Aliens: Steel Egg (Aliens (Dark Horse)) (Paperback)

by John Shirley (Author)
Key Phrases: steel egg, inner jaws, sonic key, Kyu Kim, Nurse Julie, The Company (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Someone on Earth knew about the aliens. Someone battled them, and survived. Before Ripley, there was a first encounter. Aliens and humans have fought before! When a human spaceship discovers a vast egg-shaped vessel in Saturn's orbit, the crew powers in to investigate. Thinking the ship might contain usable metal for Earth, they force their way aboard. Three teams split up to explore the ship. Already the aliens have awoken. The first of all the battles unfolds.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (October 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595821147
• ISBN-13: 978-1595821140
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #319,117 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice addition to the Aliens realm., November 19, 2007

By	Samuel S. Garland-Renn "Giant Insects Will Ru... (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Being a big fan and critic of all things Aliens (the second movie was my favorite), I feel happy with this latest tale of Aliens putting humans and "advance" technology in their place. That being said, this wasn't a perfect fit into either of the seperate canons of the Aliens films or the comics/novels, but that's easy to overlook for the good entertainment value here. Well-written, the story flows smoothly and unfolds in a way consistent with the genre. I enjoyed the book and was happy to add it to my Aliens collection. That being said, there were a few things I noted as being a little, well, "off" for those who are as picky as me.

The author acknowledges in his intro that he tries to add some new elements to the Aliens, such as detailing their eating and growth cycle a little more. Generally, making changes or additions is difficult to do without harming what originally made these "monsters" so scary, but Shirley does an admirable job of it. While these variations don't destroy what makes the creatures as great as they are, I kind of like some things not being so explained so that these terrifying killers actually remain "alien". The new things the author adds are often not portayed as definite, but could just be the perception of the characters, which is a great way to do such things.
The politics and social messages of the time of the story seem to reflect the predictable trends we see now, which is as goos sci-fi should be, and I felt drawn into the reality created by the book. Attempts at "future slang" and characters speaking with "quaint" old slang terms don't seem to go over well, but it's not over-used so that doesn't matter much.

My only real complaint is one that is common with prequels, the technology often seems better in the "past" than it does in the "future". Most notably, the control consoles on the humans' ship float around and are described as being pretty advanced. That kind of fanciness certainly wasn't on the Nostromo in the first Alien film. I think one of the things that made the first films so great was their gritty "real-ness" of the surroundings. This tale was less of a "truckers in space" and more of a fantastic sci-fi telling with "amazing" new alien technology. The only error I noticed is that the spelling of one of the Chinese characters names changed mid-page and stayed that way until their explosive death.

Overall, though, a great read and welcome addition to the genre. I look forward to more Aliens books by John Shirley.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good But Not Great, January 16, 2008

By	ONENEO (Buffalo, NY) - See all my reviews

I wanted to love this book and with so many positive reviews posted, I fear my expectations were a bit high going in. In reality this is an average book on its own merit and above average in the realm of ALIENS franchised publishing.

While I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of John Shirley's previous works, it becomes immediately apparent that he is passionate about sci-fi and has carefully studied the films before setting off to craft his novel after reading the first few paragraphs.

However, this is where some of my complaints begin to unfold. For starters it appears as though he may have integrated his attraction to the first film (ALIEN) a bit too heavily in the beginning. The scale of the derelict ship and the descriptions of the interior sound eerily similar to the HR Giger inspired efforts of the Space Jockey ship in the Ridley Scott masterpiece. The face-hugger impregnation sequence is also nearly identical (except for the fact that three people are infected in the book opposed to one in the movie). Reynolds is a near splitting image of Ash and the rest of the characters can only be described as "typical". There's even a Parker clone named Dix.

I do appreciate the author's attempt to flesh out a little character development through the captain and Ashley's flirting but overall it is far too easy to simply not care what happens to the humans. Which brings me to my next complaint. While Shirley did a great job in describing the gore, I fear he has gone a bit too far in the opposite direction with the xenomorph's strength.

Don't get me wrong, the adult aliens are no joke in the films either, but do expect them to be shot several times, blasted with flame throwers, and hit with missiles only to turn and escape into a shaft in Steel Egg. I suppose this has to do with which movie you base your beliefs on. While Aliens and Resurrection prove that a Xenomorph can be killed with a single square gunshot, 1 & 3 made a single alien seem nearly invincible. In that line of thinking, perhaps Shirley simply combined the multiple threat-dynamic of the second and fourth films with the unbeatable nature of the alien in 1 & 3.

I'm also not sure how well the Communist enemy angle works here. I realize that Shirley needed a human-based antagonist without the benefit of Wayland-Yutani or "the company" as it is often referred to in the films (since this book takes place before the company's formation), I feel that much of the interaction with CANC is stiff and forced. What's worse is it puts a bitter taste in the mouth of those of us who like to think that humanity has progressed as a civilization on earth in the future, rather than regressed to a sort of post modern "Cold War" era.

Overall this is an enjoyable read, if for nothing else, thanks to some incredible gore scenes. I personally would rather have had less human characters to keep track of in exchange for fewer, better-developed ones. It is, however, refreshing that Dark Horse is still taking the ALIENS franchise seriously with new original works like this.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as I'd hoped, but not bad., March 19, 2008

By	James Seger (The Woodlands, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Aliens: Steel Egg certainly starts out with an interesting premise: It is assumed that the Weyland-Yutani company already knew a little about the alien in the first Alien film. Where did they get their information?

Steel Egg then, is about humanity's first encounter with those pesky skeletal xenomorphs.

The crew of The Hornblower has been sent to investigate a large metallic deposit on Saturn's moon Iepetus. The `ore deposit' turns out to be a large, egg-shaped, derelict alien vessel. You can guess what they find inside.

John Shirley constructs a very good plot in this novel. In addition to the mystery of the steel egg and battling face-huggers, there's a side plot about a Chinese vessel with sinister intentions due to arrive on the scene at any moment.

This was a storyline with a lot of potential, however, I was not very impressed with this novel. It seemed like a good concept not handled very well. John Shirley may be a good writer, but he's not demonstrating it here. And the problems didn't seem related to it being a tie-in novel. The writing just seemed lackluster and the villain ruined the book whenever he was present.

The characters overall aren't too bad. There's a little bit of background for each and the captain had some depth to him. There were maybe too many characters to really keep track of and most of them were pretty one dimensional. For instance, there is a medic named O'Neil. Though we are told he is a medic, he never seems to do anything with it. When medical stuff comes up, a new character is introduced and I was wondering `What about O'Neil?' The only purpose O'Neil seems to serve is as a shivering coward.

The biggest problem I had (the one that really kept me from enjoying the book) was with the character of Reynolds, the xenobiologist. As the main 'bad guy' character he is so paper thin he doesn't even have two dimensions. Every other line he spoke ended with an exclamation mark. He reminded me of a Snidely Whiplash-type character twisting is handlebar moustache while he ties the damsel to the railroad tracks. Perhaps it would have helped if at some point the author had shown him in a more sympathetic light.

I'm not expecting James Joyce when I pick up a book inspired by Aliens, but I would at least like characters that are up to the 'standards' set by an Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

Steel Egg does improve a bit (mainly because that aggravating character is 'off stage' for a time) about a third of the way through. Near the end, Reynolds is back and things go downhill again.

If you were thinking of trying this one I'd say go ahead. There is some fun to be had here, though you'll have to stick with it till about a third of the way through before it picks up steam and the SuperFriends-esque villain really hurts the book.