Dark Star

A curious title this - a novelization of a student film. John Carpenter of course has gone on to have much success and become a big name director, but Dark Star was his first cinema release. Alan Dean Foster is a renown author for novelizations and it says something about the base quality of the script that he has been able to produce a fairly impressive novel out of this. For reference, I have not seen the film.

Dark Star focuses on the crew of a spaceship tasked with destroying unstable planets ahead of human expansion in the galaxy. The plot focuses on the 4 (5?) crew on the ship. It is very much about the social relationships, isolationism and existential angst caused by prolonged travel with people you do not necessarily get on with. This is not action sci-fi but more a study in human loneliness.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read - a novelization of a film is always going to feel less developed than a true novel and this one is no exception, but Alan Dean Foster has done an impressive job of getting into the characters heads and fleshing them out. Not bad for a student film!