Customer Reviews

Aliens: Steel Egg (Aliens (Dark Horse))

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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 Generally, making changes or additions is difficult to do without harming what originally made these "monsters" so scary, but Shirley does an admirable job of it.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.

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.

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.

Aliens has been one of my favourite franchises ever since I saw the first movie, and it scared the living hell out of me. I couldn't sleep for two days it scared me so bad!

Mind you, I was only 9 at the time.

Back in the late 70's, the movie was truly horrific. A huge creature, born of blood and death, stalking a small crew who are incapable of escaping their confines. Essentially, rats trapped on a sinking ship with no hope of escape.

It was terrifying on so many levels.

But, now, it's not really scary any more. There are plenty of other things that will scare, or shock people. You have movies like Hostile and Saw. Then again, those movies fall under the category of torture porn. They have nothing in common with Alien or the others in that franchise.

Still if you watch the directors cut of Alien, you'll see scenes that were cut from the original theatrical release because they were considered far too horrifying to the general public back then.

Today, eh. No biggie.

To think that nearly thirty years later, that single movie has spawned three sequels, two tie in movies (Aliens Vs. Predator 1 & 2), comics, novels, and videogames.

Several weeks back I picked up the novel Aliens: Steel Egg. Being a huge fan of the franchise, it almost goes without saying that I would buy it. In fact, I'm glad I did - you see if I had known who wrote it at the time, I probably would have left it on the shelf.

It was written by John Shirley, the author of Predator: Forever Midnight, which I despised immensely.

One of the biggest questions that the original Alien brought up is just how did the company know about the derelict ship? How did they know about the deadly organism?

As I stated in my review of Predator: Forever Midnight, if it's not stated in the movie, it's not official canon. It's purely speculation. And that is my personal view on the matter, so take it or leave it as you will.

In fact, this question was answered in the novel Aliens: Original Sin.

Here we go with an issue that has bugged me for a very long time. Continuity. Consider this. Both novels were published by Dark Horse. What bugs me is the fact that the author didn't bother reading any of the other novels published by this company. Then again, maybe I'm wrong, maybe he did.

Fact of the matter is that there is zero continuity among the novels. None what so ever.

Anyhow, despite this, as a stand alone novel, I actually enjoyed it. Wow, shocker there. I was so angry with Predator Forever Midnight that I figured that this novel would suck as bad as that one had.

I was wrong.

Even though Mr. Shirley decided to write a personal spin on how the aliens were discovered, it was, for the most part, an enjoyable to read.

The novel involves the discovery of a Derelict ship in orbit over one of Saturn's moons. The ship was piloted by an unknown species, and they succumbed to an infestation of the xenomorphs.

As to be expected, the crew of the Hornblower, the ship that arguably discovered the derelict, encounter the eggs and three members are infected by the face huggers. And with that, the fun begins.

To make matters worse, a rival government has a ship nearby, and they too have laid claim to the alien derelict.

In Mr. Shirley's introduction, he mentions that one thing that bothered him was the lack of explanation on how the creature would grow from a small chestburster to a full grown, massive adult in a matter of a day or so. He did mention that he never found a reasonable explanation of this in any of the movies or other forms of media.

He decided to write an explanation in his novel on how this happened.

I do remember reading the original adaptation of the Alien movie written by Alan Dean Foster, many years ago, and one scene in the novel particularly stuck with me throughout the passage of time.

How the crew of the Nostromo discovered that the alien had found the ships food store and had consumed a great deal of the food stored there.

So, it has been touched on before, but I don't hold that against Mr. Shirley. That book is so damned old and probably very hard to find, and odds are he's never read it anyhow.

What I really enjoyed about the novel was how the original three who were infected by the xenomorph reacted. One simply died, but the reaction of the other two varied greatly. It was very well done.

I found that the characters were pretty much stereotypes, not much in the way of originality, but again, that is something I won't hold against him. Sometimes a story needs vanilla characters.
There was a bit of a surprise near the end of the novel, and I really didn't care for it all that much, but that's just me. Others who read the novel more than likely will enjoy it.

Finally, the book is quite graphic in the description of the deaths involved, and when you mix humans and the aliens together, there will be few survivors.

I have to admit, I did start reading the novel with a great deal of trepidation, and the fact that I enjoyed it really surprised me. I didn't find it a joke as I had Predator: Forever Midnight.

I guess every author has an `off' book once in a while. I will, in the future, try to not let memories of his predator novel cloud my judgement towards any other novels he writes.

3.5 out of 5.

