I picked up Aliens: Original Sin because I've been craving some new Alien related material. I honestly didn't care what it was, I just wanted a good, compelling story featuring interesting characters in dire situations with aliens causing them problems. I've tried a few things prior to settling on Original Sin and, in all honestly, they almost killed the craving entirely and not in a good way.

Alien: Prototype and Aliens: Rescue left a pretty bad taste in my mouth so I was hesitant to try another story set in the universe. The setting of OS kind of suckered me in, though, as I was so intrigued by the prospect of going beyond the ending of Alien: Resurrection and having another adventure with Ripley 8, Call, Johner, Vriess.

My fears were totally unwarranted.

Aside from one small non-canon plot point (made so by the prequel films, Prometheus and Covenant), this was everything I could have wanted from a post Resurrection outing. Author Michael Jan Friedman has the voices of the characters down so perfectly that it was easy to imagine the dialogue coming directly from the mouths of the actors who originated these roles. Ripley 8 was equal parts creepy, tragic, and badass, and the setting and storyline fit the tone and atmosphere of the series perfectly.

I'm actually sad that the series did not continue in this direction as every other book from this period of Alien tie-in novels chooses a different era to take place in and do not feature these characters.

I want more.

Resurrection is still canon. These characters are still out there, still viable, and their continuing adventures is something I would definitely continue to spend time and money on, whether it be in novel or comic book form. Considering how polarized fans of the franchise can get, it almost makes sense to just expand in all directions with the series. The prequels are there for people who want to have more in the way of beginnings. There's the material with Amanda Ripley that caters to people who prefer the era between Alien and Aliens. And more stories building off of Resurrection could be fascinating and help keep things from going stale or overcrowding any one time frame for the franchise.

Anyways, I'm ranting.

Aliens: Original Sin. It's great. I really dug it and I want more.

Maybe I'm the only one who liked it this much.

Only media based post-Resurection (aside from Alien/Predator/Terminator comic). Asks a lot of questions about possible human alliance with Jocky/Engineer species, which assume will never be answered. Freedman is great writter and the his take on Ripley 8 is spot on.

Such a disappointment. I really wanted to love this book and I am not picky at all but I just hated this book. I have no idea what was going on here and I couldn’t have cared less which deeply saddens me.

Fun, nice to see a book set after Alien: Resurrection.

Not a masterpiece but still a nice light booklet for the lazy afternoons. ;)

Now I'm starting the "second wave" of Aliens novels from Dark Horse. The first set were just adaptations of comic series, this set are new stories.

Original Sin is a direct sequel to Aliens: Resurrection, picking up right after the end of the film. So this is "Alien Clone Ripley" as the main character. It seems to me the best Aliens stories usually have Ripley. Call, Johner and Vreiss show up as well.

There's some background given on the alien pilot from the original Alien movie, so we're getting some different info then what was released after the Prometheus films. In this case, there seems to be a conspiracy between humans and the "Engineers" regarding the Alien creatures. It's a cool take on the mythos.

Overall this is good for Aliens fans, especially if you enjoyed Aliens Resurrection. It's been a while since I watched that one, but I was able to pick things up fairly quickly.

Original Sin not only ushered in a new series of Aliens books, under a new publisher, but it also started the first of several original Aliens novels (the Bantam ones having been adaptations of graphic novels). I was looking forward to seeing what these books would be like, but I forgot that (a) it's hard to come up with an original story featuring the xenomorphs, and (b) they weren't exactly getting top-tier authors to write these. Original Sin isn't as bad as, say, Music of the Spears, but the prose is very plain, the characters are inconsistent, and the style is very tell-y. That it also serves as a sequel to Alien: Resurrection just hammers that nail right into the coffin.

It was probably a bad idea to get all of these Aliens books before seeing how low-quality the series would be. Now I feel compelled to finish them all.

John Shirley wrote one of the later books. Surely THAT one will be good, right?

The book started off pretty slow but had a decent ending.

Michael Jan Friedman takes up Ripley’s tale following the events of Alien: Resurrection. Joined by Call, Johner, and Vreiss, Ripley takes on a mysterious organization whose agenda includes home delivery of Alien eggs. The books seems a little light. It’s a setup for more stories to follow and I think it would have made a better comic mini-series than a novel.

Published in mass-market paperback by Dark Horse Books.

A very good continuation of the movie

It's entertaining, even though at times it's forced or the author employs tactics in a "oh, check out this nifty plot mechanic" way. I say this would rank in at about 3.5 stars, so I'll roll it to 3

Aliens Novels: Book 10, Original Sin / 1-59582-015-9

In my review of "Berserker", I lamented the fact that none of the aliens novels so far have strayed from the two basic plot lines of (1) mad scientist lets experiments get out of hand and (2) trained troops infiltrate hive in search of MacGuffin. I noted that in both these cases, it's difficult to sympathize with the victims because no matter how likable they are, they really should have known better than to muck with aliens. I've actually, in fact, been pretty surprised that none of the novels so far have taken place from an "innocent colony infiltrated by unexpected alien/egg" perspective, which would seem to practically write itself. Fortunately, along comes "Original Sin" to answer my request and in a thoroughly original and compelling manner.

"Original Sin" is the first of the aliens novels to key directly off of the film series, and it does so by following the survivors of "Alien Resurrection". Now, I liked the "Alien Resurrection" movie far more than most (although I did not think highly of the novelization of the same), but I would be the first to note that some of the characters in the film were not fleshed out thoroughly beyond basic, familiar stereotypes. Freidman has addressed that particular problem right out of the gate and wastes no time fleshing out the characters and motivations of the survivors, all against a backdrop of interesting action and constant narrative movement.

This deserves a mention: "Original Sin" is one of the best written aliens novels from a perspective of exposition-versus-action. Friedman seems to instinctively understand how to start with a bang, where to insert quick characterization within the action, and when to pull back the throttle slightly and feed a little more exposition to the reader. And after over thirteen of these novels (nine novels and four film novelizations), I deeply appreciate this talent.

The motivations of the survivors are elegantly simple - Ripley and Call are driven to protect humans and eradicate aliens; the rest of them are simply hoping that an eradication of the alien race will allow them to sleep well again at night. In order to provide a more deadly antagonist, Friedman has invented a shadowy organization (a bit more subtle than the usual W/Y setup) intent on growing and utilizing the aliens for their own nefarious ends. How much the reader will go along with this will depend, I think, on how much you need the aliens novels to fit a canon, but again, after thirteen of these novels, the series seems badly in need of 'mixing it up' a bit. Similarly, the alien species in "Original Sin" have been genetically tampered with, largely to provide a bigger challenge to Ripley/Eight.

Despite its unorthodox plot elements, I regard "Original Sin" as one of the best in the series.

~ Ana Mardoll