This was a more satisfying hypothetical life cycle for me since the whole 'parasite-social insect' angle doesn't really seem too convincing to me. Essentially, the facehugger implants the embryo, the embryo bursts out, grows, captures prey, cacoons them, implants them with an egg. The Alien was envisioned as being more of a solitary animal rather than the social insect analog seen in the sequels. 6) As mentioned above, Ash hypthesizes that the life cycle of the Alien is similar to certain parasitic wasps on Earth. This scene was actually filmed and can be seen in certain cuts of the film but I was disappointed.the scene, as conveyed in the novelization, was pretty macabre.the actual filmed scene was not very convincing (which was probably one of the reasons - outside of pacing - it was cut from the final theatrical cut). The life cycle of the Alien as conceived in this version is much different from that of the social insect analog as pictured in Aliens - in fact, Ash compares the Alien to certain species of parasitic wasps which lay their eggs in unsuspecting spiders which go about their lives while the wasp larvae eat/kill them alive. They have both been cacooned by the Alien and impregnated by a parasite. 5) Ripley, before she abandons ship, discovers the bodies of Brett and Dallas. He was awarded the IAMTW Grand Master Scribe Award in 2008.
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4) Ash, when he tells the crew that they can not kill the Alien, states that the crew of the derelict space ship in which the eggs were found were, no doubt, larger/stronger and more intelligent than humans.and even they were overcome. Alan Dean Foster is the acclaimed author of movie tie-ins for Star Wars, Alien, Transformers. the Alien didn't grow that big before killing Brett by just metabolizing air. 3) The crew discovers the Alien has escaped into the air ducts after they burst into a supply room and flame the contents - which happen to be canned food, etc. For me, this added to the almost depressing sense of hopelessness of the story - the situation of the crew was so dismal that some of them began to consider suicide as an 'option'.
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2) Lambert suggesting an "alternative" to hunting down the holds up a bunch of suicide pills and states that this is a pretty painless alternative to getting ripped to pieces by the Alien. Some interesting tidbits which were either added to the story by Foster or which were in the original script and ended up on the cutting room floor are: 1) Ripley sensing something odd about Ash and asking Lambert if she had ever slept with him (the answer is: no - Lambert goes on to say that she never even got the sense that Ash was interested). However, the rather dry, impersonal style used in narrating the story actually adds to the horror and sense of hopelessness. Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien is a stark, somewhat barren re-telling of the story that most of us are familiar with. This is the review for the novelization of Alien - for some reason, every other review that I've found here has been for the movie.