Andrew Edwards's Reviews > Alien: Inferno's Fall

** spoiler alert ** Sadly this was a real letdown of a book.
I didn’t even mind Colony War and where this overarching story was heading, wasn’t in love with it but happy to go along for the ride, but this book was a real wasted opportunity.
* On almost every page the author includes a throwaway line about life back on earth. It really shatters the immersion when Australia and New Zealand are name dropped constantly in an escapist ALIEN novel
* Rather than show us how cool/strong/tough the characters are, the story keeps assuring us that they are by referencing some apocalypse in Canberra. It’s not relevant to the story at all and I wish this time was spent exploring the characters instead.
* The story itself really had nothing to do with xenomorphs sadly. The few times they appear it’s usually only very short and other than saying “they’re red”, the aliens are hardly described. The Xenos could’ve been swapped out with generic monster and the book would stay the same
* The author introduced WAY too many characters, especially since so little time is spent on any of them and it’s such a short book.
* Plot hole: what the hell happened to drop ship 1? The bridge for some reason aren’t even keeping in contact with it. But when they finally realise it’s gone silent and just drifting slowly, they don’t send EITHER of the other two ships to investigate. What the hell?
* The proof reading was really lacking. Here’s an example: “He unlocked from himself from the bridge’s wall”
* Why was Zulu Hendricks shoehorned in the book, in which she did absolutely nothing. This “amazing” character that keeps getting teased spent the whole book sitting in the bridge contributing nothing and giving us no character development. How many books are you going to waste selling us this character that you haven’t shown is interesting in any way?
* Finally, to put the only actual story progression in the epilogue is outrageous and an insult to the reader who just finished the main story.
The author clearly wanted to write a dystopian disaster book set in Canberra, but sadly had to write an alien book instead and make do. I don’t like the direction these novels are heading in, it would be much safer to stick with the contained stories