Review

"See you in Hell Hippies"- O'Shea

Below the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa life exists in the depths of oceans fed by chemical rich volcanic vents. Unfortunately the moon has become redundant to the Weyland-Yutani company as other more profitable discoveries are made elsewhere in the Galaxy. The moon is now reduced to an orbital station and a decaying space elevator and is crewed by ecologists and a few company representatives. When one of the massive elevators stops midway in its ascent with no communications from the passengers a rescue mission lead by grisly veteran O'Shea is launched down the elevator. They are about to discover a new deadly life form and just by the by that you really can't trust Weyland-Yutani to have your best interests in the forefront of decision making.

So our would be rescuers discover the wayward elevator crew have been slaughtered and a strange cocoon like structure has been secreted onto the walls. They do discover a scientist's body that looks like something burst out of it! Then they find they aren't alone, a deadly organism has arrived from another world and threatens all life on Europa. It's about to become all about survival.

So there's a bit of schizophrenia going down in Liam Sharp's Alien story for the reader that is either going to work like a brought one or have the reader selecting another title down at their local comic palace. The book, dubbed a "graphic novella" by the publisher, is a mere 38 pages long which isn't going to exactly fill in your entire summer reading program. But the book does come at a reasonable price, is full colour throughout, and is delivered in hard back for that little extra bonus. Hey that final point should be good news for those of you who have been complaining about the Alien Omnibus books disintegrating as you read them. And yes the fourth omnibus fell apart like wet toilet paper as I was reading it a while ago.

So getting on with the review I for one thoroughly enjoyed the story thrown onto the pages of the book, sort of a mix between traditional Alien monster mash and almost a slasher like baguette of awesome dicing up the survivors one by one till our final girl dude is left facing off against an unbeatable foe. For those wondering, yes Track to Heaven leans heavily toward Alien rather than the usual Aliens orientated graphical novels in the Universe. The alien itself is our traditional banana headed friend, Sharp not seeing the need to inflict yet another hybrid clone on the comic loving world. So yeah get ready for a story that sees your average space fearing citizens facing off against one of the more nasty denizens of the imagined Universe. Added spice here is a hint that the company may have been well aware that the scientist was infected, though that of course would make you wonder why company marines weren't arriving by the truckload to capture a specimen. So if you really enjoyed the movie Alien then dig on in kids, this story rocks along similar lines.

The artwork on the panels will certainly keep you interested as Liam Sharp goes heavy on the atmosphere throughout. Okay honest time here, slightly colour blind so excuse me if I get the shading on the wrong side of the colour palate. Sharp goes for whole pages of greys, blues, and reds as things take an artistic turn. The panels are clear, precise, and keep the story rocking along as we follow our group of terrified ecologists. The alien design is pretty much standard but should have fans of the franchise high fiving each other with delight as we get various cat and mouse games from the big fella and some vicious beast panels. Got to say the introduction of the alien was a hoot and a half, and I was bouncing like a bunny to the concept.

Got to say the detail in some of the panels is verging on artistic, Liam Sharp has a fine eye and takes full advantages of the space he has available. You can dial into this one just to view the artwork and you won't be disappointed if taking this approach. I'm certainly keen to catch up with any future Alien universe graphic Sharp might have in mind, I was rocking that hard to this book.

About the only downside to this book is the general lack of characterisation on the page, we don't get the heroes progress or any enlightenment on the human condition if I had to be completely honest. Sharp imbibes his characters with notable traits; you won't be confused as to who is who, but then again no character changes from their introduction at any stage, with the possible exclusion of our final dude. On the bright side this means that we don't get any left field developments or characters acting outside their established framework.

Guess in 2017 we are going to be covering a lot of Alien ground considering the imminent release of Alien: Covenant. Might just be time to cover a couple of the movies that have somehow slipped under the radar over the past few years as well as a backlog of graphic novels. Fast Track to Heaven was a good place to start as the pace is lively and we are back to the origins with the story style. So guess all I'm saying is get ready for a ton of Alien franchise reviews over the next few months up to the release of the next movie in the series.

If you are after a rocking good read then you could do a lot worse than dialling into Aliens: Fast Track to Heaven, while it might be short it does hit all the right franchise notes. One of the criticisms thrown onto Prometheus was the lack of xenomorph fun times, hey guess certain cretins didn't bothering listening to Ridley explaining how this wasn't a straight prequel to Alien, that accusation can't be levelled at Fast Track where we get enough xenomorph action to fill a hive. So the book may be short be it still hits the spot in terms of delivering the requirements, so hey recommendation coming at you for this one. Get your Alien on, the protagonists in this one are on a highway to hell and an Elder God is there to ensure they don't take a side-track.

ScaryMinds Rates this read as ...