A brilliant, throughly enjoyable addition to the legend of the Xenomorph.
A terrific introduction into something’s we can expect to see in the new video game and one that sets up new characters, situations but managing to forge its own path along the way.
I loved it and hope to read more from Weston Ochse regarding the Alien franchise.

I am reviewing this novel as I only got to 40% before the license expired on the Shelf App. This novel so far has the potential to score pretty high in my books due to how authentic it is. Classical WayYu shenanigans with humans teying to weaponize the xenomorphs. I had a great time while reading. Just a bit sad that i could not finish it in time. I will definately be buying the physical though.

Thank you NetGalley for accepting my application for reviewing this novel.

Dr Timothy Hoenikker takes a job on a Weyland-Yutani facility to study genuine alien artefacts. However, his actual role is researching the effect of Xenomorph bio-materials on living creatures. Hoenikker’s misgivings of his new job are further compounded. The station has been infiltrated by an industrial spy working for a rival of Wayland-Yutani, and suspicion falls on him. Witnessing the warped and petty bureaucracy on the station first hand, Hoenikker quickly realises how badly things could go if the creatures he’s been experimenting on escapes.
As a former Colonial Marine, Victor Rawlings can also see which way the station is heading. When he hears about the imminent arrival of Xenomorph eggs on the station, he sets about creating backup plans for a future he hopes never comes; an adult Xenomorph free on the station.
When approaching an Alien novel, the reader will already have some expectations about what will happen. However the story starts, whatever confidences the characters have that they have contained the Xenomorph, we, the reader, know it won’t be enough. We know the Xenomorphs will escape; what we want to know is who, if anyone, will survive. Managing the Aliens fans’ expectation and keeping them guessing until the end is not an easy task. Ochse expertly manages this balancing act by giving us a cast of engaging characters of varying skill sets and hits us with the tension from the very beginning.
Hoenikker is a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He takes a job researching alien artefacts only to discover the job is really conducting experiments on rodents and insects with alien goo. In my opinion, if there is anything worse than a Xenomorph, it is an arachnid Xenomorph. As if the uncomfortableness of experimenting on living beings wasn’t enough, Ochse also ramps up the awkwardness. There is bureaucratic infighting among the different sections aboard the station and a few scares with escaping experiments. All this demonstrating Pala Station is not the tightknit organisation it must be to survive an escaped adult Xenomorph.
Then, there is the infiltrator. When it becomes apparent there is a spy on board, suspicion falls on Hoenikker because he is the newest person. Isolated and a very long way from home, it’s hard not to sympathise with him because we all know what is coming. Especially when it is announced the station is expecting a delivery of Xenomorph eggs.
Rawlings is the opposite of Hoenikker. An ex-Colonial Marine, he’s friendly with everyone on the station, meaning he can go places and see things he shouldn’t. In essence, he is us, the reader, seeing the signs and putting two and two together. He is also a prepper from his time as a marine, and when things go wrong, he is the most prepared.
One of the things I have always enjoyed about the Aliens franchise is that people don’t automatically become fearless when things go wrong. Cowards and still cowards, and drunks will still run for a drink. Rawlings can prepare all he wants, gather as many ex-marines together as he can. He cannot avoid human weaknesses, and that is what elevates the Aliens franchise from other horror and monster stories. Rawlings and Hoenikker give us both end of the survival spectrum in all their desperation and weakness.
The close paranoia on the station mixed with the fallibility of human nature and the horror of live experimentation on humans with Xenomorphs is nail-bitingly challenging to deal with. It is almost a relief when things finally go wrong, and the ex-marines do what they do best and with extreme force. Aliens: Infiltrator is a nerve-wracking build to an explosive end that keeps faithfully to the franchise we all love so much and is a strong prequel to the latest game, Aliens: Fireteam.

The Alien franchise can be seen as one of two things: an awesome series of Space based horror and action stories, or a textbook example of Corporate Malfeasance. The Aliens may be the most reoccurring characters, but the second is not Ripley, it is Weyland Industries. This corporation pops up in various guises all over the place as they desperately try to find some way of profiteering from the Aliens. Next time you log onto Indeed.com, do yourself a favour and scroll past any job offering from Weyland, you may just end up on a remote base experimenting on Xenomorphs.

