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Alien: Isolation  By  cover art

Alien: Isolation

By: Keith R.A. DeCandido
Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
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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.

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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...

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

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.

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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

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  • James
  • 10-01-19

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.

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  • Wibble
  • 08-13-19

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.

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 09-24-19

Terrible

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

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  • Alexander Sutherland
  • 08-20-19

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.

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 08-14-19

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

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  • Gadget Enthusiast!
  • 10-04-19

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.

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 08-14-19

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

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  • Liam Armour
  • 02-05-22

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.

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  • THE POOK
  • 10-19-21

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.

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  • Stilton Disco
  • 09-08-21

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.

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  • David
  • 08-19-19

Love Alien, but this story is mediocre.

No atmosphere or suspence. Performance is monotone throughout. Should've gotten Laural Lefkow to read it. She does an amazing Ellen Ripley impersonation.

There's too many flashbacks that add nothing to the story. All they do is pad out an empty story with flat characters and kill any possible momentum.

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  • ClaudRodgerBurger
  • 11-10-21

great to see that badassery is genetic

I have been consistently stoked with every book in the Alien canon thus far, and I have to say I was pretty stoked to get to one about daughter Ripley. Although you kinda know what's going to happen in these books, and they're definitely not disappointing for that, the authors do a great job of keeping things interesting, weaving in twists and turns and revealing new bits of lore/history/fictional fact re the alien universe and wtf The Company and everyone has been doing. Sometimes it can be a bit of a HF but it's awesome. I recommend listening to all the books in order though. I've listened out of order mostly, except for the Covenant ones and Prototype and Isolation. There's information re the greater arch of the Aliens that makes more sense in order. Also, don't skip any just coz you've seen the movies. Also, I wish they'd make big budget flicks outta all of these. Shiiit. I the Covenant 1&2 are my favourites, and Charybdis. I also recommend Bug Hunt - a book of shorts from the Alien universe, and all the audio dramas Audible has put together. It's so awesome to have all this juicy content as a massive fan. And included in membership too. What a Gas!!! Happy hunting, mthrfckrs!!!

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  • Anonymous User
  • 08-23-20

ok

Not as bad as some of the reviews indicated. Amanda's character is very annoying but otherwise the story is fine.

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  • Matt
  • 09-30-23

Entertaining but lacking the typical alien tension

The videogame was an absolute masterpiece. This tries to tell that story but it really lacks the sense of fear and tension that was there in the game. A lot of the Alien scenes seem to be brushed over with light hearted tone and narrative, you never really get the sense that anyone is truly terrified of the creature. I enjoyed the extra backstory but there was probably too much of that compared to what is currently happening on the station. Overall worth a listen but doesn't quite reach its true potential.

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  • Ness
  • 08-23-23

Fantastic

I was totally enthralled with the story. Amanda Ripley is one tough cookie. The whole audio book was written and performed extremely well.

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  • Cassee
  • 07-24-23

Amanda kicks ass!

Loved every minute of this and also hearing about some of Ellen’s other exploits. Solid entry into the canon.

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  • Anonymous User
  • 01-30-23

Building Better Narratives

There is some good in this story. The non-action exposition scenes were fantastic. They helped build the grim corporate dystopia that the Alien films always hinted at.

However, it's hard to recommend the story because the of the action scenes. All the action and horror of the story are written so passively that it's hard to be invested.

If you really love the Alien series, it's worth it for the "slice of life" scenes, but if you're just looking for a good action or horror book, this isn't for you.

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  • Mick
  • 01-08-23

Not bad

It was ok. I found a lot of the time I was waiting for the Alien(s) to make an appearance and when they did it was ‘ho-hum… Ali-un’ as they failed to provide any sort of suspense. The title character is more likeable as a child as her adult self is very arrogant. Overall, not a bad story however nothing really new. The vocal performance was good.

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  • phil
  • 11-05-22

Disappointing attempt to extend an incredible game

I was expecting a thriller out of this novel but instead there were moments of the dry description of the game broken up by a detailed narration of a troubled childhood.

This felt like a waste of time and space… the child characters of Amanda were written in a manner that made them really cliche'd. I've met kids that are far more capable and interesting, I get the author was trying to paint a tragedy but it came across as boringly underdeveloped. The dead beat step dad theme became tiresome after only a few chapters and served to only weaken both Amanda and Ellen's characters... Why would Ellen leave her daughter in the hands of someone so irresponsible? It makes Ellen seem irresponsible as a parent.

E.Ripley's character was all about rising to the occasion under incredible circumstances. She was treated badly by her coworkers and ultimately the company because they all underestimated her ability. She survived because she is smart and capable in a crisis. The book focused far too much on Amanda's past that proved to be inconsequential. I would have rathered a fall of Sevastopol story with Amanda intermittently included as she progressed through the story presented in the game.

Amanda's interactions with the creature were all muddled. The language was lacking to describe the hopelessness and violence on display. The pacing kept being broken by some odd internal monologue that ruined any semblance of atmosphere. The creature as a majestic horror from the stars was described as a clipped inconvenience.

The video game is one of the most terrifying I've ever played. I thoroughly enjoyed the false flags, dread filled silence of anticipation between footfalls and the desperation of punching codes and bolting for safety. The author didn't seem to know how to write intense scenes and instead simply described a blow by blow of the games key moments. In fact if you took out all the past story and pointless reflections you'd have a book 2-3 hrs long.

Amanda's constant ruminations of a lack of happiness since her mother left were incongruous with her ability to rise to the occasion. The dry sarcasm was fine in the game because the situation was FUBAR but as the book tried to tie this in with the preamble it failed spectacularly to land. For such a seemingly intelligent young woman the emotional immaturity is staggering. Instead of showing how the MC has risen out of the muck we just get the same record replaying for the feels. The game set the stage for so many plot ideas and the author completely failed to realise any of them. I loved the game and the Alien series hence a rating of 3 stars (instead of worse).

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Greg
  • 09-21-22

Love the back story but missing the horror

This book does an amazing job of filling in Amanda’s back story and her relationship with her mother.

But what it missed is the suspense and stress of being on the station. There were no close encounters or hiding from the alien. It felt like she was almost just casually walking through the station.

Still enjoyed it a lot though! If you’re an alien fan, you will like it.

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