Cowboys & Aliens

If you get that it was a movie first then you'll understand that the book runs like a movie. Not great literature. It reads like a movie. So…if you can get past that then it is an okay but no “take you on a great and soul moving journey” type of listening experiance. There is most all of the Hollywood style Sci-Fi, Good vs. Evil, and Wounded Hero clichés in the story. But come on, like “Snakes on a Plane” the title explains itself. Good for a summer escape. Narrative is good but Fred Berman uses only one voice, he’s not a Roy Dotrice, but his American accent is easy to listen to after a short while if you give him a chance.

Cowboys and Aliens by Joan D. Vinge is a novelization of the movie that came out in theaters in July 2011. If it hadn’t been space month on the blog, I don’t know if I would have normally picked out this book as I don’t generally like seeing a movie before I read the book. However, I gave Cowboys and Aliens a try because I really enjoyed the movie and thought for sure I would enjoy the book. So for this review, I’m going to do a book vs. movie comparison.

The Movie

Cowboys and Aliens the movie stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, and many other great actors. I love all three of these actors and felt they all played their part exceptionally. I was particularly impressed with the transformation of Daniel Craig’s British accent to a Western accent. He also fits in seamlessly to the Western setting and the cowboy look. Harrison Ford is awesome as usual. He pulls off the grumpy old cowboy persona very well. His character’s voice is grizzled, well weathered, and fantastic and in many scenes he steals the show.

Olivia Wilde’s character is also great but I wish the movie had gone more in depth with her. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford’s characters were clearly defined and unfortunately her character was not, which is at no fault to Olivia Wilde. Her character, as it was written, is the one that I felt made the movie a little hokey. If they had given her a little more background, I might have accepted or understood her character better.

The movie combines the Western and Science Fiction genres well to create a completely original storyline. Overall, the movie is a fun ride that is unlike anything else in Hollywood at this time.

The Book

The narrator, Fred Berman, is phenomenal and does amazing voices for every character, and I really do mean every character. The author, Joan D. Vinge, is also talented and she does a wonderful job painting the settings, describing the action scenes, and putting the reader in the characters’ shoes.

With that said, the book is pretty much exactly the same as the movie. The book does provide more details than the movie and the reader gets a little more information on the characters’ backgrounds. Since I felt the movie lacked a little on the character backgrounds, I was glad to learn more about them and to see things from their perspective. However, there is not a lot of extra detail that the movie doesn’t generally cover. I particularly wanted to learn more about Ella’s character as she has a lot of mystery surrounding her. Unfortunately, the book did not deliver what I wanted. I understood her character better from the book but not a whole lot more.

The Winner

If you are trying to decide between reading the book or watching the movie, I recommend watching the movie over reading the book. Gasp! This is probably the first time that I thought a movie was better than the book. My reason for the recommending the movie is mainly because they are one in the same. Only the movie tells the story with great actors and tons of special effects and explosions. The story is also written for the big screen and I think that’s where it should stay.

More about morals then about cowboys and aliens. The hero goes from acting like a hero to being a helpless idiot whenever the author needed to build suspense during the action sequences. Needed to fast forward through the endless internal moral conflict the main characters repeatedly had throughout the book. Think of Freud's works being sold to a Hollywood producer, "if we added a gun fight between the dreams then it should sell"

vhe was very good. No shakiness in his has very nice voice to read with very nice

This is difficult to answer because I haven't seen the print version.

Jake and e Colonel were the leads but my favorite was the black dog. I do believe I could write a Masters thesis on the characters presented to us by the dog.

Jake's confrontation with his former gang was well done. He didn't have his full memory back yet and because of his internal conflicts I could feel his pain.

When men were men and aliens were just target practice.<br/>

Don't waste your time on this one. There are better books around for you to really enjoy.

I like books that 1) Have an interesting plot 2) Have characters I grow to care about and 3) Have enough action/events to move the story along. This book really does have all of it! This was adapted from the screenplay of the film now in theaters and was skillfully done. It reads like a western similar to True Grit. I really want to see the film. The only negative thing about the book is the last 10 minutes. (This is NOT a spoiler) The story has practically ended and loose ends are tied up among the characters and, in my opinion, it unnecessarily continues for 10 minutes explaining the main characters closure with his love interests and his inner feelings and blah blah. I guess maybe it wasn't enough for a female writer to let it end after he rides off into the sunset...haha. I could hear my wife saying "Is that it??? Definitely worth a credit! Don't wait another minute!