You should give Sea of Sorrows a try. Its got minimal references to the films and their characters, making it truly an ORIGINAL story, unlike the other two books claim. Its also very well balanced: its got the build up, character development, suspense and then the action, unlike Out of the Shadows "And there was blood" and dropships start crashing already on the second page, or its cliche lines like "structure seems intact, they still have power", or River of Pain 75% of it was just describing the love interest between the main character and Anne, and then when the aliens come it was like 'oh, 15-20 were taken yesterday, oh those that stayed behind (about 50 people) were taken, it just ends very quickly.