Dr Timothy Hoenikker stood at a crossroads in his life; should he remain in his dull, but well-paid job or take a risk and move to the remote outpost, Pala Station? He chose wrong. On arrival at Pala, he finds that he is not being used as an expert in Alien Artefacts, but to experiment on Aliens themselves. Petty politics is rife on the Station and there is nothing like disgruntled workers mixing with deadly Xenomorphs. There is a reason Pela Station is so remote. It is the perfect place to send some Alien eggs and condemned prisoners. What could go wrong?

With various films and books under its wing, the Alien franchise has been going for a long time now and the one thing that you can rely on throughout is that you cannot trust Weyland Industries. Aliens: Infiltrator by Weston Ochse is possibly the most damning inditement of the corporation yet as everything is set up poorly on Pala, from the lack of resources to the negligent experiments. It is all compounded by the fact that Weyland would be happier to pay death duties to the families of those that died, than fix a problem.

It does not take long for Hoenikker to realise that he has arrived at the wrong place at the wrong time. The current science team are short staffed after a couple of ‘accidents’ with a new strand of Xenomorph that can camouflage. There also seems to be some corporate espionage going on that is making security edgy. The whole Station is a powder keg ready to go off. It will not be an explosion of gun powder, but an explosion of flesh ripping Xenomorphs. Some of whom you will not be able to see.

The ingredients for a great Alien story are present and Ochse does a good job of making it bubble along. If the internal politics starts to become a little slow in the earlier segments, there is always a shocking moment just around the corner. The book does suffer a little from most of the cast being Weyland employees. You understand that many had little choice but to take the corporate dime, but the likes of Hoenikker and one or two other protagonists we meet are not the most sympathetic when compared to someone like Ripley.

The good side of having a Station packed full of characters you find dispensable, is that they are dispensable. When the action kicks off, it goes full force. This is Aliens levels of action, not Alien levels of tension. There is limbs, blood, and guts all over the shop. Hoenikker is tasked with getting from one end of the Station to the other. The only things in his way are security teams out to get him and the small issue of numerous Xenomorphs with an intelligent leader that the Pala scientists somehow managed to create.

Aliens: Infiltrator is a prequel to an upcoming computer game, but it stands alone. This is the type of Alien story that the action fans will enjoy. The tension of the first film is not present and instead you get an interesting look into the corporate ineptitude of Weyland Industries, especially in their remote locations that they cannot keep an eye on. With all the mayhem, this is a fun action horror that will have you buzzing as you read it, just don’t expect much development on a wider franchise level.

Aliens: Infiltrator is billed as the prequel novel to the upcoming video game Aliens: Fire Team, but it's still very much a stand-alone adventure that's sure to satisfy any fan of the Alien franchise.

The story follows a few characters, but the main lead is Dr. Timothy Hoenikker, a xeno archaeologist for Weyland-Yutani, who's just been assigned to the remote Pala Station. Having been promised the opportunity to work with alien artefacts he's surprised to find that no such research is actually taking place on Pala, and is assigned to assist some of the other scientist with their biological experiments.

The other scientists at Pala Station are working with different alien organisms to try and create new defensive technology for the Colonial Marines; injecting this mutagenic black goo into various creatures to enhance their natural abilities. Already a dangerous enough, these experiments become even more hazardous when the station receives a shipment of Xenomorph eggs, and prisoners that are to be hosts to their deadly embryo's. Now Hoenikker faces the moral dilemma of having to engage in experiments that will result in the deaths of people, despite being for the greater good. Unfortunately, the deadly new versions of the Xenomorphs they create prove to be too hard to contain, and soon everyone of Pala Station finds themselves fighting for their lives.

Like many of the other entries in the Alien saga Aliens: Infiltrator sees the duplicitous Weyland-Yutani corporation wanting to use the Xenomorphs for their own ends. However, unlike most of the other stories that involves facilities where the Xeno's eventually break out, this book actually sees the scientists achieving some of their goals, and developing some pretty useful technology from the creatures. It makes the book feel different from similar stories, mainly because most of the times when the Xeno's are being experimented on they break out and cause chaos before anything can really be done with them.

