Alien: Into Charybdis cover art

Alien: Into Charybdis

A Novel (The Alien™ Series, book 9)

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Alien: Into Charybdis

By: Alex White
Narrated by: Shiromi Arserio
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About this listen

The critically acclaimed author of Alien: The Cold Forge takes listeners to a rogue colony where terror lurks in the tunnels of an abandoned Weyland-Yutani complex.

“Shy” Hunt and the tech team from McAllen Integrations thought they’d have an easy job - set up environmental systems for the brand new Hasanova Data Solutions colony, built on the abandoned ruins of a complex known as “Charybdis”. There are just two problems: The colony belongs to the Iranian state, so diplomacy is strained at best, and the complex is located above a series of hidden caves that contain deadly secrets. When a bizarre ship lands on a nearby island, one of the workers is attacked by a taloned creature, and trust evaporates between the Iranians and Americans. The McAllen Integrations crew is imprisoned, accused as spies, but manages to send out a distress signal - to the Colonial Marines.

©2021 Alex White (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing Adventure Fiction First Contact Genre Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Science Fiction Scary

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After listening to the amazing Cold Forge (CF), which featured a fantastic narrator, I had very high hopes for Charybdis (C). I was also compelled to listen to C after hearing Alex White's interview on Alien Theory - far and away the very best alien universe (and other) channel I have come across. I absolutely appreciated that White wanted to explore different elements with C, wanted to keep the narrative fresh and exciting and it is... in places. But ultimately from the concept of Charybdis itself, which felt hard to picture in detail to the convoluted plot for which the necessary suspension of disbelief became increasingly untenable; there was just too much going on. As such I have to say it fell several notches below CF.

Complex story line, difficult to follow

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Ambles along, for an alien story the tense, overwhelmed, no escape atmosphere doesn’t feel like it’s quite there. I still wanted to listen to the whole thing even with the oddities and sometimes slow pacing in the story. I don’t want to spoil it having read some reviews after I completed it I wasn’t the only one who felt this way about the characters etc.

Very ok

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The biggest flaw right off the bat is the lackluster narration. Most of the characters sound the same which made for awkward listening. It was difficult to tell who was speaking to who in certain sections. Why are 95% of the Americans from Texas? A stark contrast to its predecessor, The Cold Forge, which had excellent narration throughout.

Spoilers ahead:

The story was interesting and put a new spin on the classic formula, but I have a feeling some people will love what they did with Blue being an Alien, while some will hate it. I was very disappointed with the main character death of Chy half way through which knocked points off for me. I get going for shock factor but it sucks following a character for that many hours just to have them offed in a pretty lame way. What's worse is that the doctor doesn't even ask about her upon reuniting with the Americans in the bunker. If anything I feel like the author killed off too many of the key characters, often in unsatisfactory ways. Also, what the hell happened to the Bishop synth? They pack him up and he's never heard from again. Seems like he would have been useful during the final hive assault, no?

It's still an enjoyable story, but don't go into it expecting greatness.

A quirky take on Aliens that is a bit like marmite

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I wasn't a huge fan of Cold Forge, which I found to be a little one-note in terms of a certain villain (fun at first, but outstayed his welcome around the halfway mark) - and I never really connected with any of the characters. That said, it was decent in terms of building atmosphere and the setting was novel.

As for Into Charybdis - I think it's pretty clear that it suffers from being too long without what I would consider narrative justification. There just isn't that much to the plot that needs such verbosity - and while I appreciate the amount of characters that have something to do in the tale, I must admit I struggled to empathize with - or care about most of them. They pretty much all lack the kind of interesting arc that I prefer for characters in a very long story, and they're all somewhat stereotypical in their roles. Not all of them, mind you - but most of them, including both the main antagonist and most of the protagonists.

Once again, there's a very one-note villain - and while featured less prominently, it's a similarly tiring character for me. Obviously, that's highly subjective - but I like my villains to be a little more nuanced and not quite so.... over-the-top.

Also, I must say that a certain character which serves as a call-back to the previous novel, did NOT work well for me. In fact, I found it downright silly and working against the tension and horror that's appropriate for the setting and the Xenos. If these novels are ever made into movies, this is one character that would never work without it becoming something of a comedy, which would probably demonstrate my point better than my words here.

That said, I must praise the book for having more than a few surprises in there. I appreciate not being able to predict what will happen, and - in particular - what will happen to what character, and when. I definitely couldn't predict that for many of them, including all the leads.

The most praise I will lavish upon the setting itself. I found it compelling and quite detailed. While I have zero knowledge of that sort of structure, theoretical or otherwise, it certainly seemed more plausible than it might otherwise have, with less effort and research.

It's clear that the author spent some time with the right people to establish some of the facts, which is always nice.

Anyway, I would probably rate Cold Forge a 6/10 - and this is more like 5/10 - overall. I can't bring myself to round it down to 2 stars - as it did have enough quality elements to go beyond that low a score, so I'm rounding up instead.

But note that I'm probably an outlier - in that I dislike some of the more popular Alien novels, like Phalanx (which I found utterly terrible).

So, keep in mind that tastes differ and all that.



Servicable and somewhat original.

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fantastically amazingly greatest so far.
Good dialogue. all good. said alls I need to say thanks

alien

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Apart from - perhaps- the fanciful Marcellus arc this was terrific throughout with a particularly memorable bad guy leader. Writing and performance top notch, one of the best of the Alien novelizations.

Excellent writing and performance.

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... Well worth a listen. It's not the usual "marines getting their asses kicked by xenomorphs with lots of unneccessary swearing" formula that most other Alien books have sadly followed (well, there is some of that, but less than normal). If the whole Alien Saga took a few more chances with its storytelling it would be more interesting. A recommended listen.

A welcome change from 'grunts shooting bugs' ...

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I didn't take to this book as quickly as I have with previous entries in the Alien universe. It actually took me a few attempts before it hooked me. I wasn't sure where the author was going with the 'Muslim' commentary, or how some characters leant into their bigotry a little too hard. But, it was worth the read. And, frankly, I was pretty surprised by who survives in the end. Felt like a very unique approach to storytelling.

Took me a few attempts

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Another enjoyable slice of science-fiction horror from Alex White. I didn’t enjoy this as much as his first Alien story, The Cold Forge (which is easily my favourite Alien novel and I’ve read all of them) but it was solid nonetheless. Well worth your Audible Credit if you’re not sure what to get this month.

A decent Alien story.

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Decent enough story, well performed. Started slowly but gained momentum as it progressed. Definitely worth a credit

Very decent

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