With Alien 3 having come out before I was even born, I hadn't been aware of what a rocky production the blockbuster suffered from. Initially, William Gibson was meant to write the script for it, which, mind you, he did. While that potential version of the sequel never went into production, it now received a second life in form of this novel.

Alien 3: The Lost Screenplay is actually a novelisation of said screenplay, revealing that Alien 3 could have potentially turned out to be a very different film. Following the events of Aliens, it is an action-packed story of Corporal Hicks and the android Bishop as they battle their way through xenomorphs in an area that feels very reminiscent of the Soviet Union, but is instead called the Union of Progressive People here.

I thought the claustrophobic atmosphere didn't transfer quite as well onto the pages. While the story of the franchise occasionally likes to go a bit overboard in terms of believability, it's how everything feels that makes watching the films such a singular experience. That uncomfortable, dark and very specific atmosphere never quite came up in this novel, which might have something to do with the entire story being driven by fights and action, which I generally find more interesting on screen than on page.

The story is fine, just not very interesting altogether. Fans of Hicks will be pleased to find that he doesn't get killed off in the first five minutes of the story as he unceremoniously did (off-screen even) in the film, but instead even takes the lead here. This does cost us Ripley, though, who is stepping back in here and remains a mere name mentioned every now and then. The xenomorphs have become more deadly, too, which made them to me less interesting: they're nothing more than killing machines and became hard to see as proper antagonists as their existence felt so meaningless. Again something that I find easier to forgive on screen than I do in a novel, where I personally enjoy motives to threats and enemies.

This will probably appeal only to die-hard fans. A lot of the storytelling relies on you getting excited to spend more time with characters you already know. The novel itself doesn't give you a lot of reasons to root for the protagonists or be afraid of the enemies, so you should be familiar with the plot of the films, as this isn't an appropriate introduction to the franchise. In case you are an enthusiast, however, this might be an interesting excursion into how the story could alternatively have developed.

A lot of Alien fans will be familiar with the troubled production around Alien 3. The film was given the go ahead and announced in cinemas with a release date before there was even a script or a director involved. After that, there were several pitches for scripts. One of which was produced by William Gibson, a prose writer best known for his cyberpunk work. Gibson proposed a script that would follow Hicks and Bishop, removing both Newt and Ripley from events due to the possibility that Sigourney Weaver would be unable or unwilling to reprise the role.

Despite this script never being made into the film it has remained within fan circles for decades, with dedicated Alien fans sharing it around online. Now, however, this script has been lovingly turned into a full novel by author Pat Cadigan, giving fans the best way to experience this strange 'What If?' scenario.

The book begins four years after the events of the second film, with the Sulaco floating through the vast void of space. The ship, and it's sleeping inhabitants, are heading towards Anchorpoint station when it accidentally drifts into the territory of the U.P.P., the 'Union of Progressive Peoples'. The U.P.P. sends a ship out to investigate why the military vessel is entering their space, but find no one on board who can explain what happened.

Upon entering the cryosleep chamber they're shocked to discover the half destroyed Bishop android has a strange egg growing out of him. The U.P.P. take Bishop with them, determined to find out what this means, but in the process the egg opens and they end up losing one of their crew to the strange creature that attacks them.

As the Sulaco continues on its way to Anchorpoint the U.P.P. mine through Bishops memories, discovering the existance of the Xenomorph. Fearing that their neighbours would try to clone the creatures for use as weapons the U.P.P. begins their own experiments into the deadly creatures.

When the Sulaco reaches Anchorpoint the personnel are shocked with what they find on board, particularly the strange alien DNA they find inside the discarded legs of Bishop. With Ripley in a coma, Hicks decides that he needs to send Newt back to Earth to be with her family whilst he tries to figure out what his next move is. Unfortunately for him, the company arrives on the scenes and begins to clone the alien DNA. When Bishop is sent back to Anchorpoint by the U.P.P., fully repaired, as a gesture of goodwill, the two survivors of LV-426 realise that company is about to unleash something deadly on the galaxy and decide to put an end to the experiments. However, the aliens have evolved in terrifying new ways.

