Owen Williams’s new Book
of Alien feels like another slightly misguided product for children based
on a very adult movie. The book is constructed as a survival guide full of files
on the various monsters, past space crews, missions (i.e.: movie plots), and machines
for marines dealing with chest bursters, face huggers, queens, and other
nasties in that place where no one can hear you scream. That semi-cute conceit is
what makes the book feel like it’s intended for kids, and the rah-rah-military
attitude feels out of line with films that were often deeply critical of the
military industrial complex. Nevertheless, Book
of Alien is great to gaze at it with its spiffy design and abundance of
photos and illustrations of Aliens, spacecraft, and high-tech weaponry. Interestingly,
the series’ casts are almost entirely absent from the visuals—not a single snap
of Sigourney in the bunch. But I think anyone who will really be into this book
will care less about the film’s human elements more and more about the monsters
and gadgetry. Kids love that stuff.
