared to be the same. See here for more details.

So reject my application if you will, Titan Books. Reject it all you will. You may have the money, your tongue half way up 20th Century Fox’ arse, and a cadre of writers wanting to write your drivel. You can’t stop the written word. I can sit here, using Iron’s blog to mentally spaff all over myself in my sordid corner of shame and solitude all I please.


Enjoyed this piece? Then 'like' The Crusades of A Critic on Facebook. Sam also has a Tech Noir novel, 'An Inside Joke', which can currently be viewed herehis first novella 'Iron Country' is available to buy herea horror short story, 'We Must Never Found Out', published here; and finally, another short horror story 'Eagal' available to buy here. Phew.

Comments