One of the biggest surprises I had reading this book was how different the alien creatures were. I knew that the script did some different things, especially by sidelining Ripley, but I wasn't aware of how much the Xenomorphs were altered in this story. Instead of their regular life-cycle, which we still do see, the aliens are able to infect people like a virus. This is actually kind of similar to the black goo spores that would feature in Alien: Covenant.

However, rather than this infection allowing the aliens to laid eggs inside people via airborne means, it does something much, much scarier. The infection converts the hosts into xenomorphs. One moment they're fine, and the next their skin starts to stretch and tear, and the host rips themselves apart as a fully grown alien emerges from within them. It's absolutely bonkers, and it really wouldn't have translated too well on screen, but in a book, where your imagination is doing a lot of the work it becomes some of the grossest, most frightening body horror around.

This new form of infection really ramps up the horror too, as you're never sure when a character could change, or who could be infected. With the regular facehuggers it's easy to know when people have been impregnated, but here you're always on your guard, waiting for someone to suddenly start changing. Cadigan uses this tension well, and it means that from the initial outbreak there's never a moment to really rest and relax. Even when the characters are spending a fleeting moment to rest as they try to make their way across the station to the escape vehicles, there's still a pervading sense of dread.

And it really is thanks to Pat Cadigan that the book feels this good. After reading the book I went and read the recently made graphic novel, which was actually based on the second draft of Gibson's script. Seeing the two different takes side by side, and how drastically different in tone they are really reinforced how it's often down to the person adapting the story that decides how good it ends up. In the graphic novel there was very little tension, the side characters felt flat and without character, and I was honestly bored throughout. This book, however, was so good in comparison. Cadigan spent the time building even minor characters, she made Anchorpoint feel like a big, lived in station, and she made it feel scary throughout.

There are small moments in the book that realistically don't add much to the story, little scenes that show the characters interacting that weren't in the script, and would never had been in a movie, but their inclusion in the book makes it feel bigger. I liked that we weren't just told some characters had a connection, but got to see it instead, we watched as people forged relationships, as they worried about each other. A lot of the characters went from bodies tagging along that you were waiting to be killed off to actual people who you were rooting to live, and who made you sad when they never made it.

It would be so easy to wave your hand and say that it doesn't matter who adapts a script, that anyone could have taken the source material and made a decent book out of it, but that's just untrue. Pat Cadigan took a script that was simply okay, and made it into a book that kept me hooked throughout. It might not be the Aliens that your used to, but it something so boldly different that you can't help but enjoy it.

Written by masters of their craft, this novel was a loving deep dive into a universe I frequently and emphatically return to. I was mentally prepared for a screenplay, but was pleasantly surprised that this was written as a novel. And if only this was the version that had made it to the big screen - I, for one, would have loved this more than the Alien 3 that we got.

The story opens with the survivors of LV-426 passing through to Anchorpoint station. As befitting of an Alien story, the Aliens are released onto an unsuspecting populace (Weyland- Yutani greed strikes again) and a massacre takes place. Fan favourites Newt, Bishop and Hicks feature in this installment, however Ripley's involvement in Aliens 3 is barely a footnote in their entire story.

As much as I enjoyed the story, I did find some issues with the story - the entire process of how the Aliens were infecting people otherwise wasn't explained. There were occasional lulls in the storytelling, but it was largely impactful and paced well.

Overall rating: 3.5 stars/ 5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest review from myself

