Rogue Planet evokes memories of Alien and Aliens in a very good way. The blue-collar crew of a salvage ship encounter supernatural and inhuman terrors on Lonely Orphan.

Bunn’s script is gripping from the off. We are introduced to a cast of characters with enough foibles and eccentricities to make you wonder which one of them will be killed off first and indeed how many if any of them are going to survive. Bunn’s dialogue is occasionally a bit heavy-handed and cheesy but no more than you would expect from a sci-fi/horror story. However, there are also genuine tender and humorous moments between the crew that cruelly made me care about the characters. There is a nice mix of action set-pieces and slower anxiety building sequences (one scene of the crew trying to navigate their back to the ship after an ambush is particularly good).

The art is quite simply fantastic. Both the inks and colours bring to life the creepy and weird alien beings that are hunting the crew. As someone who has seen a few horror movies, it is always nice when an original monster is brought to the page. Some of the creatures are so unnatural looking it took me time to process what I was looking at. Always a good sign in monster design.

The plot itself hits all the horror story beats but it does so with aplomb. I’m not sure there is enough here for non-genre fans but for anyone with a passing interest in sci-fi or horror Rogue Planet is definitely worth picking up. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Please consider using this link to buy the book.