Title: Alien: Cult
Authors: Gavin G. Smith
Publisher: Titan Books, 20th Century Studios
Release Date: UK: 25 November 2025; US: 30 December 2025
Price: US/Canada $18.99; UK/Rest of World £9.99

Certain sections of the following review contain spoilers, some mild and others major. These sections are clearly marked above the section heading and contain directions about skipping ahead should you wish to avoid spoilers.

To see our reviews of other Alien novels and coverage of content within the Alien or Predator franchises’ narrative universes, click here.

In a somewhat unusual move, Titan Books published not one, but two Alien novels in the closing months of 2025. Lucky for Alien fans, these are some of the best Expanded Universe novels to date. Last month, fans were treated to Shaun Hamill’s Alien: Perfect Organisms, an intense tale of mystery surrounding a mad artist with a dark taste in subject matter. Now, Titan Books followed up this excellent novel with Gavin G. Smith’s Alien: Cult, a genre bending blend of hard-boiled detective mystery and gritty western thriller. Both of these novels take big risks, breaking outside of the traditional storytelling space of the Alien franchise, but do so successfully with stories that would perform well as film adaptations.

Alien: Cult is a thrilling marvel that will capture attention from start to finish; Titan Books has added another master of storytelling in Gavin G. Smith. Hopefully, the powers that be give him a blank check for future novels. Before diving into the full review, I have to give one more bit of credit to the folks at Titan Books. In my previous review, I poked some fun at the less than satisfactory covers of recent releases; however, the cover for Alien: Cult is an all-timer—well done!

Synopsis

Titan Books describes Alien: Cult as the following:

“In the affluent, technocratic Alexandria Colony, people are disappearing. And witnesses are dying in grisly, mysterious ways—it all reeks of Xenomorphs. At a loss, the Hume City police call in Special Agent Tyler Matterton to solve what they can’t. Tyler is a rising star in the FBI’s Esoteric Crime Unit, investigating crimes involving exotic tech or first contact situations—the weird murders.

With the local police department baffled, Tyler and his synthetic partner Serena are set on the case, tracking the killer through the underbelly of Hume City only to find themselves in the middle of something much larger and more horrifying than they possibly imagined. There is a cult at the heart of the Alexandria Colony, and it will stop at nothing to serve its Goddess.

In this latest original novel, discover the world of Alien as you’ve never seen it before. Veteran sci-fi author Gavin G. Smith’s deliciously twisted crime thriller is a terrifying thrill ride sure to hook readers from the first page to the last.”

The following section contains mild spoilers about locations in the novel and general information about these places and their relation to the story. If you wish to skip these spoilers, skip ahead to the section marked “About the Author.”

Set Pieces That Would Make Giger Proud

From the very first page of Alien: Cult, the set pieces will captivate readers, particularly those who are long-time fans of the franchise or who appreciate the artwork of H.R. Giger. Author Gavin G. Smith immediately displaces readers into the realm of the strange and the terrifying, taking readers into a grisly trophy room of a serial killer, one that reuses the bodies of his victims to build macabre animatronics. The opening scene not only sets the tone for the shocking tale ahead, but establishes Special Agent Tyler Matterton as compassionate truth seeker who is willing to go to the dark places of the world to find it.

The novel’s first act takes place in Hume City, a community built on top of an old atmospheric processor; the wealthy live in the sunlight, with shining towers and beautiful streets. At the center of Hume City is the spaceport, where shuttles come and go, transporting people around Alexandria Colony and off world. Under the spaceport, beneath the shadows of the atmospheric processor lie hidden communities, populated by the poor, the less fortunate, and the criminally minded. The exhaust from the spaceport fills the air of this netherworld with ash that falls like apocalyptic snow. Those that live in the bowels of Hume City, what they call Exhaust Town, require breather masks to survive the toxic air. Body modification is common, and a whole subculture has developed around doing what it takes to survive. Readers, much like the characters themselves, will feel a sense of suffocation that blends seamlessly with the visceral fear and tension of Alien.

