Customer Reviews

Outland: The Novelization

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Not the other way around.

This also happened with the novelization of Alien which Foster did. In both cases, Foster did a superb job of taking a science fiction script and making the story believable and functional in the form of a novel.

He's a wonderful writer, and if you enjou his work, I expect you'd enjoy this one as well.

Even in the future, a shotgun is a powerful weapon.

On a mining outpost near Jupiter, Marshal O'Niel (Sean Connery) uncovers a deadly drug ring. However, the mining colony is a rough place, and the folk there, including O'Niel, are not exactly model citizens. When professional assassins are sent on the next shuttle to take care of the "O'Niel problem," O'Niel finds out who his real friends are. It's a real, real short list.

I've always thought this is a thrilling movie. This book, Outland: The Novelization, tries to capture that excitement, but the film is so much more powerful. I suspect it would be an entertaining book if I hadn't watched the movie version, but I'm stuck forever with the vision of Sean Connery and his shotgun here.

Take one tough lawman abandoned by his wife, several killers arriving at a set time, a miserable community not worth saving, and some ammunition. It sounds like "High Noon," except in "Outland" it's happening on a moon orbiting Jupiter.

The resemblance to "High Noon" is deliberate and a worthy variation on a theme. I wish Alan Dean Foster had done more with the characters and setting, even if he was working from a movie script written by others. Sure, his 1981 "Outland" is a tie-in, but so was Foster's more memorable "Alien" from two years before. That one kept you up at night; this one is easier to put down.

You do get a solid action yarn with hints of a dystopian future and a rooting interest in U.S. marshal hero William T. O'Niel, played in the movie by Sean Connery. Yet the concept of transposing "High Noon" to a mining colony on the Jovian moon Io is underutilized. You can't see the sets here, but you could have gotten more backstory, characterization, and setting than "Outland" delivers. The writing here is spare to the point of desiccation.

O'Niel is the new guy on Io who quickly picks up on the fact something is not right with a series of fatal accidents. His efforts to get to the bottom of the problem run afoul of the man in charge of the mining colony, Sheppard, who sees only rising productivity records and has no desire to rock the boat. "There isn't another mine or manufacturing facility outside Mars that can boast our profit margin," he tells O'Niel. "I expect it to continue that way."

That's the main difference between this story and "High Noon," that O'Niel is up against some nasty corporate interests as well as the killers on the noon train, er, shuttle. Frankly, I could have used a little more meat on the bone in that regard; without getting into spoilers Sheppard's whole tack on running his mine reflects a rather weak grip on the bottom line.

Foster delves a bit into how the mining colony operates. He starts off with an eerie scene that uses the specter of Jupiter, "a monstrous, bloated globe of banded yellow and orange hell," to prickly if somewhat purple effect. But the colony itself doesn't take on a life of its own, either as a community or battlefield. A few bar scenes with naked dancers in glass cases reads like a futuristic go-go set rather than an authentic form of recreation, and the colonists of Io come off as a bland lot all down the line. Too much time is spent watching O'Niel watching his adversaries on closed-circuit television or listening in on their conversations with ridiculous ease.

The ending does deliver some surprises, paying off the investment of your time if you like action stories and don't mind if things get a bit rote. There were a couple of places where Foster snuck up on me to good effect, perhaps because I was taking him too much for granted, but still points for him. I just wish he had taken this tie-in to the next level, and created something worth reading for people who enjoyed the movie, not just those who don't have it on DVD.

Pretty decent. In this case, the book is probably better, and makes slightly more sense than the movie.

This is the best horror/sci-fi I have ever read. A greedy mining company combined with outer space miners and a dedicated Marshall makes for an excellent read. However, I was most impressed with the author's outstanding physical description of the mine.
Also, the movie left out some details which this brilliant author added. I never enjoyed a novel this much.

Alan Dean Foster specializes in writing novels adaptable for the big screen. As such they are not intellectual nor deep nor demand a lot from the reader. They are usually fun to read and quick to finish (BIG writing and short-medium lengthn stories). People know OUTLAND mostly from the excellent, dark film adaptation starring Sean Connery. Lots of intrigue, lots of action, the good guy wins in the end. So utterly typical but we all love it anyway.