Perhaps the best alien audio adaptation yet.

For those who’ve been disappointed with alien 3 and it’s sequels, I think alien out of shadows is a welcome return to the alien universe. It’s well plotted perhaps not up to the standard of Alien but that was not only ground breaking but it’s pure visceral impact has yet to be matched. Voice acting is better than good as well as sounds effects. The actress playing Ripley inhabits her persona well and her voice sounds like sigourney weaver. And the antagonist is introduced a little too early. A more than worthy listen.

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excellent, cannot praise enough

i listened to the alien trilogy (out of the shadows, river of pain, sea of sorrows) in the wrong order. i listened to river of pain first, out of the shadows second and i am currently going through sea of sorrows. out of the shadows is by far the best of the three - and that's a pretty strong statement given how good the other two are. the writing is just so perfect, the voice acting of the cast could literally not get any better. rutger hauer was an absolute pleasure to listen to - though the entire cast really did do an amazing job.

i fell so in love with the crew, i really was dreading the end of the the story because (possible spoiler) due to my jumbled listening order i knew that river of pain was another chapter in the universe through new eyes. would recommend this to anyone who has even just a vague idea of the alien universe. the sound design, the soundtrack - all the technical stuff - was mind blowing.

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Ripley's Believe it or not

The novel was a welcome addition to the Alien franchise but Ripley's presence was odd and unnecessary. The author made a good attempt at salvaging a need for her presence between the first and second films but still, the conflict in the Alien universe remains the same, the real threat are the synthetics and Weyland-Yutani; the Aliens are only the weapon used by these nefarious wielders.

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Good, compelling, but I found myself wishing...

... that this was the Alien story that William Gibson wrote. Trying to communicate a historically visual story world is tricky as an audio drama, understandably. Much description of protocol and procedure become necessary—for the plot, blocking, mapping to all make sense. Few can do—describe, thematize—such things as Gibson can, to say nothing of what he can do with “problematic” artificial intelligences.

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Great listen

After listening to this podcast I would love for the powers that be to make an Alien tv series.

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Best of the Trilogy

They’re Bugs. They lay eggs, they hatch, they takeover…

Amazing Production, outstanding story, all in all the best Aliens audio book to date imo.

Laurel Lefkow as Sigourney Weaver

Her cadence, her speech pattern, her breath pauses, if it didn't say Laurel Lefkow as Ripley after each episode, I would have just assumed it was Sigourney Weaver. Speaking of, why is this a 10 part series rather than a single download? It works though. Using Ruger Hauer was almost distracting, I kept waiting for him to go into his Blade Runner monolog, but he did a great reading. I like that the story wrapped back into the 2nd movie, but almost as a cop out, I'd liked to have seen it done different.

Alien: Out of the Shadows

If you are a fan of the first 2 Alien movies you will love this. I could not stop listening to it. Wow give this a chance you will not be disappointed.

Enjoyable but unnecessary

This is the first dramatization I can recall listening to - and I really liked it! It helps that I'm a die-hard Alien fan, but I found the performances enjoyable and Ripley's voice actress does a pretty fantastic impersonation. I have not read the text or heard it read, so I can only comment on the story as it was performed. I thought it was a pretty decent story... except that its draw of having Ellen Ripley as a character is a more of a detriment than anything.

This could have been an excellent stand-alone story but Ripley's presence sets it between Alien and Aliens. Automatically, this limits any tension involving her character because the story is determined that she make it to Aliens. The rest of our cast is new, even if they do fall into well known tropes. They're all competently presented and likable to different degrees, despite some very blatant nods to the original Nostromo crew. Some characters do feel too similar to one another - it's a lot of the same glib tone in interactions. It can make remembering characters later difficult - I listened to it within a week and honestly I've forgotten most of the character names. This might be a downside of the dramatization, although I'm leaning toward it being the writing.

As for the conflict, it's very out-of-the-frying-pan, into-the-fire but with aliens! It feels like a combination of comic stories, primarily Aliens: Dead Orbit. The antagonist is introduced early and brought a smile to my face, but like Ripley, could be replaced or not included. Pacing felt like a problem with few plot beats having time to breathe, partly a necessity as our cast is working against the clock, and I suspect partly a result of being a performance without the descriptive text between dialogue. I like a slower pace with higher tension. Which brings me to the issue with our alien menace: there are too many when a pair or singular creature would've satisfied and had more weight - this is probably more of a personal preference/"how I would have done it" criticism.

Ultimately, this is a fine Alien story (insofar as I remember them being) with a couple of unnecessary characters.

Can’t even Explain

My lord. I loved this. I legit felt like there was a movie playing in my head. I wish they’d make movie adaptations of this and I can’t wait to listen to the rest