To begin with: this isn't a screenplay. It is a novel.
It is a novel written by Pat Cadigan based on a screenplay which was written but not used for the 1992 film, Alien 3. The original screenplay was written by the distinguished science fiction author, William Gibson who is best known for his 1984 cyberpunk novel,, Neuromancer. But his script for Aliens 3 bears no resemblance to the finished film.
On this evidence, it seems a shame Gibson's version was never used.
For the actual Aliens 3 (despite being directed by a young David Fincher who later oversaw the two classics, Seven and Fight Club) was a disappointing failure.. While the first two Alien films, Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and James Cameron's Aliens (1986) remain two of the finest science fiction films ever made. But no good Alien films have ever been made in the years since. If you've only ever seen the first two, you might as well stop there.
Incidentally, this volume would sorely benefit from the inclusion of some sort of introduction explaining what exactly this is. Hence why some of the other Netgalley reviewers on here seem confused.
Unlike the aliens themselves, Alien 3 had a long gestation period. The Gibson screenplay was written early on, soon after Aliens (1986) had been released.
Gibson's story has a few strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, it has a much better start than the actual Alien 3 which opened badly with two of the survivors of the second film,, Newt and Corporal Hicks being killed in an accident. In this version, Hicks (played by Michael Biehn in Aliens) and the android, Bishop (Lance Henriksen) both play a major role in the action. This is very welcome. More controversially, the franchise's traditional heroine, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is very much pushed to the side lines here. Another weaker aspect, is the introduction of a futuristic version of the USSR, something which would already have seemed dated by the time the finished film came out in 1992, the USSR having collapsed the year before. It certainly looks dated now.
But overall, this remains an enjoyable mixture of science fiction and horror: Pat Cadigan, who wrote this prose version, is an accomplished and talented author herself.
Overall then, a good novel in its own right and an intriguing footnote on the history of cinema, shedding light on what might have been.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Alien franchise but a constant affection for William Gibson’s work. I enjoyed the revisit with a script format (been a while since I’ve read one of these) and the story is a brilliant look at what could have been, the stuff of cinematic imagination. An ideal read for science fiction fans and those familiar with the franchise.

Even if they did take a bit of a downward turn after the first two, the ‘Alien’ movies have justifiably cemented their place in cinematic history and the hearts of fans. Following the huge critical and commercial success of James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ the producers realised they had a franchise on their hands and sought out screenwriters to figure out what happened to Ripley and the xenomorphs yet. One of the ten people who had a go was seminal cyberpunk author William Gibson, who produced two quite different drafts of a script in 1987 and 1988. Neither were filmed, but the second has been adapted into both a Dark Horse comic and an Audible drama. This novelisation by Hugo award winning author Pat Cadigan is of the first draft of the script.
What’s interesting about the story is how much of a sequel to ‘Aliens’ it is. Rather than the actual movie and those that followed it, which feel very franchisey, this is most definitely a continuation of the story and take on the Alien universe that Cameron gave us.
The book starts with the survivors of the events on LV-426 (Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop) in hypersleep on the Sulacco as it heads back to civilisation. The ship accidentally passes through a region of space controlled by the communist Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP). They board the ship, and remove the android, Bishop, before letting the ship continue to the capitalist/corporate region where it docks at a space station called Anchorpoint. The book progresses with the focus on Bishop in one location and Hicks in another as, inevitably, the xenomorphs appear and start killing/bursting out of people.
Tonally it is very (and indeed joyously) similar to ‘Aliens’. There’s a great mix of horror and action, some interesting sci fi and memorable characters. As noted, it’s very much about Bishop and Hicks, who are pitch perfect recreations on the page of their cinematic selves. Bishop in particular really grows as a character and has some excellent scenes. Newt makes a brief appearance too and is similarly recognisable. Ripley, however, doesn’t feature at all. Given the direction the movies took that felt surprising, but given only the first two had been made when the story was written, maybe it isn’t.
There are plenty of new characters to join the old ones, and they’re just as enjoyable and convincing. The book plays nicely on the contrast between the capitalist and communist forces, drawing the apparent conclusion that both are really just there to screw over the little people.
The action is punchy and tense, and the aliens gain a few new tricks which are wonderfully horrible. The horror scenes might stretch biological credibility a little at times, but they’re definitely effective.
It’s impossible to read the book without thinking of the later films. It ends up feeling like an alternate universe, growing from the same roots but branching in a different direction. It might not be canon but it’s great fun as a result. Gibson and Cadigan really capture the feel of ‘Aliens’ whilst also pushing the story forward in new and interesting ways. If you’re a fan of the early films (and who in their right mind isn’t) then this will keep you very entertained, whilst providing a bittersweet sense of nostalgia.