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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781595821133
ISBN number: 1595821139
Label: Dark Horse
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 275
Printing Date: June 20, 2007
Publishing house: Dark Horse
Sale Popularity Level: 75474
Studio: Dark Horse
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Product Description:
On the spaceship Umiak, an elite troupe of cadets is forced into servitude by an unscrupulous captain taking the ship to a smuggler's rendezvous. During the transaction aboard the eerily silent Virginia, the cadets unwittingly transport an unexpected cargo: a hive of hibernating aliens. As the aliens begin to awake, a terrifying battle erupts between the cadets, the smugglers, the captain, and the emergent monsters. The cadets soon realize that in space, no one can hear them scream.
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Rated by buyers 
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This represents my second foray into the weird and wonderful mind of Diane Carey (the very first being DNA War of this same franchise). Surprisingly and despite a plethora of negative reviews to browse, I found Cauldron to be a step in the right direction.
The story simultaneously follows two spacecraft (and their respective crews): The Virginia and the Umiak. The former comes off as the traditional "space trucker" ideology seen time and time again throughout the films. The latter presents the very cool concept of young cadets having an opportunity to participate hands on in a military-style voyage. It is here that Carey introduces us to one of her wildest creations, Pearl Floy; a mutant freak show of a human being and outcast to her peers. The mere concept of such a character manages to capture the dark grittiness of the universe painted by the films themselves.
About my biggest complaint to this novel (and most of the franchise as a whole) is the reliance upon earth. Historical references, character backgrounds, clichés, and even animal species all spiral back to earth. Sure it makes for relate-ability but if you think back to the films, earth is a very small part to the greater whole. We don't even get a glimpse of the planet until the very end of Resurrection and through some earlier witty dialog; we discover that many of the crew have never even been there (and don't think very highly of the place at that).
Space is a very big place and it would be great if authors of the ALIENS franchise remembered that in the future, the role of earth is quite miniscule. That said I have to give Carey credit on crafting some interesting characters and dropping them into some pretty nasty situations. Also noteworthy is the fact that she created an interesting variant of the Xenomorph species in a couple of sections. So often these books paint the animals as merely giant ants but there isn't much terror in that. The movies got around this by continually introducing the viewer to new aliens (the queen, the dog/hybrid, the baby/hybrid, the predator/hybrid and so on).
Some may argue that the ending is a bit happy-go-lucky and others may find the antics of Thomas Pangborn to be a bit over the top, but I would counter that this is a pretty worthy entry into a rich universe. Considering the difficulty of attempting to bring something fresh to the table after six films and dozens of books, Carey manages to assemble some unique situations and a pretty memorable cast. This is a 3.5 star product but since Amazon won't allow for half-star ratings, I'll round it up to four on account of the fact that ALIENS books that aren't totally butchered are few and far between.
Rated by buyers -
I liked this book alot the start a little slow but made up for with the finish damn it was good yo, really recommend this for the aliens fans out their but so far most of the books i've read about aliens was fairly good.
Rated by buyers 
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I just finished reading Diane Carey's second ALIENS novel titled CAULDRON and let me tell you it was not easy! I've read a lot of movie related tie-in books over the past 25+ years, but never have I been so bored with a writer as I am with Diane and her two ALIENS books.
I started this book around the second week in August, got stuck half way thru it due to boredom and didn't finish it until October 18th. Almost 2 months to read 284 measly pages! A good writer hooks you in right away and keeps you hooked and coming back for more! A good book is hard to put down, this one was not! It actually fell out of my hands and onto the floor when I dozed off reading it in bed! (Totally true!)
As most reviewers have pointed out, there isn't a whole lot of alien related action in this short book. It does take quite a while for the alien carnage to start so be prepared for large boring lulls inbetween.
What there is plenty of though is "attempted character development" which is normally a good thing, but in Diane's hands, it was long, tedious, and just bored me to tears. This resulted in me not caring for ANY of her characters which is never a good thing. I honestly had a hard time keeping track of the endless list of people populating both spaceships in the story.
