It has to be said that I really enjoyed Alien: Covenant the film. It wasn't everything I was hoping for, but it hit enough of my check boxes for me to be satisfied. My biggest problem was not knowing more about the 10 years between Prometheus, and the time that David and Shaw spent on Paradise. I was wanting to know more about the planet, about the Engineers, and to see the tension between David and Shaw that eventually led to him killing her.
With that out of the way...I was cautiously hopeful that this new novel by Alan Dean Foster might touch on some of those things, but I also didn't expect it. After reading the synopsis of the book, I wasn't interested in the slightest. But I went into the book with an open mind, also curious about Foster's writing style as I have never read any of his work.
Almost immediately I struggled with the story. Chapter after chapter, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't bring myself to care about the situations, or the plot, such as it is. The entire novel seems to exist for no other purpose:
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than to maybe, sort of, kinda connect the dots to how and why Captain Branson was killed. Why his hypersleep chamber caught on fire. Truly...that's it.
There is a cult on Earth. The leader is called the Prophet and he has visions of a terrifying alien force that is wiping out humanity. His visions actually sound a little like what we see when David drops the goo on Paradise. He sends out martyrs to try and sabotage the Covenant, fearing that whatever mission it accomplishes will eventually lead to the destruction of earth.
It pains me to say it, but that is the entire story. We see some of the characters from the film, but I don't remember a single moment when something was illuminated, or a piece of information dispensed that made me feel I'd learned something valuable.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised that this novel was published at all. Considering executives speaking about Covenant's disappointing box office numbers, it would seem that a story with more direct connection to either Aliens, Engineers, Prometheus, or Paradise would have been wiser. There are none of those things in this novel. It is simply characters from the Covenant preparing to launch while a few nut jobs try to sabotage the ship.
I understand that Alan Dean Foster has written many film adaptations, but this novel does not make me want to seek out anything else he has written. The writing did not draw me in, if anything it actually pushed me away. To me anyway, it did not have an immersive quality. I hesitate to speculate, but:
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the novel truly does read like someone from Fox said, "I've seen a lot of complaints online about James Franco's character dying, and people not understanding what happened with his hyper sleep pod. We should try and explain that. Here, Alan, write a book that makes sense of that."
In my opinion, I can't see the any other purpose for this book to exist and tell the story it does. Hardcore fans of the Alien universe will be sorely disappointed, and casual fans won't even bother reading this. Why would they? A story about religious nuts trying to blow up a ship...a story that has almost nothing to do with the Alien universe.
I've been waiting months to read this book, hoping that the synopsis was slightly misleading and that there would be more to the story. Unfortunately, the synopsis was dead on, and I am truly disappointed.