With "Steel Egg" the baton on writing novels in this second series of Alien novels is passed on to stalwart science fiction writer, and one of the godfathers of both the cyber and splatterpunk movement John Shirley. For some reason I found this novel the best of the Alien novels so far. Still, I suspect that somebody's 401 k plan was in need of a quick cash infusion as this was the last of Shirley's media projects for Dark Horse. The others being two Hellblazer novels (War Lord (John Constantine Hellblazer), Subterranean (John Constantine Hellblazer)), a Predator novel (Predator: Forever Midnight), plus he was responsible for two novelizations (Constantine, Doom) and a Batman novel (Batman: Dead White) for other publishers, all within a two-year period. In his spare time I'm sure he was brokering world peace, curing cancer, and inventing a new ice cream flavor ("Citrus Cyber Crunch") for Ben & Jerry's.

But that is all neither here-nor-there as far as "Steel Egg" goes. "Steel Egg" is a novel that takes place BEFORE the events that happened on the "Nostromo", and here the crew of the good ship "Hornblower", of the United Nations Interplanetary Corps discovers a vast egg-shaped vessel out in Saturn's orbit. While this is a surprise to the crew, a close examination of their orders show that "The Company", an influential entity that was behind the push to get the "Hornblower" out there to take a look-see, may very well have had an inkling that the alien vessel was there. So, people being what people are, the captain decides to go have a look-see, and this being an Alien novel, we all know that this is not a wise move, and not one that will end well for anybody.

Inside they find a huge area that is broken up into a labyrinth of workstations and sections, and finding that the air inside the ship is good enough to breath, they pop their suits. Continuing to explore, they find an alien personal transporter, a workstation with a computer that has a blinking warning light in the shape of a spider (hmm), and then they activate a hologram which shows one of the ship's crew getting attacked by a full grown xenomorph. As they continue their explorations, they discover a desiccated alien crewmember, a way to open transportation tunnels in the ship, and some living eggs, and in the time-honored tradition of the overconfident doing stupid things, one of our intrepid explorers decided to stick their face just where they shouldn't, and, well you know the rest. And in yet another time-honored tradition, the explorers decide to bring the infected crewmember back to the "Hornblower" for examination. Again, this is a move that never quite works out the way that it was intended. Soon a baby alien starts running around, then crewmembers start running around in a panic, then more aliens start running amok picking off crewmembers, and then the surviving crew members start running to the alien vessel to escape, and then things start to get really difficult as a competing corp. shows up. "The Chinese/Asian-Nation Cooperative" has decided to protect "their" pirated investment by sending in a search-and-destroy team to capture the alien ship, the "Hornblower" and its crew, and chaos ensues. We are about halfway through the novel and I'm already exhausted.

Whether or not he has respect for the Alien mythos, Shirley is professional enough to give us the impression that he does, and he certainly seems to understand the Alien mythos, and he seems to be enjoying himself in this work-for-hire job. Whatever the case may be, just because these novels are essentially action pieces doesn't mean that they can't have some substance to them. Shirley is an old hand at infusing cynicism in his fiction, and he has decided to go back to the roots of the Alien mythos, which was infused with a cynicism of corporations that are too big for the law, and personal egos that are too big to allow for the fact that the universe doesn't revolve around them, both of which are things that we have come to be far too familiar with in recent times since this novel has been published.

Shirley also has a good touch with dialogue, which helps in his character building, which again he does a credible job at doing in a novel meant, like all of these novels, to be more of a fast-paced action and chase piece than an overly-intellectual textual exercise. Shirley admits in an Author's Note at the beginning of "Steel Egg" that some of his novel will be contradictory to established Alien mythology, but, he also notes, that established Alien mythology is often contradictory to itself, and that "Steel Egg" is his riff on the whole Alien concept. Something that those who constantly cry about literary purity in these novels should take notice of. "Steel Egg" should be of interest to Alien fans as Shirley gives us a look at the early days of the Alien menace that has more credibility, and interest, than Michael Jan Friedman's revisionist, and overly conspiratorial re-working of the Alien universe in Friedman's Aliens: Original Sin Volume 1 (v. 1). A revisionist history that lead nowhere, and interested nobody, unlike Shirley's look at the early days of the Alien mythology, that does seem to fit more smoothly into what we already know. And once again Stephen Youll gives us one kick-ass, and intensive cover. The next novel in this series would be Aliens: Criminal Enterprise by S. D. Perry.

WOW!! this was a great book all the way through, thought the ending could have been better. i was really suprised by a few things that were hinted at in this book. thier was one referance to a hostel race other than the aliens themselves....would have thought by the time the movies take place in the would have probably ran across them some how. all in all a great book, recommend it.

You take someone with a penchant for writing horror and put him to the task of writing a spine tingling, page turner for the Aliens franchise and you get this book 'Steel Egg', by John Shirley. Right away, in the forward, the author places this book in the Aliens timeline, as the very first encounter between man and the awesome, terrifying unnamed alien race. In the orbit of Saturn an alien ship is found, a large egg shaped vessel, the crew of the Hornblower are sent to investigate. They manage to get inside and encounter alien life for the first time, the Giffs, or rather the corpses of some violent event. In time, they discover the aliens nesting ground and sure enough, someone gets too close and zap, one of thoese face sucker things and yes, the inevitable happens, poor guys is choking down food and rip! out comes the alien. From there, we get pretty formulaic. There's the people just trying to survive vs. the arrogant scientist who wants to claim the aliens as his discovery, etc etc.

