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Alien: Out Of The Shadows
Alien: Out Of The Shadows
Tim Lebbon | 2014 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
7
8.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
So, Alien: Out of the Shadows.

Or, more precisely, the audiobook version of it, since that's the one I read (listened to?), picking it up as part of an audible trial where it was presented as, essentially, a series of podcasts.

Set between the events of the original Alien and it's sequel Aliens (the one with a 'S' at the end) and starring Ellen Ripley (or her sound-alike), you might wonder how Ripley never once mentioned the events of this at all in any of the later films.

You might wonder it, but it is explained away towards the end of this.

The story starts with her escape pod being picked up by the mining vessel Marion, a mining vessel orbiting the planet LV178 but which - just prior to picking Ripley up - has been knocked out of its orbit and had its communications array damaged by a shuttle coming up from the planet: a shuttle crewed by miners from that planet, and that has picked up some unwelcome guests.

What follows is a series of events and encounters, with the surviving members of the crew being picked off one by one as they attempt to find a way out of their predicament.

And, I have to say, the actress voicing Ripley sound amazingly like her, while Rutger Hauer is also suitably menacing in his role, while the background beeps and whirrs and hisses etc all add to the atmosphere.

It's also no surprise that this won an 'Audie award for excellence in production' in 2017.
  
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Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated the Xbox 360 version of Dead Space in Video Games

Oct 21, 2019  
Dead Space
Dead Space
Action/Adventure
Rachel is Dead
Contains spoilers, click to show
This game, is so great. The plot, the setting, the psychological, the horror, the twist, the ending. Lets talk about it...

The Plot: it puts the player in control of an engineer named Isaac Clarke who fights Necromorphs, monstrous reanimated human corpses, aboard an interstellar mining ship, the USG Ishimura.

The player controls Isaac Clarke, a ship systems engineer who must fight his way through a mining starship infested with an alien scourge. The crew has been slaughtered, and their corpses reanimated into creatures known as "Necromorphs". Various types of Necromorphs appear throughout the game, each with different abilities and requiring different tactics to defeat.

The game has a strong science fiction atmosphere and is set in a spacecraft. It is also set way in the future.

Lets talk about the twist:

This was nothing more than another hallucination from Isaac. He’s gone mad, and in his mind, has somehow turned Nicole into one of them. The real Nicole is still dead.

Finally take the first letter from each mission to reveal a secret message… and it spells out Rachel is Dead, which is a intreating easter egg, that comes true. No one really thought about that, until years laters. To take the first letter from each mission and spell it out.

It is a great twist and when you find out, later on in the game, like close to the end, you are surpised.

I highly reccordmend this game, it is great and horrorfying.
  
Hired Guns
Hired Guns
Steve Hockensmith | 2024 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Spinoff Series Starts with a Bang
This book finds a trio of Army friends turned adventurers heading to the Arizona Territory to help out a struggling copper mine. No, it’s not to help them with the mining. The conglomerate Consolidated American Mining Corporation has decided it wants to buy this particular mine, and they are doing all they can to convince the owners to sell. There’s just one major problem – the owners don’t want to sell. And our trio of heroes have been hired to help protect the mine. But against the overwhelming odds, can they do it?

These characters began life in the author’s Holmes on the Range series, and I was happy to follow them over here. The story started a bit slowly, but it isn’t long before the action heats up as the characters find themselves facing overwhelming odds. Yet, I found myself cheering at the end. To be clear, this is more of an action story than a mystery. The characters are a bit thin, but they do have their moments to shine. The reality of racial relations in 1894 is part of the backdrop of the book, and it’s sad to think we ever treated each other this badly. The book is a bit more violent than I normally like, but only a little bit. It is softened some by the humor. If you are looking for an action book set in the old west, you’ll find this the perfect book to pick up.
  
Free Solo (2018)
Free Solo (2018)
2018 | Documentary
8
8.3 (4 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The best view comes after the hardest climb. Free Solo (2019) Review
In a world of ever-increasing strip-mining of existing properties for prequels and spin-offs, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine someone would set out to make a whole movie about the opening sequence of “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”.

Of course, that was fantasy and “Free Solo” is reality and although the climbing of El Capitan is the film’s crowning glory, the real hook of the documentary is in its exploration of what drives Alex Honnold to do what he does, proving that there’s so much more to the compulsion to climb a mountain than ‘because it’s there’...

FULL REVIEW: http://bit.ly/CraggusFreeSolo