Alan Dean Foster's Alien

Alien

I’m a little rusty in my reading. I used to read a book within a week or sometimes two. As of lately it’s taken me much longer than that. So I decided to go for short stories or novels and last time I went through my local public library I found a copy of Alan Dean Foster’s Alien which was a novelization of the 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, Tom Skerrit as Dallas, John Hurt as the doomed Kane and the mysterious Ash played by Iam Holm. Wow, what great cast isn’t it?


The first few lines of the novel is what really caught my attention and my curiosity: it describes how every one of the Nostromo crew members are in hypersleep as they’re travelling in light speed en route towards Earth bringing oil cargo (apparently Earth has run out of its precious natural sources). Curiosity enticed me to continue reading: it turns out that everybody is actually “conscious” even while they’re in state of hypersleep which I thought was an interesting concept. The story goes on to describe each of the crew members so, by the time they’re awaken by Mother (Nostromo's computer) to answer a distress call from an unknown planetoid, you kind of know a bit about them, which I thought was a great basis for the novel.

However the following chapters in the story are a tad bit tedious: the landing on the planet, the search for the distress beacon that caught the Nostromo’s attention (that’s the name of the ship), the description of Jones who, in case you guys forgot, is the name of the cat. I’m not lying when I say that I was sometimes thrown off a few times when the author speaks of Jones as if it were part of the crew, even describing its “thoughts” as if the cat really could think logically. But if you’ve ever wondered what’s it like to be a cat in outer space then this is the novel for you... Anyone?

After the painstaking details of the crew exploring this hostile planet in search of the distress signal, they finally arrive at the point where they’re getting closer and closer to the alien’s nest. That’s when the novel picks up as well as the story of a crew that’s divided as to whether or not to admit Kane back into the Nostromo in a comatose state with an alien in shape of a hand attached to his face. For being such a technical writer that describes the ship, or being in hypersleep state, or several devices and futuristic items such as a GPS system and "Bluetooth"-like earpieces or the different controls and going-ons in outer space and the foreign planet and not to mention the corridors and passages of the Nostromo, which Alan Dean Foster describes in great detail by the way, there’s a lack of substantial description of the actual creature other than the superficial details as bleeding acid, or having sharp teeth and sharp claws.

SPOILER ALERT There's a scene towards the end of the novel that's different from the movie: Ripley, being the sole survivor from the alien's attack on the other crewmembers (except for Jones), gets ready to board the shuttle that will mark her escape from the Nostromo and the alien, she stumbles upon cocoons that contain Dallas and Parker still alive, if barely. I thought this was a desperate move on the author to bring closure to whatever happens to the victims once the monster got a hold of them. So basically the alien would capture its victims, preserve their bodies as they hatch more lethal spawns, preserving the alien's species. And this might have worked in the first Alien movie but I think it was a wise decision on Ridley Scott's part to leave it alone and allow the sequels to develop this even more, as in James Cameron's great sequel Aliens.

Alan Dean Foster is the author responsible for fleshing out the Star Wars novels which George Lucas based his films on. Still, I’m disappointed at the fact that this is just what they called a “novelization” of the film and so it doesn't ring true or original anymore, basically it tries to explore more details than the movie could cover in 116 minutes.

It’s also kind of distracting that, having seen the movie a few dozen times, I found that the book has less details than the actual movie, if that’s possible. It’s one of those weird cases where the movie is far better than the novel, just like the curious case of Brokeback Mountain.

SPOILER ALERT The only interesting bit is the constant, ever changing behavior of Ash who’s been instructed to “protect” the creature above the crew itself. Ash's revelation that the whole Nostromo crew is expendable except the alien was what made this story worth a read. Ever since I saw the film I was more shocked to find out that Ash was not even human but a robot sent by the Company to divert the Nostromo, pick this alien creature from this isolated planetoid and transport it back to Earth. This explains Ash's fascination with the creature and, I must say, the chapter in the book which details Ash's confrontation with Ripley and the remaining survivors of the crew is the best chapter from the novel.

The next time I visit my local library I will pick a good novel that hasn’t been turned to a movie for it’s quite better to imagine everything you’re reading on your own without having to relate the characters to their respective actors. Only exception to the rule: having read William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, Stephen King's The Shining or Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby were the great exceptions to this rule. I wish I could say the same for Alan Dean Foster's Alien. Another great thing I discovered about the library is that they interconnect with each other so if you think of a book or a movie that you would like to read or watch you can just log into their website, enter your membership information to log in, drop the item in your cart and next time you visit the library it's waiting for you. Especially in these hard times we're living in it makes all the sense in the world to just utilize your library's entertainment potential and say goodbye to Netflix or, should I even dare to say it, you cable or satellite providers. Hey, everybody's got to cut some corners somehow, right? It's the only way to survive in the real world.

As far as Alan Dean Foster's Alien is concern, I expected to read something I didn’t know about the monster. I never became engaged in the monster as much as I did with Ripley's or Ash's characters, the only two characters that make this story readable and dramatic at all. As well as that goddamn cat, ahem, I mean Jones. My recommendation? Watch the movie, skip the novel.


Ridley Scott’s Alien A
James Cameron’s Aliens A+
Alan Dean Foster’s Alien B-