Oh boy. The most concise way I could describe this is disappointing, wasted potential. The book has really great parts and really, really bad bits IMO. The good parts are the best of the trilogy by far, but the bad stuff to me is baffling when a lore consultant is a coauthor. In short, first half - great! Second half - don't like it cause of the lore stuff that kept breaking my immersion. Full review:
Spoiler
The character stuff with the family in the first half is great. Worldbuilding, finding out their personal history, nice stuff. Philippa did this part well with the guidance from Clara.
Biggest missed opportunity. They had old David models at the colony (makes sense cause of the RPG). The only interaction we had with them was written so well! AND THEY NEVER USED THE DAVIDS IN THE STORY AGAIN. Why?!?! That could've added so much more... A huge waste. And that David model was the best written synth in the story.
Nothing's really done with Zula or Olivia. The new Daughter synth from Davis was the worst written android I've ever seen. That was fan fiction level. The stereotypical robotic stiffness was so hard to read. This isn't Data from Star Track. Synths have never been so robotic in the movies and in the old EU. Even the Working Joes had a malevolence and hidden depth to them (Perchance to dream...). What's the point of having a synth "learn" how to be a human? When you've had lifelike synths for over a century now? It's not like she's even acting like a child, she's just acting like a badly roleplayed robot in a RPG session. And what's with the beaming backups and synth minds all of a sudden? That was weird in the RPG, it's still wrong here. This was never in the old EU when such a thing could've been useful so many times. How could Clara, a lore consultant, approve this?
The Engineer ruins, beings and creatures derived from them are so underutilized that it's funny. None of the imagery is well described and it's all very quickly glossed over.
You down a Border Bomber and you don't even go to search the wreckage? To see who's responsible instead of guessing? Why didn't the ship fight back or evade? It just stood there.
The alien imagery is very poorly described, along with the action. Nothing's clear or detailed. You can't introduce so many new looking creatures and say almost nothing of their description. Being red doesn't mean anything.
The first Neomorph attack was well done! Why couldn't we stick with that? I doubt it was Philippa's idea, but why do creatives always want to do their own thing using existing IPs? Why weren't the Neomorphs good enough? We've never had a book about them. They're only in one movie, they could be used more. The same wasted opportunity for the book, just like Alien's Fireteam Elite. They want to use the Neos, but not use them, like wtf?
Clara said in an interview that every new piece of Alien media has to have a different variant of the Alien. That is a horrible idea and misses the point of these creatures completely if you ask me. That's what got us the A:R flesh bags and the Newborn etc.. We did not need these confusing not Neos/not Aliens.
In doing so, you've screwed up how the Pathogen works. And recently we've had clarification on these subjects! Alex White's novels and the RPG really thoroughly clear up how the Pathogen works in it's base form most of the time. A consultant should know this. And no, the stupid new red element can't help change things so drastically. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
If you want red xenos as a nod to Genocide, than use normal eggs. You have the wildlife to be creative with forms. If you use Pathogen, the creatures are never armored, always fleshy and pale. And in the later novels we have no indication of David being involved. So it's not a modified version of the Pathogen. In the sense nobody should be able to create what David was trying for 10 years. And certainly not the same thing.
And even if you did, you make in that way the greatest sin of all. If you can create normal Aliens with a Pathogen Bombing, you don't need Queens or Eggs. And it's faster. You're saying the old original is dumb and the new stuff is better and cooler. That's what I couldn't get out of my head. All the micro Easter eggs to dozens of Alien media won't mean a thing when you don't treat the Alien right. This makes no sense, so I can't take the story seriously, as canon.
And the final wtf moment I had was near the end, in the span of a few pages of each other, the main character "almost died" 3 times! Setting it up 3 times like this seriously might be it and then 3 times going with a Deus Ex Machina to save the day. Philippa obviously knows how to write engaging characters, but when the action starts, things fall apart. I mean, just spacing things out a bit would've been easy, and not to do the same thing so many times back to back (the first was with the Engineers, then the other two times, out of the caves during the final battle, if I remember correctly, the Hippo xeno and the Raptror xeno). This litteraly happens in the span of like 15 minutes of reading.
Didn't like how easily the Jackals were handling the Aliens.
Expected more, especially regarding the handling of the Pathogen and Alien lore, like, you know, the most important things in the EU so far?
