Outland By Alan Dean Foster Book Review

I first saw the movie Outland when I was a kid growing up in the early 1990s.

The movie was released in 1981, and starred Sean Connery and Peter Boyle.

Honestly, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it, so I did go back to it from time to time.

Eventually, I really enjoyed the movie.  I think it was just more dramatic, and not as action packed as I would have liked when I was a kid watching action movies.

But as I got older, I dug it more and I love it now.

Anyway, long story short, the story is about a Marshal on a mining colony, played by Sean Connery, who uncovers corruption at the highest level of the colony, involving drugs being given to miners to make them work more at a faster rate, but ultimately drives them insane and to death.  The GM of the colony, played by Peter Boyle, is the man ultimately supplying these drugs, and Connery’s character is expected to look the other way.  Well, he doesn’t and actually wants to do his job and stop all of this from happening anymore.  And of course trouble ensues.

Outland is a solid science fiction/action/mystery story.

I recently got a copy of the novelization of the movie, and I was curious as to how different, if at all, it was to the movie.

It pretty much follows the movie, with a few different details.

Alan Dean Foster does a fine job adapting the script, written by Peter Hyams (also the director of the movie).

It’s a pretty straight forward story, and if you like science fiction/action/mystery stories, then you should like this book and movie.

And in the movie, Connery does a great job and Boyle is a good bad guy.  James B. Sikking also does a good job playing a police sergeant who works both sides.