Alien: Inferno's Fall

An Original Novel Based on the Films from 20th Century Studios

By: Philippa Ballantine

Narrated by: Julienne Irons

A gargantuan horseshoe-shaped ship appears over the mining planet Shānmén, unleashing a black rain of death that creates Xenomorph-like monsters worse than the darkest of nightmares.

As war breaks out among the colonies, a huge ship appears over the UPP mining planet Shānmén, releasing a horror that yields hideous transformations. Rescue is too far away, and the colonists’ only hope appears in the form of the vessel Righteous Fury. It carries the Jackals—an elite mix of former Colonial Marines and Royal Marines. Led by Zula Hendricks, the Jackals seek to rescue the few survivors from the depths of the planet, but have they arrived on time?

©2022 Philippa Ballantine and Clara Carija (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Well it’s a book.

Light on aliens, heavy on characters with little impact on the story. I want my ten hours back.

Would have been great if not for the reader.

The reader mispronounces so many words that I couldn't just ignore it... it kept pulling my attention away and really hurt my enjoyment of what should have been a great book. A good reader can elevate a book, but one like this really takes away from it.

Good story, but narration is grating.

A good story - not the best, but it kept my attention. It would have been a page-turner if I was reading a physical book. Unfortunately the narration was far too distracting. “Frightened” was “Frighened”, as if the “t” had suddenly become silent and someone forgot to tell me. “Brightened” became “brighened”. There are
Other examples far too numerous to mention. I had to force myself to keep listening - it’s not the author’s fault.

Too much… drama, not enough sci-fi

I appreciate that the book itself followed the same universe and characters from the previous one but this one started with such promise and dissolved into what felt like a whole lot of mostly political culture and female drama. Don’t get me wrong, some of it was well placed and really struck a chord, but overall I felt as though there was too much focus on those aspects and much less focus on the traditional things that make alien and anything associated with it, successful. Kudos to the narrator for her broad ability to manage accents and distinguish characters, and especially for voicing Mae. Well done there. Worth a listen but don’t expect too much in the way of a typical alien novel, and don’t expect an upgrade from one either.

Very compelling and different

What an interesting storyline about an ordinary person and not so ordinary one who become linked together. Only confused on who worked for whoever.

It was ok.

I had no problem with the narration of the story. However, it took forever to see any action. The book mostly covered the way of life for a terra former and their struggles. I did like the continued story line of Zula Hendricks.

A great addition to the Alien Universe

I loved this story and the way the author told it through the lens of a strong community of females. The characters were independent, capable, and self sufficient. I am glad I chose to read this book, ignoring other comments that misconstrued the story as anti-men . The truth is that women voices are typically filtered through a men-focused scope. For this storyline to revolve on internal dialogue of a woman must be extremely triggering for those with low confidence or are unable to accept that females can survive without male interference. We could all use a pleasure droid to avoid having to hear mundane epithets on feminism from the opposite sex.

not the best alien book but not the worst

it's a well-written book entertaining enough but alien stuff comes few and far between when I read an alien book I want to deal with aliens

Hmmmm

It is encouraging to know women see men only as disappointments in the end. Real or plastic.

while laced with woke overtones, the story was ok

the author tried to bake a lot of modern themes of feminism, oppression, slavery and body dysphoria into a moderately interesting storyline. the cliche bad GUYs were not very believable and they really could have spent more time building up to the climax which felt rushed.