Alien: Colony War is a 2022 novel written by David Barnett and published by Titan Books. The story deals with rampant political discontent between the nations of Earth after the events of Alex White's Alien: Into Charybdis, and introduces Chad McLaren, the husband of Amanda Ripley, who is caught in the middle of both the interhuman conflicts and efforts by the conflicting sides to weaponize the Xenomorph. The novel also contains an exclusive tie-in game scenario based on the Alien: RPG titled Fallout. It was released on April 26, 2022 as part of Alien Day.
As well as standard print editions, the novel was released in audiobook format, read by Shiromi Arserio and published by Blackstone Audio.
Publisher's Summary[]
On Earth, political tensions boil over between the United Americas, Union of Progressive Peoples, and Three World Empire. Conflict spreads to the outer fringes, and the UK colony of New Albion breaks with the Three World Empire. This could lead to a...
COLONY WAR
Trapped in the middle are journalist Cher Hunt, scientist Chad McLaren, and the synthetic Davis. Seeking to discover who caused the death of her sister, Shy Hunt, Cher uncovers a far bigger story. McLaren's mission, fought alongside his wife Amanda Ripley, is to stop the militarization of the deadliest weapon of all — the Xenomorph.
Their trail leads to a drilling facility on LV-187. Someone or something has destroyed it, killing the personnel, and the British are blamed. Colonial forces arrive, combat erupts, then both groups are overwhelmed by an alien swarm. Their only hope may lie with the Royal Marines unit known as "God's Hammer".
Plot[]
The STSV Clara, a space towing and salvage vessel owned and operated by Gambell Reclamations, commissioned by Weyland-Yutani to recover ore from a crashed freighter somewhere out on the frontier, had, itself, mysteriously crash-landed on New Albion. Based on an initial investigation, Chad McLaren and Davis suspected that the Clara was carrying ovomorphs salvaged from the crash site, before someone boarded the ship while the crew was asleep, stole the eggs, crashed the ship, killed its crew in the process, and planted the eggs on LV-187 in an attempt to destabilize the colony so the oil rich planet could be claimed by a competing entity.
When Cherokee Hunt is contacted in 2186 via postcard from Hasanova sent by an anonymous source claiming to have information regarding the truth behind her sister's death, being the independent journalist that she is, she makes the trip to New Albion in an attempt to meet the anonymous tipster. Upon her arrival, she is contacted by her source and instructed to meet at a pub where she is approached by a tall man and his brown dog, a Cockapoo named Davis. The man introduces himself as Chad McLaren, the husband of Amanda RIpley, who he says is frozen in cryo until a cure for the disease consuming her is discovered. Chad discloses to Cher his former position as a scientist in a Weyland-Yutani lab where he witnessed Xenomorph experimentation and tells her that this monstrous creature is the reason behind her sister's death.
Audiobook[]
Blackstone Audio produced an unabridged audiobook of Alien: Colony War, read by Shiromi Arserio. The audiobook runs for 14 hours and was released on April 19, 2022.
Goofs[]
- While the extended Special Edition of Aliens and its novelization are notable for including the first mention of Amanda Ripley's married name, McClaren, it wasn't until the release of the 2014 novel Alien: Sea of Sorrows that the spelling of the name, when mentioned in passing, was altered to McLaren, which then went on to be used throughout Alien: Colony War in reference to Amanda's husband, Chad.
- While Alphatech is only mentioned twice throughout the entire novel, it is misspelled once as Alphatec.
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