Cover to Alien: Out of the Shadows, the first installment of the trilogy.
The 2014 Alien novel trilogy, also referred to as the Out of the Shadows trilogy after the first constituent novel, is a novel trilogy written by Tim Lebbon, James A. Moore and Christopher Golden and published by Titan Books. It consists of the novels Alien: Out of the Shadows, Alien: Sea of Sorrows and Alien: River of Pain; although they do not form a single continuous storyline, each of the books was designed to tie into the events of the existing Alien films and explore different eras of that series.
As well as the standard print editions, each of the novels has been adapted as an audio drama, read by an ensemble cast and directed by Dirk Maggs. Out of the Shadows has also been released as a standard audiobook.
Plot[]
Despite being marketed as a trilogy, the books are only loosely connected and each detail individual encounters with the Xenomorphs spread across different eras. However, the first and second novels in the trilogy are set predominantly on New Galveston, a planet housing a human mining colony and the ruins of an advanced alien civilization known as the Drukathi, a canid-like species with an apparent connection to the Xenomorphs.
2014 Alien Trilogy Novels[]
- Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon
- Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore
- Alien: River of Pain by Christopher Golden
Trivia[]
- The 2014 Alien novel trilogy was the second time the trilogy format was employed for novels in the Alien/Predator/Alien vs. Predator franchise, after the original Aliens novel trilogy. The trilogy format would be used again for the Rage War trilogy.
- Each of the novels in the trilogy concludes in a similar fashion, with one or more survivors adrift in space and facing an uncertain future — in Out of the Shadows, Hoop escapes alone aboard a sub-FTL shuttle with little hope of rescue, in Sea of Sorrows, Decker and the other survivors from New Galveston (some of whom have been impregnated by Facehuggers) are captured by Weyland-Yutani, and in River of Pain, Brackett and his fellow survivors head out into space with the intention of confronting Weyland-Yutani for what they have done. Each novel thus ends on something of a cliffhanger that sets up a potential sequel. However, the only book of the three to have received a sequel is Sea of Sorrows, and even then only indirectly — the samples acquired by Weyland-Yutani at the end of the book would go on to be a background plot point in Predator: Incursion.
- Two of the authors from the trilogy would go on to write tie-in novels for the 2018 film Plantilla:P4 — Christopher Golden co-wrote the movie's novelisation, while James A. Moore wrote its official prequel novel The Predator: Hunters and Hunted.