I won't give more away, it is a fairly predictable read, but it's a fun, scary, violent romp with the aliens, or xenomorphs as they are referred to in this book. Suffice to say, that if you are a fan of the Aliens franchise, get this book.

Like he did for the Predator franchise, author John Shirley delves into the other, older franchise of the Predators nemesis - Aliens!

In Alien: Steel Egg Shirley does what he does best - creates a solid storyline plot and gives the Aliens further credence as to their origins and biology, as well as writes a story that actually begins BEFORE the 1st movie - Alien - where Ripley and the crew of the ill-fated Nostrodamus meet their gory doom.

Steel Egg is the story of the 1st human contact with the human race. (But now after finishing the novel, there is a section that I won't totally spoil for potential readers, where humans from different time periods are held in suspended animation.) Very cool concept, but analogous to the new books' concept...

Although this book is wayyyy better than the new Predator novel, with a much bigger storyline concept and interesting characters and differing backgrounds of sci-fi fun variety, it still seemed rushed in some parts.

Captain Daryl Corgan leads a crew aboard a Nostrodamus-like starship called the Hornblower. Although there are differences here, Steel Egg still manages to feel alot like the first movie, Alien, with its crew and overall feel for the ship, despite the seeming more high-tech contraptions of this starship than the mining ship of the Nostrodamus.

The Hornblower starship discovers an anomaly in the form of a vast egg-shaped vessel orbiting around Saturn. It is fun and pretty exciting to read about the crews' getting onboard the seemingly dead Steel Egg starship, the wandering of the huge ship and all that they discover.

We don't have to ruin the story for you, and we are sure you are intelligent enough to figure on what they find aboard the steel egg ship. But the how and why of it is an action-packed and fun story. And the addition of the background story of Earth's current status, along with the new Asian CANC threat. The race of the Asian alliance and the multi-national force out from Earth to capture the steel egg spaceship is a thrill ride reading experience. Chock-full of Aliens of all three various types, from face-huggers to Queen, are shown in all their bloody and gory might.

Although the human cast is large here, Shirley manages to at least make them interesting in their various ways, from mad scientists to hard-edged soldiers to star-crossed lovers. John Shirley writes the best Alien book to date here. We really look forward to his next installment to these franchises. Hopefully it will be back to his better book - back to the Predators!

SHIRLY CAPTURES THE FEAR AND ATMOPHERE OF THE ORIGINAL ALIEN AND ALIENS< AND PUTS IT INTO A GREAT NOVEL. THE STORY IS SO WELL WOVEN I FEEL, at TIMEs THAT I AM there.

One hazard of writing books based on movie franchises is that you never know when a new sequel or prequel is going to come along and add to the canon in such a way that what you've written is suddenly rendered non-canonical. Such will probably be the case with Steel Egg, which is John Shirley's take on humanity's first contact with the xenomorphs. Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, Prometheus, is due to be released in June of 2012, and will, of course, tell a different origin story.

All the more reason, in my opinion, to read Steel Egg right now. John Shirley is a brilliant horror and sci-fi author, and if you love the Aliens franchise as much as I do, you'll enjoy comparing and contrasting his first contact story with Ridley Scott's.

I will confess, though, that there were certain elements in Steel Egg that didn't seem quite right to me. Specifically, the use of anti-gravity devices. The humans in the story have anti-gravity technology which allows them to float heavy equipment around early on in the story. Later, as they explore a derelict alien spacecraft (the eponymous steel egg), our heroes discover alien anti-gravity devices which they're able to fly around on, kind of like airborne Segway scooters.

From a strictly technical standpoint, there's absolutely no reason anti-gravity shouldn't exist in the Aliens universe; after all, even in the relatively crude Nostromo of the first film, it is clearly demonstrated that mankind has perfected an artificial gravity technology which keeps people from floating around in their spaceships. If you can make artificial gravity, it stands to reason you can also make anti-gravity.

So there's no logical problem with this, but viscerally and stylistically, for me, anti-grav just doesn't belong in the Aliens franchise.

You may feel differently, however, and I'm still giving this book five stars, because it's a good, fun read.

Also, Shirley develops other possibilities of the Aliens mythos which I've not seen in any other Aliens-related works. For example, he actually puts some thought into explaining how a chestburster grows into a full-sized xenomorph without eating enough people to take care of the energy and material requirements such a startling change in size would require. Another neat concept he explores is the notion that the aliens may have specifically evolved, or been bio-engineered, to look like masses of tubing and equipment, and thus blend in with the interior terrain of a typical spacecraft.

As I said, Steel Egg is a fun read, the kind of fast-paced, creepy paperback that's easy to tear through very quickly. I think I devoured it over the course of one weekend, and I'm glad I did.