I loved this portion of the story that takes place in Exhaust Town. The class consciousness of the storytelling made me feel right at home with the franchise I’ve loved since watching the original trilogy as a child. Growing up, I felt shocked and confused by how the company treated workers, how it lied to Ripley, and how it didn’t care about the obvious danger posed by the Xenomorph. Of course, as an adult, I recognize just how accurately these depictions reflected corruption in the real world, and how painfully accurate the storytelling really was. Gavin G. Smith manages to explore the familiar territory of classism, greed, and the commodification of workers in a way that feels simultaneously timeless and fresh. If I have any complaint, it’s only that I wish I could have spent longer in the fascinating world beneath Hume City that Smith created. Perhaps in a sequel?

“You tell yourself the myths of the big bad corporation. Never mind that without the corporation in question you wouldn’t be here and this place wouldn’t exist” (Alien: Cult, 335, eBook version).

This theme of suffocation continues in the second act of the novel, which takes place in Steer City, located on Gamma Leporis 3, another location within the Independent Core Systems Colonies (ICSC) sector of space. In addition to being cold and miserable, the planet is constantly battered by massive dust storms that render the air unbreathable; the speed at which sand and grit are blown over the surface also makes it quite dangerous for openly exposed skin. To survive these conditions, residents and workers of Steer City wear breather masks and duster cloaks that protect them from the elements. As the name implies, Steer City is a major hub for the interstellar cattle industry, a food source for the surrounding regions of space. But hidden within the colony lie dark secrets, housed within the confines of the Church of Biological Transcendence, a transhumanist cult, hellbent on evolving humanity in rapid fashion, preparing the species to break the Twenty Parsec Limit.

Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, the Biological Transcendents (or Bio-T’s) are a disturbing twist on the Engineers, matching them in appearance, but smaller and slightly more human. The Church’s goal of modifying humanity to be more fit for space exploration reminded me of the explanation given by Ash in Alien: Romulus, when he points out that the human body just isn’t made for the hostility of space, that if we are to go beyond the limits of what we know, we must become something else. This idea is also explored in the Marvel comics issue Alien: Bloodlines, where the Woman in the Dark is described as the ultimate fate of humanity. In the story, Iris Humphries explains to Cruz, “It’s always the same after that. First, you tried to harness the fire as a weapon, like all the ones before you have done. Next, you’ll try to join with it… use it to make yourselves better, stronger… she is your own future.” Genetic manipulation and the next steps in human evolution are among the many themes that make Alien a franchise that continues to be relevant nearly fifty years after the first film; Smith continues this tradition in Alien: Cult.

Both the first act and second act of the novel end with disturbing set pieces that feel like they fell out of a Giger art book and into the pages of the novel. I won’t go into specific spoilers here, but these moments are highlights of the novel and will be remembered long after readers finish the story and put the book down. These places blend the organic and inorganic, and the results are terrifying.

The following section contains major spoilers about the ending of the novel and the resolution to the story. If you wish to skip these spoilers, skip ahead to the section marked “About the Author.”

Now That’s an Ending

The third act of the novel at last releases the tension that’s been building over the previous three hundred pages. If the first two acts danced in and out of Alien lore, the final act is a roaring finish that will satisfy even the most die-hard Aliens fans. One final warning before continuing: this section contains MAJOR spoilers, so if you don’t want the ending spoiled for you, skip to the next section and return here for analysis once you’ve read the novel.

With that said, let’s dive in. Gavin G. Smith pulls no punches at the end of Alien: Cult. The dark secrets have all been dragged into the light by story’s end: Chisholm Meats, which appeared to be a subsidiary of Lasalle Bionational (a competitor to Weyland-Yutani in the Dark Horse Comics), was actually owned all along by Weyland-Yutani; the evil mega-corporation was running illegal bio-experiments on members of the Church of Biological Transcendence and using the cattle industry in Steer City as cover. But as time went on, the Church grew true believers, and the goals of the cult diverged from the company’s interests, particularly around “the goddess,” the massive Queen held in a containment chamber where adherents communed psychically with her, harvested Royal Jelly, and transformed their physical bodies into human / Xenomorph hybrids or possibly into the physiology of the Engineers themselves.

