The Cold Forge is a deep space research facility focused on deadly corporate research. Set in the Alien universe, the black site is funded by long-time corporate villains Weyland-Yutani.
Along with ethically questionable bioweapons and a destructive AI, the Cold Forge is home to a cache of xenomorph eggs from … somewhere. Lead researcher Blue Marsalis is tasked by W-Y with weaponizing the aliens, but she has other plans.
Suffering from a degenerative disease and forced to navigate the station by mentally jacking into a synthetic named Marcus, Blue wants to use the Alien’s adaptive biology to cure herself.
Her plans are complicated when Weyland-Yutani auditor Dorian Sudler arrives to ensure that the Cold Forge’s research projects are on track, and to aggressively decommission any that aren’t.
Naturally, it all goes to hell.
Dying for Profit
Alien: The Cold Forge (Amazon) by Alex White is an Alien universe tie-in that does right by its source material, providing a brutal environment filled with corporate intrigue and people making bad decisions that lead to catastrophic outcomes.
The worst of the Alien tie-in novels try too hard to tie things back to the movies, particularly Alien and Aliens, hoping that the nostalgia of lines like “Game over, man!” or meeting Ellen Ripley in narrative form will carry the book (and drive sales).
The best ones, though, take that sandbox and do something with it. There may be oblique references to a mysterious incident on LV-426, but the focus is on what drives the current book’s narrative.
Scott Sigler did this brilliantly with Alien: Phalanx, which pitted the xenomorphs against Bronze Age warriors. The Cold Forge doesn’t go that far; instead deciding to swim in the putrid waters of corporate espionage that formed the background of the first two movies. Unlike those movies, where we saw the aftermath of such scheming and manipulation, in this book we’re in the midst of it.
The various Cold Forge characters have their own plans and agendas, often influenced (or outright forced) by rival corporations. The toxic environment primes the station for disaster, adding to the tension when the aliens are inevitably released.
Alex White wrote The Salvagers series, which featured a Firefly-esque crew getting caught up in galactic events and ultimately trying to save the galaxy. It was a staple of Nuketown’s summer reading list for a few years, and it was great to read another one of his books (even if I didn’t realize that White had written both series until halfway through The Cold Forge).
Brutal But Fun
Overall, The Cold Forge is a satisfying Alien read. White pulls no punches, and the resulting novel may be too brutal for those hoping for more sympathetic characters and a happier ending. That probably doesn’t describe a lot of Alien fans though.
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Cover art for Alien: The Cold Forge. Credit: Penguin/Random House