In this book we actually see a somewhat competent lab, one where the scientists seem to understand the deadly nature of the alien creatures, and aren't trying to weaponize them. Instead of turning the Xenomorphs into biological weapons to be unleashed upon the battlefield they're trying to find ways to combat them; to protect people from them. These are things that I wouldn't be surprised to see appear in the upcoming game, things such as acid resistant armour, or pheromones that hide you from the creatures for a while. They're the kinds of things that work well in this story, and that I can also see being used as items in a game, allowing players to survive a bit longer, or going on frightening stealth missions. I'm not sure how much of the book is going to be tying into the game, but I hope that the things developed on Pala make an appearance.

Unfortunately, not everything developed on Pala Station is something that can be used for good. Using the strange mutagen (which is heavily hinted at to be the black goo from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) the scientists at Pala are able to create some shocking new lifeforms; and not just Xenomorphs. This means that when things inevitably go wrong the people on Pala not only have to deal with enhanced versions of the Xenos, but other strange new creatures too. There's a degree of body horror involved in these new creatures too, which is no surprise given how closely the franchise is connected with body horror, but it's used in ways that feel new and more twisted than we've seen in other entries in the Titan Alien books.

The book isn't all about new alien creatures though, as there's a collection of really compelling characters for readers to get invested in. I've already mentioned Dr. Hoenikker, who we go through some interesting moral ups and downs with, but there's a lot more on offer too. There's Cruz, one of the scientists on Pala who used to be in the Colonial Marines. At first he's presented as a cold, almost sadistic man who enjoys hurting the creatures he's experimenting on; but over the course of the book we get to discover that he's a very damaged man, dealing with a lot of PTSD from his time in combat, and becomes a character who you're never sure how to feel about.

Similarly, there's also Rawling, another former Colonial Marine who's become something of 'friend' to everyone on Pala, making connections with people and doing little favours. This has led him into a position where he's able to go most everywhere on the station, able to chat with anyone and accrue good will and hidden items of contraband. He very much seems to be something of a future version of one of those people who collects weapons and supplies for what they see as an inveitable disaster, drawing up plans for what to do when the shit hits the fan. Whilst in most situations these kinds of people prove to be wrong, it makes Rawlings one of the people on Pala that you definitely want around when the Xenomorphs escape.

There are other interesting characters, who like those already mentioned tend to be quite complex, with evolving motivations and slowly revealed backstories. People such as Fairbanks, a man being blackmailed into corporate espionage, Dr. Kash, a medical scientist with some skeletons in her closet, and Etienne, a man who becomes so obsessed with his work that it seems to wear away at his mind. None of the human characters in Alien: Infiltrator ever felt dull. Everyone seemed to have complex motivations, and the central characters would have you questioning how you felt about them, and changing your opinions on them more than once. For a franchise that can sometimes fail to create compelling human characters this book really excelled.

Weston Ochse isn't just a writer who's able to create interesting characters though, he's also able to write some tense action and creepy horror. Considering that he's written military action horror in the past I can see why he was allowed to play in the Aliens sandbox, as he feels like a perfect fit for this kind of story. What could have been uninteresting or lacklustre scenes of people sneaking through dark hallways in the hands of another writer became tense moments where the reader is left constantly on the edge of their seat. There was never a moment where you feel bored, or where things seem to just be going through the motions. Ochse was able to take a formula we've seen before in this franchise and make it tense ans frightening and exciting all at the same time.

Aliens: Infiltrator might get overlooked by some because of it's connection to the upcoming game; there may be some readers who might be reluctant to pick it up because they're not gamers, or because they're worried that the book won't satisfy on it's own. But this is a book that very much can. It stands on its own as a compelling read, one filled with interesting characters and nail-biting horror. If you've read any of the Alien books before, or watched any of the films and enjoyed them this book will definitely be one that you'll want to check out. A great addition to the franchise.

