Alien: Inferno's Fall

An Original Novel Based on the Films from 20th Century Studios

By: Philippa Ballantine

Narrated by: Julienne Irons

Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

A gargantuan horseshoe-shaped ship appears over the mining planet Shānmén, unleashing a black rain of death that creates Xenomorph-like monsters worse than the darkest of nightmares.

As war breaks out among the colonies, a huge ship appears over the UPP mining planet Shānmén, releasing a horror that yields hideous transformations. Rescue is too far away, and the colonists’ only hope appears in the form of the vessel Righteous Fury. It carries the Jackals—an elite mix of former Colonial Marines and Royal Marines. Led by Zula Hendricks, the Jackals seek to rescue the few survivors from the depths of the planet, but have they arrived on time?

©2022 Philippa Ballantine and Clara Carija (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Well it’s a book.

Light on aliens, heavy on characters with little impact on the story. I want my ten hours back.

Would have been great if not for the reader.

The reader mispronounces so many words that I couldn't just ignore it... it kept pulling my attention away and really hurt my enjoyment of what should have been a great book. A good reader can elevate a book, but one like this really takes away from it.

Hmmmm

It is encouraging to know women see men only as disappointments in the end. Real or plastic.

while laced with woke overtones, the story was ok

the author tried to bake a lot of modern themes of feminism, oppression, slavery and body dysphoria into a moderately interesting storyline. the cliche bad GUYs were not very believable and they really could have spent more time building up to the climax which felt rushed.

Huge aliens fan

I love aliens and all the books, this is definitely one of the weaker ones. Still worth a listen but not even close to some of the others. 4 stars because it’s aliens but it’s the only one I’ve ever not given 5 stars too.

Writing at it's finest.

This book along with all of the rest in this series and the entire Alien universe are what writing should be. It keeps you interested since you never know what's gonna happen or who will die or survive. It paints a great picture of the creatures and characters in general. They also make the effort to focus on a thrilling story rather than what's inclusive and what doesn't have anything to do with the book if it weren't for just the subtle cues you'd never know what gender or race the characters are and that's what needs to happen I want to like the characters for their character not their race or gender the way books, and movies and tv and games used to be.

it's ok

Not my favorite of the series, but I'm looking forward to where the story will go from here. I usually really enjoy the stories outside of the Xeno action, but I can agree this one was boring.
To those of you complaining about this (or any Alien franchise story) being "woke", two things- Alien has always been about politics, has had many queer characters, and there is always a strong woman at the front of the story. I'm not sure how you could have all missed that. If you're bothered that it's not about straight, white, cisgender male characters, you are SO close to understanding why representation is important. Keep thinking on it, you'll get there. I'm sorry you feel so attacked by this story featuring more women than you're used to.

Also, yes, the black goo DOES work that way. Go back and revisit Prometheus if you need a refresher.

Meh

Performance was good story was ok but it falls into dithering doldrums of despair loops and mopeness that kills the pace of the story faster than an Alien.

Good story, but narration is grating.

A good story - not the best, but it kept my attention. It would have been a page-turner if I was reading a physical book. Unfortunately the narration was far too distracting. “Frightened” was “Frighened”, as if the “t” had suddenly become silent and someone forgot to tell me. “Brightened” became “brighened”. There are
Other examples far too numerous to mention. I had to force myself to keep listening - it’s not the author’s fault.

Too much… drama, not enough sci-fi

I appreciate that the book itself followed the same universe and characters from the previous one but this one started with such promise and dissolved into what felt like a whole lot of mostly political culture and female drama. Don’t get me wrong, some of it was well placed and really struck a chord, but overall I felt as though there was too much focus on those aspects and much less focus on the traditional things that make alien and anything associated with it, successful. Kudos to the narrator for her broad ability to manage accents and distinguish characters, and especially for voicing Mae. Well done there. Worth a listen but don’t expect too much in the way of a typical alien novel, and don’t expect an upgrade from one either.