I started River of Pain but quickly ditched it upon realising it was just filling the Hadley Hope gap from Aliens. Do we really need to witness the birth of Newt? Do we need to know the details of how exactly the research station gets overrun by Xenomorphs? Many would say that the Hadley Hope scenes from Cameron's extended cut are the worst part of the film, providing needless insight and robbing later events of tension and mystery. Writing a book about it was a terrible idea.

Sea of Sorrows was easier to stick with but ultimately felt like a complete waste of time. An entirely pointless entry that does nothing to expand on the potentially interesting lore introduced in Out of the Shadows. All our time is spent waiting for characters to figure out information we already have from the first novel, as well as the slow and painful rediscovery of the xenomorph's evolutionary cycle. And how can Yutani Corp not have any info on how this creature operates by this point? The most interesting aspect is the presence of an empath, but it takes the series into a branch of science fiction I'm not sure I'm comfortable with and it isn't used to do anything interesting (beyond informing us that the aliens have a vendetta against Ripley's bloodline. Yeesh).

Again, as an audio drama, it is well produced, but it's not enough to overcome dire writing. ( )

This is my third in the Alien canonical series and it was quite good. Action scenes can be lost in reader’s theatre performances but it was pretty easy to follow what was going on her. Characterization was particularly strong and compelling. The best so far in the series. We also got deeper into the aliens—their thought processes and drives. When I finished tis I couldn’t help but think that there are so many stories left to be told in this franchise, like a prequel dealing with how the zenomorphs came to Archeron in the first place and their titanic struggle with the ancient race from that planet, as well as what happened after the action in this story. I don’t want to give anything away but while this story does come to a satisfying conclusion, it sets up more stories to come. ( )

When i started reading the book i must admit i found the basic premise a little bit far fetched. Thankfully, i continued the reading and J.A. Moore gave me a full reward for my time. A well written book that definetelly pays tribute to the films upon which is loosely based. All in all i would say that if you are an "Alien Universe" follower, this is a must read. ( )

Diese Buch ist besser als sein Vorgänger (Alien - In den Schatten) - es ist etwas spannender, die Handlung ist weniger absurd, die Personen besser gezeichnet. Allerdings bleibt ein Grundproblem der Serie bestehen: Der Reiz des Alien-Originals beruht auf dem Schrecken des Unbekannten und der Fremdartigkeit der Wesen. Nun aber kennen die Leser und Leserinnen ihre Aliens und lassen sich nicht immer wieder von den Methoden der Brutpflege überraschen. Daher treten Action-Elemente stärker in den Vordergrund und die Variation der immer gleichen Versatzstücke (ein abgelegener Planet, böse Aliens, noch bösere Menschen, die sie zu ihrem Profit verwenden wollen) nutzt sich ab. ( )