Alien: Covenant Origins

The Official Prequel to the Blockbuster Film

By: Alan Dean Foster

Narrated by: Tom Taylorson

Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

The Covenant mission is the most ambitious endeavor in the history of Weyland-Yutani. A ship bound for Origae-6, carrying 2,000 colonists beyond the limits of known space, this is a make-or-break investment for the corporation - and for the future of all mankind.

Yet there are those who would die to stop the mission. As the colony ship hovers in Earth orbit, several violent events reveal a deadly conspiracy to sabotage the launch. While Captain Jacob Branson and his wife, Daniels, complete their preparations, security chief Daniel Lope recruits the final key member of his team. Together they seek to stop the perpetrators before the ship and its passengers can be destroyed.

An original novel by the acclaimed Alan Dean Foster, author of the groundbreaking Alien novelization, Alien: Covenant Origins is the official chronicle of the events that led up to Alien: Covenant. It also reveals the world the colonists left behind.

©2017 Alan Dean Foster (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Great narrator, lackluster writing

The story is merely backstory of how Weyland-Yutani came about getting the Covenant mission to take place. There's violent employees, there's a lot of dialogue for the sake of dialogue, and there's minimal character development of the crew of the Covenant. Save yourself 8 hours and don't listen to this; you'll thank me later.

What kept me engaged in this book was the narrator and his artistic ability to have distinct accents and tonality per character (male and female). I'd listen to other books he's narrated simply because it's a talent for sure.

Corporate Espionage, No Monsters

I've been a fan of the Alien films for a long time. I didn't have the opportunity to see Alien Covenant in theaters, but have the film on Blu Ray, though I haven't seen it yet. I decided to wait until the prequel Book was published and read it and the film novelization before watching the movie. It is unusual that the prequel book, which should've been published first, was actually last.
There are no monsters in this book, as it is a tale of corporate espionage regarding the mission of the colony ship Covenant. The intrigue is well written and interesting, though not all questions are answered. Weyland -Yutani is not quite the corporate powerhouse in this book, though they are a conglomerate. The head Hideo Yutani is interesting. The organization that opposes him, the Earth Savers has a "prophet" who seemingly knows what monsters like in the dark. His nightmares have given the Earth Savers fuel for their fire. This plot point is similar to one in an earlier book, Alien Sea of Shadows. Please note: Spoilers.
Duncan Fields, the prophet, seems to have an empathetic link to the Alien warriors, similar to Ripley's descendant in Sea of Shadows. He had the ability to see through the Alien warriors eyes. Duncan Fields seems to have this ability as well, though the background is not explained fully. Still a great read. I read this book using Immersion Reading. Narrator Tom Taylorson, is excellent, with a beautiful, clear voice and is gifted with accents. It was definitely a highlight to hear this book as well as read it. Worth your time.

Pointless

I am a big fan of the Alien Universe especially the last two movies. I am intrigued by the story and ideology way more than the horror part of it. This book is pointless. Yes I understand the title of the book but, it is so generic. It's like if I wrote down a 200 page book of my experience and preparations for a vacation involving planes and airport traveling. There is very little substance of anything pertaining to the Alien Universe. As Trump likes to tweet.... SAD, so SAD.

nothing happens

this is an entire story about a ship taking off despite people not wanting it to take off. it starts that way in ends that way with absolutely no story arc. just a collection of about a dozen attempts to prevent the ship from taking off.

Good preview into earth

Well the preview into earths conditions was nice. There was some slow parts but overall some nice info about the universe. Would have been hard to keep interest as there was not much action. Good thing this story was created after already being a fan. If it was first story in order...I don’t know if it would create fans.

Hard sci-fi political intrigue in Alien Universe

If you haven't already - listen to this BEFORE the Alien: Covenant novelization!

Great reader, great writer - I love the Alien universe and and really happy to have an expansion of life on earth at the time of the Covenant launch with well voiced, interesting characters.

