I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I picked up Audible’s Alien: River of Pain audio drama. It seemed like an interesting alternative to the usual audiobook material I listen to, so I wanted to give it a shot. I have a massive collection of old 1940s, 50s, and 60s radio dramas in digital format, consisting of radio programs like The Weird Circle. This Audible Original was not entirely dissimilar to those experiences.
In place of the narrative, an ensemble cast performed the dialogue while digital Foley was used to provide the drama with background noise and contextual sounds that enhanced the three-dimensionality of the overall experience. Though this audio drama was missing the writing style of Christopher Golden’s actual novel, it did capture his written dialogue quite nicely. Impressively, even without the story elements from Golden, it wasn’t at all difficult to follow the events as they were taking place.
River of Pain provides us with details of the events taking place on LV-426 from the point the earliest terraforming efforts were underway. This fills us in up to the loss of contact that led to Burke enlisting Ripley to join the Colonial Marines as they made their way to the fateful–and fatal–encounter with the xenomorphs infesting Hadley’s Hope. We benefit from getting to know characters we barely met in Aliens being fleshed out, in addition to meeting characters we’d never known to exist. Additionally, we catch a glimpse of the overall decency of Gorman before his final moments of life during the events of Aliens.
The experiences on LV-426 are placed in the appropriate location in the timeline with relatively frequent snapshots of the events we’re familiar with from the movie. We’re treated to events we know well, from Ripley’s discovery by the salvage crew to her waking up from nightmares in the hospital, from her demotion to the moment Burke requests that she join the expedition to the colony.
All things considered, I feel like this drama might have been a more immersive experience than a standard audiobook, but it’s not something I’d consider a substitute for the book itself. There’s certainly plenty missing in erasing the narrative of the story, especially when written by someone as talented as Christopher Golden, but this does have its unique value.
There were too many exceptionally talented individuals lending their voices to this audio drama, so I’ll focus on the performances that stand out the most. The dialogue from Ripley was so amazing that I initially assumed they’d simply pulled it straight from the movie. I occasionally felt the same where Newt’s dialogue was concerned. Captain Brackett’s dialogue was performed spectacularly well by the voice actor involved in bringing him to life.