Alien: Isolation

The Alien™ Series

By: Keith R.A. DeCandido

Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

The action-packed official adaptation of Alien: Isolation and a revealing look into the lives of Ellen Ripley and her daughter, Amanda Ripley.

The product of a troubled and violent youth, Amanda Ripley is hellbent to discover what happened to her missing mother, Ellen Ripley. She accepts an assignment with a Weyland-Yutani team being sent to retrieve the Nostromo flight recorder from space station Sevastopol, which they find out of control due to a Xenomorph that was brought there with the recorder. A conspiracy unfolds, revealing ever greater threats - including an entire Xenomorph hive. Over the course of the novel, Amanda’s history is revealed beginning with her childhood. Her father Alex’s battle with alcoholism caused her mother, Ellen Ripley, to sue for divorce. Ellen was forced to take off-world assignments, ultimately leading to her assignment aboard the Nostromo. Left behind, Amanda became determined to find out what happened to her mother, learning more and more about Ellen and the events that led up to her disappearance. Along the way, Amanda develops a fast friendship with Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks (from the Alien: Defiance Dark Horse series). 

©2019 Keith R. A. DeCandido (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

To many flashbacks

First off preface this review as someone who has played the game and seen it played half a dozen times.
That said the core story on the station even the changes made to make it fit better into a book WAS GREAT.

Seriously I enjoyed all the time that Ripley is trying to move forward and survive, but it is ruined by the constant nonstop flashbacks pulling you out of the action every time there is a climax. It builds up then *bam* boring flashback, then back to the station, tensions rising then *bam* flashback!
A few were fine they let you get into Ripley's character better especially the cryo dream. However why is the author trying to establish her character an hour from the end of the book? We get it she is a great engineer and people suck move on with it...

You'll be rooting for the xenomorphs.

Amanda Ripley is a snarky, petulant, angry young woman who is really, REALLY upset that her mother didn't return from space for her eleventh birthday. She constantly complains about how unfair life is, regardless of what is happening around her. Even when she encounters a xenomorph for the first time, she's like, "Well, this figures. Nothing else in my life has gone right for me and everyone has let me down, so why should I expect anything else?" Her constant sarcastic comments (she has two modes of dialogue: sarcasm and anger) become intolerable very quickly, and suck any tension out of the story.

Every single time action builds and things start to get somewhat interesting, Ripley will start thinking about someone from her past who let her down (sometimes a whole list of them), and it derails the scene. By the time she stops thinking about her past and opining about how all people are garbage, you'll have forgotten what was even happening, and you won't care anyway.. In one scene, she's jumping from a space station to a spaceship through the terrifying abyss of space, and rather than feeling horror or exhilaration or vertigo, she spends the minutes of free-fall thinking about how her mom, her step-father, a male friend she used to have, various bosses and coworkers had let her down, and how nobody would really care if she died anyway. (I really, REALLY didn't care by that time.)

That scene also revealed the author's ignorance; Ripley was worried she might miss the ship and starve to death in her EVA suit. Starve to death??? What about suffocating or freezing to death after the oxygen tank ran out or the suit's heaters drained the batteries? There are other similar moments where the science fiction gets science stupid.

Also, I found it annoying that every man in the story is a coward, an idiot, a liar, a betrayer, an alcoholic or a thug. And apparently, everyone in the future says the F-word every couple seconds. Couldn't believe the amount of profanity in this.

Eh

The backstory about a girl who wants details about her mom interlaced in is totally boring, useless as a plot device. Don’t read this one (but keep writing them, just make them gory and give us different versions of the Xenonorphs dogs tigers lions whatever!

It has its moments, but ends poorly, disappointing

I’m a huge Alien fan, and while it starts off well, it ends poorly. Alien Isolation is more alien covenant than Alien. Plot holes are everywhere, and the flashbacks to the crappy childhood of Amanda Ripley become a nuisance and completely unnecessary, talk about beating a dead horse, we get it, the kid had a lousy childhood and misses mommy. Again there are a few moments early, then it loses coherence. Narrator is above average. I have one big issue, it’s an Zenomorph, or an Alien don’t keep referring to it as a monster, or a big cockroach that needs to be squished! My suggestion is to play the game, it’s terrifyingly great.