“It’s liberation biotechnology. Regardless of what you may think of Shaw and Holloway’s theories, what is clear is that the Arcturians were in contact with an advanced species, a species that thought nothing of the Twenty Parsec Limit. For humanity to break that limit, it requires a shift in approach. We believe the human form, the human mind, needs to change” (Alien: Cult, 176, eBook version).

Things go off the rails, and Weyland-Yutani sends in their “Dog Catcher units,” commandos in “servo-assisted APEsuits” (yes those ones). The Church is nearly destroyed, and the Queen is set loose in the town right as a massive dust storm hits and thousands of cattle are run through the streets—pure chaos. Special Agent Matterton, his synthetic partner Serena, along with the local Colonial Marshall Cassandra Stock discover that the cattle have been impregnated by Facehuggers and are being herded to the spaceport to be shipped off world to an unsuspecting region within Union of Progressive Peoples space.

The final hundred pages of the novel are a race to the finish as Matterton and Serena try to stop the shuttle from taking off while the Xenomorph Queen hunts within the cover of the storm. Again the themes of sensory deprivation and suffocation are front and center as the novel reaches its terrifying conclusion. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that I did not expect novel to go the direction it did, and I loved it. No pulling punches in this story. Gavin G. Smith does leave open the possibility of a sequel, and I sincerely hope he writes one because I need more of what he’s selling.

About the Author

Gavin G. Smith is the author and co-author of fourteen books, along with novellas and short stories. He’s authored Veteran and its sequel War in Heaven, as well as the Age of Scorpio trilogy. Many of Smith’s books focus on dark, futuristic stories, the merging of technology with humanity, and gritty crime thrillers. Fans of Marvel will also enjoy his novelization of the Sony Pictures film Bloodshot and Marvel’s Original Sin series.

In addition to traditional storytelling, Smith has worked within the gaming industry for Yoozoo, Ubisoft, DPS Games, and CCP.

Gavin G. Smith is currently working towards his PhD, enjoys travel, and is passionate about TTRPG and board games.

Final Score

Alien: Cult is a fantastic addition to the Alien Expanded Universe. Smith’s approach to the franchise through the lens of horrific crimes investigation is brilliant, recontextualizing the brutality of the Xenomorph life cycle and the greed of the Weyland-Yutani corporation as that of vile crime and dark intention. The opening act as hard-boiled crime noir, where Special Agent Matterton descends to the depths of Hume City, sets the stage for the dehumanizing violence committed by the cult group Church of Biological Transcendence, and ultimately by Weyland-Yutani, later in the story. The underclass are trapped, suffocating in the city, and the desperation is palpable. When the story eventually shifts to Steer City on Gamma Leporis 3, the swirling dust storms and breather masks provide a similar sense of suffocation, as the dangerous secrets of the Chisholm Meat corporation and the Church of Biological Transcendence close in. The contrast between the city and the wide open spaces of the second and third acts provide excellent storytelling opportunities on top of unique set pieces. I can only hope the folks at Twentieth Century Studios will draw inspiration for future Alien films.

Simply put, Alien: Cult is one of the best novels in the franchise, certainly one of the best published by Titan Books, and is a must-read novel for fans or anyone who enjoys brilliant sci-fi. Go get yourself a copy!

Tell us what you think! Have you read Alien: Cult? Where does it fall on your list of favorite Alien stories? Share your reactions in the comments below or join the conversation on Boss Rush Network’s Discord, Facebook, and Twitter.

Featured Image: Titan Books

David Lasby is the Editor-in-Chief for Boss Rush Network. His favorite video games are The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and the Aliens franchise. You can find him on Twitter to talk all things Nintendo, sci-fi / fantasy, and creative writing.