Bland and Uneventful

This story adds more depth to the political/business aspect of events on earth, however it does not seem to be interested in telling any actual story. This is filler of the mythos just for filler purposes; something to be told and put into the Wikia page. I'm disappointed in this purchase. There are much more interesting stories available on Audible concerning the Alien franchise and I'd recommend seeking out those.

good

nice edition to the timeline. no aliens are involved but i expected as much. still great though.

Disappointing-only makes you dislike movie more.

The movie for which the prequel is intended is too dark and unsatisfying. This prequel answers few, if any questions, and only makes you fond of characters with excellent back stories, only to cavalierly and swiftly kill them off in movie. Aliens' movies are supposed to be dark, but dark for a reason - not just maliciously and sadistically so.

Disappointing

if your looking for gripping alien action or bloody scifi horror look elsewhere. This book is just a historical record of the Covenant ships pre launch.

No Aliens here - and very little else

I enjoyed the last two Alien audible purchases, but this was very disappointing. As a stand-alone thriller it really isn't page-turning stuff, but as the prequel it's thin, tedious and disappointing. Performances are pretty good, but that didn't make up for the sheer emptiness of the story.
Not recommended.

Dull

Best I can say is that the narration is good. The story is brain-numbingly boring. It's a shame as the Alien Series of books has been genuinely excellent up to now

There are no aliens in the book.

This book is all about "the company's politics," there is not a single alien in this book!

Didn't really have to read this book

Well... I'm fairly new to the Alien franchise, other than having seen and enjoyed a couple of the films. So I figured I'd just pick up this one, which is listed as book 0 here on Audible. And I mean... It's a nice introduction to some of the characters that you spend time with in the next story, Alien: Covenant (which I have also listened to prior to writing this review),

But this one isn't really what you'd expect in this series. For a start, there are no aliens here. This story is set on Earth, and there is a conspiracy/mystery type of plot where someone is trying to sabotage the Covenant from leaving the planet for its mission. And that is interesting enough, but seeing as I already knew that the next book was called Alien: Covenant, there was no real conflict here for me. I feel like I sort of already knew a lot about how it would end, even as a newbie to this franchise.

Now that I have also listened to Alien: Covenant, I just sort of feel like I didn't gain much from reading this one. I would have had absolutely no problem going straight into Alien: Covenant without this book. All of this said, it is a pretty well written mystery as an isolated story. If I hadn't already known that the Covenant would make it, I would perhaps be more worried about how the story would end. So I can't fault the book for this... I don't know... Might just be me, but I would have been more interested in learning more about why they were trying to sabotage it, and why they believe what they believe.

In conclusion: Shrug. I don't mind having read it, but I wouldn't have missed anything had I skipped it, I think. Maybe having listened to it comes in handy in future books, that I have not gotten to yet?

Aweful

Instead of aliens you get exploding robot farm animals and I’m not even joking. Nothing to do with Alien and adds nothing at all to the universe.

Boring.

Nothing to do with alien/promethuesus bar the name. Low grade detective story set in the future.

Interesting world building

This as a start is interesting setup book and in my opinion but not of much interest to those outside of in depth and interested fans. This book does well to world build and setup events whilst still containing it's on story within however I feel it only exists for setup. I enjoyed this book and reading about characters previously only mentioned is interesting and that's all I feel this addition to the alien series is. As you can tell from my choice of words, this book is interesting and could probably be skipped in the series as a whole.

A great book just WOW!!

This book adds so much to the rather dull new Alien movies. Without giving any of the plot away, now I can connect the dots of the two movies so much better. Perhaps the greatest thing about this book is that it opens the world of Alien to the reader in a whole new way.

Good but not Alien enough.

Good but not Alien enough. More of a thriller in this book, a clear lead in but was after more ALIEN action.

good over all

was good but knowing that everything turns out ok and they do set off in the covenant kinda kills the story but at least it pads out the world a bit more