Recommended Alien Reading

Smith, C. Jason & Gallardo, Ximena C.
Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley

Swallow, James
Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher

Anobile, Richard
The Alien Movie Photonovel

Foster, Alan Dean
The Alien Omnibus

Brimmicombe-Wood, Lee
Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual

Scanlon, Paul & Gross, Michael
The Book of Alien

Sammon, Paul M. (ed.)
Alien: The Illustrated Screenplay
Aliens: The Illustrated Screenplay

Mollo, John & Cobb, Ron
The Authorized Portfolio of Crew Insignias from the United States Commercial Spaceship Nostromo, Designs and Realizations

Ambrogio, Anthony
"Alien: In Space, No One Can Hear Your Primal Scream." In: Eros in the Mind's Eye/ edited by Donald Palumbo. pp: 169-179. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, c1986. Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy; no. 21

Bergeron, Danielle
"Aliens and the Psychotic Experience." In: Lacan, politics, aesthetics / Willy Apollon and Richard Feldstein, editors. pp: 305-14 Albany: State University of New York Press, c1996. SUNY series in psychoanalysis and culture.

Billy, Ted
"A Curious Case of Influence: Nostromo and Alien(s)" Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies, vol. 21 no. 2. 1989 Summer. pp: 147-157.

Billy, Ted
'This Whole Place Is a Basement': The Gnostic/Existentialist Vision of Alien 3. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 1995 Aug, 16:3-4, 229-35.

Briggs, Scott D
"Alien: Trilogy of Terror." Other Dimensions, 1996 Winter, 3, 12-24.

Blackmore, Tim
"'Is This Going to Be Another Bug-Hunt?': S-F Tradition versus Biology-as-Destiny in James Cameron's Aliens." Journal of Popular Culture, 1996 Spring, 29:4, 211-26.

Gabbard, Krin
"Aliens and the new family romance." Post Script; Vol.VIII nr.1 (Fall 1988); p.29-42
Following the writings of film critic Robin Wood, an analysis of how the contemporary US horror film upholds Reaganite values, focusing on the difference between "Aliens" and its forerunner "Alien".

Greenberg, Harvey R.
"Reimagining the Gargoyle: Psychoanalytic Notes on Alien." Camera Obscura, vol. 15. 1986 Fall. pp: 86-109.

Hantke, Steffen
"In the Belly of the Mechanical Beast: Technological Environments in the Alien Films." Journal of Popular Culture. 36(3):518-46. 2003 Winter

Herman, Chad
'Some Horrible Dream about (S)mothering': Sexuality, Gender, and Family in the Alien Trilogy. >Post-Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, 1997 Summer, 16:3, 36-50

Hurley, Kelly
"Reading like an alien: posthuman identity in Ridley Scott's Alien and David Cronenberg's Rabid." In: Posthuman bodies / edited by Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston. pp. 203-24. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1995. Series title: Unnatural acts.

Kendrick, James
"Marxist Overtones in Three Films by James Cameron." Journal of Popular Film and Television, 1999 Fall, 27:3, 36-44.

Lev, Peter
"Whose Future? 'Star Wars,' 'Alien,' and 'Blade Runner.'" Literature-Film Quarterly v26, n1 (Jan, 1998):30 (8 pages).

Matheson, T. J.
"Triumphant Technology and Minimal Man: The Technological Society, Science Fiction Films, and Ridley Scott's Alien." Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, vol. 33 no. 3. 1992 Fall. pp: 215-29.

Penley, Constance.
"Reimagining the gargoyle: psychoanalytic notes on Alien." In: Close encounters : film, feminism, and science fiction / Constance Penley ... [et al.], editors. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c1991. Camera obscura book.

Robertson, Robbie
"The Narrative Sources of Ridley Scott's Alien." In: Cinema and Fiction: New Modes of Adapting, 1950-90 / edited by John Orr and Colin Nicholson. pp: 171-79. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, c1992.

Sanjek, David
"Same As It Ever Was: Innovation and Exhaustionin the Horror and Science Fiction Films of the 1990s." In: Film genre 2000: new critical essays / edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon. pp: 111-23 Albany: State University of New York Press, c2000. SUNY series, cultural studies in cinema/video.

Schemanske, Mark
"Working for the Company: Patriarchal Legislation of the Maternal in Alien 3." In: Authority and Transgression in Literature and Film / edited by Bonnie Braendlin and Hans Braendlin. pp: 127-35. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, c1996.

Scobie, Stephen
"What's the Story, Mother?: The Mourning of the Alien." Science-Fiction Studies, vol. 20 no. 1 (59). 1993 Mar. pp: 80-93.

Speed, Louise
"Alien3: A Postmodern Encounter with the Abject." Arizona Quarterly 1998 Spring, 54:1, 125-51.

Taubin, Amy
"The 'Alien' Trilogy: From Feminism to AIDS." In: Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader / edited by Pam Cook and Philip Dodd. pp: 93-100 Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Series title: Culture and the moving image.

Vaughn, Thomas
"Voices of Sexual Distortion: Rape, Birth, and Self-Annihilation Metaphors in the Alien Trilogy." The Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 81 no. 4. 1995 Nov. pp: 423-35.
" Analyzes the immensely popular science fiction film series sometimes referred to as the Alien Trilogy (1979, 1986, 1992) for its mythopoetic critique of gender identity. The basis for this critique resides in the movies' embodiment of the literalized myths of gender and family and its subsequent deconstruction of this framework through metaphoric ambiguity. By destabilizing the conventional frame through which the rhetorical subject is constructed, the movies question reified social practice. Such a reading revises the feminist challenge to these texts, locating them in a broader cultural tension revolving around reproductive practice." [from ABC-CLIO America: History & Life]

Kaveney, Roz
From Alien to the Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film.? 2005.
(recommended by deezelboy)

Cinefex, issues 1 (Alien), 27 (Aliens), 50 (Alien³), 73 (Alien:Resurrection) and 99 (AvP).
(recommended by Keiros)

Stephen Mulhall
On Film
(recommended by Demoness)

David McIntee
Beautiful Monsters
(recommended by Faltskogian)