My thanks to Titan Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Aliens: Infiltrator’ by Weston Ochse in exchange for an honest review.

This is the official prequel for the upcoming Aliens cooperative third-person survival shooter video game, Aliens: Fireteam. While I am not familiar with the wider Aliens franchise of novels and video games, I have seen all the films multiple times. Therefore, I felt that I had enough background to appreciate what was going on.

Dr. Timothy Hoenikker arrives on Pala Station, a Weyland-Yutani facility, expecting to be working with alien artefacts. Instead, he finds that they are testing the effects of Xenomorph bio-materials on living creatures. To make things worse one member of the staff is an infiltrator, about to engage in some corporate espionage with unexpected consequences.

Also on staff is Victor Rawlings, a former Colonial Marine, who seeing trouble on the horizon gathers together other marine veterans to prepare for the worst. When the facility receives a delivery of alien eggs, the experiments quickly spin out of control, and only the former Colonial Marines can stand between the humans and certain death.

This proved a great read with plenty of high octane action and science fiction horror in the tradition of the Aliens universe. I was especially impressed with how well Weston Ochse established his ensemble cast of characters. They emerged as much more than cannon fodder though given their situation I wasn’t going to become too attached to anyone!

Overall, this works very well as an introduction to the upcoming game and also as a standalone. I enjoyed it very much and certainly will be looking into other titles by Weston Ochse.

So, "Aliens: Infiltrator" is a prequel to a new video game (Cold Iron Studios) that's coming out. Anyone feeling a bit put off by that shouldn't be. It's very, very well written, has a fitting story for the "Alien" legacy, has great characters, plenty of heart-pounding moments, and oodles of blood, gore, and... acid! This is my favourite "Alien" novel so far!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Aliens yet again being gene manipulated to provide bio weapons, you would think by now the management at weyland-yutani would have got the message, leave the aliens the hell alone and if you find a planet with them on them nuke it from orbit just to be safe! 😉 this is a good read, some interesting plot developments and well told

While Aliens: Infiltrator is a prequel to the forthcoming videogame Aliens: Fireteam, it acts rather nicely as a standalone title and lets author Weston Ochse do his own thing with the franchise. Even though this story doesn't break tremendous new ground or push Titan Books' tie-in novelizations into interesting new directions the way Alex White has done with their recently released Alien: Into Charybdis, Infiltrator is still a fun, tough-as-nails Aliens book.

Weyland-Yutani scientist Dr. Timothy Hoenikker is assigned to Pala Station, a posting sold to him under false pretenses. He thought he was going to be working on alien artifacts, but has instead found himself shanghaied into working with live specimens. The scientists of Pala Station have been researching methods to improve the responses of Colonial Marines when squaring off against Xenomorphs, and have even developed a prototype acid-resistant armor. Of course, given that they're Weyland-Yutani, they're also working on ways to make the Xenomorphs into even better killers via genetic engineering. Because what could possibly go wrong there...

The genetic experimentation angle gives Ochse a chance to fiddle around with expectations and upgrade your traditional bloodthirsty bugs into even more lethal predators. Much of Infiltrator serves to prove Jurassic Park's Ian Malcom correct in his assessment that "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." Then again, that's practically Weyland-Yutani's corporate motto. They probably even put it on their dot matrix printed letterhead.

Needless to say, creating new species and variants of Xenomorphs doesn't exactly work out in anyone's best interests, and it doesn't take long for Hoenikker to repeatedly kick himself for listening to his best friend, who encouraged him to be bold and dangerous and take the job. On the bright side, he at least makes more useful friends along the way, some of whom are former Colonial Marines who live with the expectation that things are going to go sideways sooner rather than later.

Ochse introduces some neat new monsters, giving Infiltrator much welcomed creature feature aesthetic that I heartily approve of. Given that as I was reading this yesterday, the BBC reported on a study confirming that a team of US-China scientists have grown human cells in a monkey embryo, I can help but think, you know, maybe don't? Infiltrator is a great reminder that we're probably a lot better off not genetically tampering with nature just for shits and giggles. It's also a nice reminder that your friends are probably idiots and you really shouldn't listen to them.