Another Swing And A Miss

Here's yet another entry in the Alien universe, and I swear, it's like the authors don't do much research on their subjects. This can hardly be considered an Alien title at all! I have never played the game that this story seems to have some basis in, but the set for this gave me high hopes of a good story. Nope. The author tried, real hard, to reference the original movie, but other than the terribly short quest to LV 426 and way too much flash backs involving the OG Ripley, the rest of the story felt like a rated R Doctor Who episode. The "working Joe's" had way too much attention on them, completely outshining the aliens in both quantity and quality of writing. With exception only to the LV 426 scene, the aliens in this story didn't act anything like the creatures depicted in the films. The aliens simply killed every human they came in contact with, which wasn't many. Not once did the author get into the cocooning of anyone, again, with one incredibly brief scene right at the end. And throughout the entire time Amanda was traveling in the space station, she only encountered aliens a few times and event those scenes seemed entirely out of context with what is established behavior for the creatures. I mean, how often did the aliens make so much noise that you could hear them before you saw them? I know, never. That was a big part of what made them so terrifying. In this story, they've been reduced to mindless, noisy and pointless killers, who barely show up. Amanda walks all over this station, and she has more time dealing with the working Joe's and pointless flashbacks to her past than anything else. Even the face huggers are now just wondering around the station just looking for things to do. How is that possible? Why are they out of their eggs? Is there a queen on board laying eggs for a new hive? Did the other ship somehow bring eggs to the station? If you want to know the answers to these basic questions, prepare to have your expectations subverted because the author sure doesn't know. Now, let's talk about those flashbacks for a moment. Holy cow, they drone on and on with back story that has no payoff at all in this story. And the timing of these flashbacks are so frustrating. Just as some scene peaks with tension or action, wham, let's talk about some random interaction about how everyone in her past has been mean to her, and how her mommy didn't keep her promise about coming back for her birthday. Did you know that her mom said she'd be back for her 11th birthday, well strap in because it's mentioned about a dozen or more times. By the time we get back to the present, you've either forgotten about what's going on or you've lost interest. The profanity was out of hand, and the ending of all those messages with the "if you've received this in error, please notify and delete......". Why? Why was this so necessary to the story, why? I kept hitting the fast forward button to keep my annoyance in check.

Only 20 or so minutes left till the end, and we get a single line of dialogue about the "acid for blood". I mean, it's only one of the most descriptive elements to the aliens, but sure, let's gloss right over it, at the end, 8 hours 20 minutes into the story.

And finally, the last scenes. They felt so rushed and lacking in any basic story telling. Amanda is going from the station to a space ship, and having some very bizarre thoughts about everyone she's come in contact with throughout this book, and how tough her life has been, you know those usual things you would be thinking of while space walking. Mean while, aliens are also doing the same, but they get five seconds of time spent with that and then, apparently off screen, one or more of them got onto the ship and kills everybody on board, why should we know what or how that worked. Amanda ends up floating in space, just in a space suit. She sees a body of one of the aliens on some kind of debris, wondering if it's dead, and then starts thinking about what she needs to do when she gets to earth. My jaw dropped when the book ended right there. I was thinking there was going to be a fight with the alien in space, but sure let's just fade to black here.

I hate being so wordy in this review, but I just can't believe all the 5 star reviews this got. I can't tell if they're real or from some really young minds, who don't know or care about the continuity of the Alien universe. I really love the first couple of Alien movies, and most of the stories, so far, have been disappointingly missing the flavor of their origins. The "Out of the Shadows, Sea of Sorrows and River of Pain" stories were by far the best works to come out of this, but I still have hope that more will follow.

Too Many Flashbacks

I have to agree with some of the other reviewers who mentioned that the book has too many flash backs...way more than needed. I wanted to hear more about her career and trying to find her mother...not hours apon hours of hearing about her drunken Step father. I would've also liked a full cast of narrators for the characters ...although the narrator did ok.. a full cast would've made this book much better. I would also suggest you play the video game to as it closely fallows this book

Alien goodness.

Interesting fill in regarding Ripley's daughter. Really enjoyed Sarah's reading. Nice to have e woman talking into my ears instead of Scott Brick. Sarah did a fantastic job emulating the other characters voices both male and female.

great story plagued by mundane backstories

alien isolation is a game i still have ptsd from - amazingly well crafted story atmosphere and gameplay melded into one to create the perfect alien game and arguably the scariest survivor horror games to date - so this was a no brainer right? this book glosses over the main action points to delve into the most boring long winded backstory tales for amanda which offer very little in interesting lore or have anything to do with the current story. i was waiting for something to tie the last flashback into the main story in some fulfilling way but that was not the case. not sure what the author or producers were thinking when they thought "YES alien fans will love the 7th flashback of amanda drinking coffee and worrying about money" yikes man

SWJ Garbage

There was never any reason to use the Alien brand as a tool for Strong Women Awareness.

Apparently, the Liberal Zombies who shat out this story, have never actually SEEN an Alien movie. Because, if they had, they would have known that it already featured the ongoing adventures of THE most baddass, emotionally strong, fearless, intelligent, capable Female Protagonist anywhere.
Ellen Ripley
And she has been around since 1979.
nobody raised a fuss and she was universally accepted as a "hero".

