This book is just plain awful!

Spelling and grammatical errors run rampant in this garbage-fest. The new characters that are introduced are flat and one dimensional. Plus nothing stays constant from one chapter to the next.

Like the reporter guy. In one chapter he is so angry at Ripley and Call for scaring him and he is swearing to himself that he will scare them back if it's the last thing he does. Then in the next chapter he's willing to sacrifice himself so that Ripley can live? How exactly does that make sense!?!

Then we have the aliens themselves. Right on the cover of this book it says, "Ripley and Call face the deadliest aliens yet!" Yet in the book, the only difference between these aliens and the other aliens they have faced before was that their heads were a little bigger, and their skin had a slight blue tint to it. However they act completely like the other aliens that they have faced before.

This book is nothing but a waste of time. If you're a fan of the Aliens series, do yourself a favor and pass this one by.

I really like that the used clone Ripley, expanding on her and continuing her story. It really neat.

Really a 3.5

I've read all the prior Aliens books and I've enjoyed all of them quite a bit, including this one. After the first Trilogy Dark Horse took novelizing comic book series they released. However, the last book published "Berserker" was published in 1998, so it's been quite a few years since Dark Horse returned to publishing novels in the Aliens series. I was pretty excited to see new novels being published and I was even happier to see they were original stories. These are more than just a round of novelized comic books, they are entirely new adventures.

"Original Sin," despite being written many years after the fact, picks up where Alien: Resurrection left off. This is sort of the adventures of Ripley, Call, Johner and Vreiss the survivors of the movie. In this story Michael Jan Friedman takes us on a jaunt through space where Ripley fights against a shadow organization that is working with the creators of the Aliens. This time they plan to save a biodome in deep space that has been sent an Alien egg. As you can expect, disaster ensues. Michael Jan Friedman keeps the action and terror going throughout the entirety of the book and sifts in tidbits of corporate intrigue similar to themes found in the Dark Horse comics published in the 90's. His cast of characters are pretty good and he writes them well enough in such a short action packed novel.

Basically, if you're a fan of the Aliens franchise I think Michael Jan Friedman did a good job working within the realms of the lore of the series. I, personally, thought Alien: Resurrection was a great movie, until the Alien queen gave birth to a new creature with a human womb. Frankly, that was just stupid. Friedman stays away from anything so ridiculous and instead gives us an Alien variant that feels a bit more plausible.

I think Friedman clearly planned to potentially write more stories with the way this ended and allusions to fighting the shadow organization in the future. But it's 2020 now and I'm not sure he'll get the chance to write that follow-up. After looking at the backs of the novels after this, they don't appear to have anything to do with what Friedman wrote here. That's sort of the downfall of this books end... it ends with you wanting more, but in true Alien fashion they hire someone else to take on the next adventure and it probably has nothing to do with what was written before... Honestly, that's a plight of this franchise, regardless of how much I enjoy it.

The second half is a pretty standard Alien adventure with people fighting xenos in the jungle. It’s nothing special. There’s some substance, however, to how it connects to the larger “canon” pre-Prometheus. As a sequel to the Resurrection film, it connects threads to the original “space jockey” in an intriguing way and even sets up some future android-related escapades that unfortunately never got published. It’s a pity; I’m always curious to see more non-xeno-focused parts of this universe get fleshed out.

A good read, but with a lot of mistakes. Nice to see some familiar characters, but the new characters aren't introduced or described, they're just there. In the most obvious mistake, Ripley recites some quotes that Ash said in the original movie, but she quotes what he said in an early draft of the Alien script, not what he actually said in the Alien movie. Makes me wonder if the author has even seen the film, or if he just Googled some Alien quotes. Fairly average story, large parts don't make sense, but overall it works (if you overlook the mistakes and the bits that don't make sense), and was a fairly enjoyable read.

A really fun story that gives you more fun adventures with the crew of the Betty and Ripley-8. The characters are all well drawn and the plot is a lot of fun but this book gets...weird. It mostly works but a few late book reveals definitely made me a bit skeptical and it doesn't really explain why ANY of Alien: Resurrection happened if xenos are still out there. Oh well, it's fun just don't think on it super hard in terms of canon. Ripley gets a dog, so that's dope.

Ticks all the standard Aliens boxes, but the new elements the author tries to add to the Aliens universe aren't adequately explained, and ultimately seem like lazy narrative convenience.

To put it in perspective, this book was published 7 years after Alien Resurrection and 7 years before Prometheus. It is so far the only sequel (not counting the crossover n  Aliens vs. Predator vs. the Terminatorn) to the movie that saw the birth of Ripley 8 aboard the USM research ship Auriga, a clone of the original Ripley that was created 200 years after her death on Fiorina 161.

This book is no great masterpiece; it is a simple story, a quick read that contains some new revelations for fans of the series. It is a quick and entertaining read, with surprises and twists right until the end, enough to keep turning the pages. It goes a bit like this: in the years since the destruction of the Auriga in 2381 and the death of some of the smuggler crew of the Betty (Elgyn, Christie and Hillard), the surviving members Call, Johner and Vries have taken on Ripley 8 as their captain along with some new members: Krakke, Rama and pilot Bolero. They have been hacking into USM and government stations to gather info about a shadowy human organization that has been in contact with the race of the pilot of the derelict from Alien, here called Mala'kak (remember, that was before Prometheus and Engineers) and making deals with them for centuries. This is a conspiracy way beyond the type that we saw in the movies with Weyland-Yutani and low-level executives and androids. The first part of the book deals with the crew infiltrating a final space station where they get the final piece of info they wanted. Which leads them to Domes Epsilon, one of six maintained-but-unsupported garden colonies that lay across the system (or galaxy? the locations are not specified).

In the meantime, we get to know the botanists that live in the Domes colony. The characters have more dialogue and are more developed than the Betty crew, in that vibe of "get readers to like them so they can feel bad when they die". I don't want to spoil the story too much, but let's say that some aliens are released, and Ripley and her crew arrive to kick some ass and chew bubble gum. But they are all out of bubble gum. As mentioned, a few surprises ensue, and the ending sets up a potential sequel with a new purpose for Call, and an important nemesis now that the Betty crew have messed up the organization's (which they nicknamed "Loki") plans which means they are sure to get after them in a big way. Also, what about the other five botanical domes? Being a fan of the fourth movie, I might be a bit biased about this book and I really wish that Friedman had written at least one more adventure for Ripley and her crew. But I am probably the only one.

2.5 stars for the Return to Aliens, but not enough actual aliens or Ripley.

Естеството на този тип мърч-четива, базирани на филмови сценарии, не предполага кой знае какво качество на прозата, но Майкъл Ян Фрайндман се е справил съвсем прилично и тънката книжка, придобита още през 2019 през една от безбройните онлайн промоции, доволно ме израдва. Доколкото успях да се ориентирам (че и с Aliens Вселената не съм особено запознат) романът е продължение на събитията от четвъртия филм Пришълецът: Завръщането и лейтенант Елън Рипли се подвизава два века след основите събития под формата на клонинга Рипли 8. Новата мисия я отвежда на една затънтена ботаническа колония, която трябва да бъде прочистена от досадните зъбатковци, а наглед локалната криза се оказва част от доста по-мащабен план...