This book reads like a mish mash of "Mutiny on the Bounty" meets "ALIENS" meets "Noah's Ark" and contains several scenes that will leave you scratching your head. The very first scene is were one of the older and brighter cadets concocts a drug that he uses on most of the adult crew putting them into a temporary coma. He also has the captain awake but gagged and in chains. It is not made clear how one teenager could over power and take out five trained adults all on his own without ANYONE else on the ship ever noticing.
Another scene has the ship's cook taking on an alien with a meat cleaver and than throws simple baking soda on the alien's acid blood to neutralize it. I honestly don't think a molecular acid that can eat thru multiple levels of a ship could be stopped with a simple box of "Arm & Hammer"!
Finally, towards the end of the book, the cadets release a slew of live animals that the ship is transporting to various new worlds out in space in the hopes they will distract the aliens so the humans can slip thru unnoticed. That's all cool and plausible, but then Diane throws in a wooly mammoth, saber tooth tiger and a grizzly bear into the mix throwing what little plausibility there was out the window! They seemed to be there simply to have cool animals for the aliens to fight with since the teenage crew she created doesn't offer much hope for exciting action scenes.
I don't want this review to come across as totally negative so I do have a few good things to say. Diane is really good when writing about all of the technical details like how the two ships exchange cargo in deep space. All the technobable sounded plausible to me. She is also good with all of the ship jargon since she is a sailour herself. She also came up with a creepy and sick scene where two aliens use a dead body in a gruesome way to lure in their subsequent victim. While I thought the scene was out of character for the aliens, it still gave me chills. She is also very good at describing the gory bits in yucky detail. It appears the publisher got a better editor than was used on "DNA War" because I saw only a couple of typos this time around.
As should be blatantly obvious, I'm not a huge fan of the book or the author and I wonder if this review will get another direct response from Diane? I'm glad to see two different writers will be taking on the subsequent two books in this series. Diane has had the ball twice now and fumbled both times. You have been warned!
Rated by buyers -
I wasn't real keen on Diane Carey's last foray into the Aliens world. Mostly I think she does a great job a taking an existing story (movie, tv show)and giving it great backstory. That's her strength. So far, after two aliens books she has shown poor plotting, strange motivations, and in this book, little of the aliens. Very little. Too bad, there are some great opportunities here, but they fail to materialize to any great extent. To be fair, there are a couple really good moments, but they are overshadowed by the obnoxiousness and stupidity of having a shipload of teenagers that I certainly did not care if they lived or died. I actually found myself rooting for the Captain's plot to kill them all off and survive with just himself as a grand hero, which should never have happened had the characterization been better.
The aliens books need a new author.
Rated by buyers -
If you buy an Alien novel, you expect to read something about the Aliens. With _Cauldron_ you get a novel about prodigies making their very first space flight as part of a semester-in-space program. You get very little of the Aliens. In fact the monsters don't show up until about two thirds of the way through, by which time most Alien fans are likely to be exasperated with the lives of Carey's space-faring teenagers.
Not that she does a bad job with the characterization. The protagonist Ned is well drawn and I began to develop some real affection for the soft-spoken, straight-talking lad from the Isle of Man, as well as his foil, the arrogant Adam, who through his experience with the Aliens learns to put aside his pride.
Unfortunately, the rest of the characters are rather flat and predictable, as is the situation - a group of teenagers being stalked by a murderous beast in poorly lit, unfamiliar surroundings. Carey is at least honest enough to admit what crosses the mind of everyone who reads _Cauldron_. "You know what this is?" her lead Ned asks. "This is a teenage slasher flick."
There are some ingeniously plotted means for the kids to get pick off the Aliens that is not your typical showdown with sweaty marines totting large guns. In the end, though, I felt like I really hadn't read an Alien novel so much as a novel with a few aliens.
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