What a thing of beauty the original alien design is. Even after all these years the sheer horror and brutality the creature projects. Just look at this head shot of the creature on the cover of The Enemy Of My Enemy, doing just taht;projecting a nature that goes beyond...,well, nature. And the brutality just keeps on coming with the xenomorph attacks in this book. Like any Lovecraftian entity, once you meet them, its already too late.
One of the lingering horrors of the Alien universe was the impression of the vastness of space. The remoteness of anything even resembling a sphere where life might exist. the Lovecraftian fear of empty space, of the sheer amount of it. A nothingness filled with nothing.The chance of finding a world where a lifeform even resembling ours might have grown are so astronomical as to stagger the imagination. Yet on this one remote ball in the middle of noplace comes a signal. A call that would be best ignored but instead resembles the sticky sweet smell of a trap that is impossible to ignore. LV426 will not even have a name at first, just this designation. The seed bed for horrors. Perhaps a benign creator deliberately set these vast distances between his creations to very much forestall the terrors to come.Yet as always, mankind pushes the envelope, crossing the merciless plain. Meeting that which we were never intended to meet.
The alien universe is definately not the optimistc future for the human race that someone like Gene Roddenberry envisaged. We take the worst of ourselves to the stars, only to encounter a lifeform that is infinitely more harrowing than even whatwe are capabble of being. One that exists only to reproduce. No descrimination, no arbitary bargaining with the universe. This is perhaps why this book feels like an extended chase sequence, with the xenomorphs snapping at the heels of the feeing humans. When they are encountered its the only effective defense; Flee. In their wrath no one is spared, no man, no woman, no child. If a host cannot be found for repreoductive purposes then savagery is the only other way. If they are not hell bent on multiplying they are hell bent on killing. So it proves once again and although this might seem like a narrative cul-de-sac it does what it says on the tin, so to speak. When all the choices are bad always settle for the least worse.
Which is almost impossible to determine given this lifeform.
Ridley Scott, Dan O Bannon and HR Giger created a monster for the ages. One that will cause mankind to run and run and run......