Sooooo... that being said, I couldnt help but notice:
1. That the only 3 male characters in the book, were human garbage.
A drunken, lazy, abusive Step Father.
A nasty, cold-blooded killer.
A member of a ship's crew who was lazy, stupid, disrespectful and had no business operating a space fairing vessel.

2. Then there r the women.
every woman in the book waa either a high ranking military officer and commander of a star ship, an important legal rep from WY, or a savant who could build a star ship better than the actual engineers. She is a gifted mechanical tech who can do EVERYTHING better than the non-deserving men in her place. Also, Ripley, turns out to have stopped a terrorist attack, all by herself.

I couldnt finish the story.

great story but...

I really wished this was done as a full production as the last several alien stories. I adore everything to do with the movies and books. building better worlds

Good adaptation, but game is far better!!!

I enjoyed this as a companion book - it moves Amanda's role in the expanded universe into a more accessible platform than just the gaming, but it just doesn't do the game justice!

Story is good and fleshes out Amanda's history more, which is nice. Narration is good overall. Dialogue is a bit clumsy, with over the top, unnecessary swearing - at times, it's like listening to a group of young teenagers who have just learnt a new "naughty word"! 🤣
Don't get me wrong, I swear all the time, but it feels like it's thrown in there just for the sake of it.

When the game was coming out, I was so worried; I thought the whole concept that Ripley's daughter also encountered the xenomorphs was absolute heracy! Then I played it - the story is great and fits well with the movies, and you actually experience the story.

If you are not a gamer, listen to this book, it's enjoyable and ties neatly into the movie lore. However, I think many will say it was an unnecessary addition and not get why it was ever made - you have to play the game to understand why Isolation is a key chapter in the Alien story.

Inexplicable encoding choices at Audible.

This book is encoded 128kbps for a single-voice mono production with no music or sound effects resulting in a file that nearly HALF A GIGABYTE. And yet... Alien: River of Pain and Alien: Out of the Shadows, both full-cast stereo with both music and sound effects languish at 64kbps and sound dreadful.

I have tried complaining to Audible about this to be met with complete indifference or worse still, insistence that 64kbps is adequate for that type of content.

Terrible

The most boring Aliens story yet. Nothing happens, zero tension, pointless flash backs. Don’t bother

Pretty disappointing

The main character is one big cliché. The "vulnerable, far too clever but plucky heroine" who despite the odds braves the aliens while having flashbacks about abandonment "Mommy... noooo..." got tedious really quickly. This is just lazy writing.
The narration on the other hand was ok - Sarah did a pretty good job given the terrible material she had to work with.

Top notch

Sarah Mollo -christensen was exceptional reading the story of the excellent game inspired Alien isolation. With added back story the book matches the intensity of the movies. And is as well written as Alan Dean Foster's novelisations

Any story with the Alien badge stuck on!

I was waiting for this to get going but it never did. Apart from a few references this didn't feel like a book in the Alien Franchise let alone Alien Isolation. The voice actor was quite good, making male voices believable. All too often some male actors try to pull off a female voice and it sounds horrendous! This however was fairly good, but the narration part of the reading came across a bit flat, stale with no emotion.

The story was pretty bland, I thought it could have been a generic story about a young girl with a childhood troubles. For some strange reason most of the men in her life were either dumb or arseholes, quite a one dimensional narrative with some references to Alien Isolation tacked on in places.

It really didn't feel like an Alien story at all.

Awesome book and cliff hanger ending

A great story gripping throughout please make a second part. This is really awesome. Great characters and similar agendas as the movie

hard listen

The voice acting sounds like its only a guy and girl narrating all the characters, sometimes the character voices sound similar so it can get a tad confusing to which characters are in the scene if you pause or take a break from the book.

found myself getting frustrated at various parts as Amanda is a dreadful character, a literal nightmare who is really difficult to relate too and i found myself relating to the alien wanting to kill her the more i listened.


i was glad when the book finished. worst I've listened to.

Excessive Expletive Language.

I've played the game from which this is based and loved it. being a fan of the franchise I've read many of the books.

However only 17min into the Audio I'm tired of the profanity. The occasional expletives can be understandable in a tense scene, but to have it as almost constant dialogue is indicative of very poor and unimaginative writing.

the voice acting and performance are great. but not everyone can enjoy such content when it's profane. so I do not recommend it.

Preachy and plodding

Managed a couple of hours in before I got bored of the author moaning on about how poor everyone was and how how unfair life was to the characters.

Sure, blue collar average Joe's vs the soulless white collar corporatists has been in Alien since day one, buy it just came across as preachy and heavy handed, more like a middle class, uni graduate, champaign socialist's fantasy of how working class people behave and think. very disappointing given how great the source material is.

Watch a YouTube let's play instead if you want the story.