First US Printing from June 1992
The long tradition was continued and Alan Dean Foster came back to do the third part and write the novelization for Alien 3. There aren't really that many deviations from the final film as one might think after all these stories of the ever changing script. Lets look at some more obscure facts from the book
1. There were 2 Facehuggers onboard the Sulaco
As to what happens in the beginning of the film is still a subject of rich debates and may not be entirely clear, but in the novelization it's revealed that there were two facehuggers present, a fact which is somewhat a bit more evident in the Assembly Cut because the one from the opening credits and the one found near the ox look different (the second one being the superfacehugger)
The first facehugger accidentally kills itself while breaking Newt's cryotube, and its blood started the fire onboard the ship
"The lower edge of the transparent dome snapped, the metallic glass splitting parallel to the floor. A sliver of the clear material, sharp as a surgical instrument, drove straight through the creature's body" (pg 5)
"Emitting periodic, unearthly shrieks the mortally wounded crawler flung itself across the room, legs and tail flailing spasmodically at the transparent sliver which pierced its body. It landed atop the cylinder in which reposed the motionless Hicks, its legs convulsively gripping the crest of the dome" (pg 6)
"Acid continued to drop from the now motionles, dead crawler" pg 6
Another facehugger is later found by priosner Murphy next to the ox, as in the Assembly Cut, so naturally if the first one died onboard the Sulaco, and there was one that later impregnated the ox, naturally it means there were two.
2. Dillon has a dreadlock
"The single dreadlock that hung from his otherwise baked pate swung slowly as he walked. It took a lot of time and effort to keep the hirsute decoration free of Fiorina's persisent bugs, but he tolerated the limited discomfort in order to maintain the small statement of individuality" (pg 24)
3. There are dangerous animals on Fury, and some big ones too
"There were a few large native animals on Fiorina" (pg 71)
4. Eggmorphing is explained by Ripley to Dillon
"The one that got loose on my first ship Nostromo was making preparations to reproduce itself, but it wasnt a queen either. At least some of them must be hermaphroditic. Self fertilizing, so that even one isolated individual can perpetuate the species. A warrior-worker is capable of producing eggs, but only slowly, one at a time, until it can develop a queen to take over the job." (pg 192)
And traditionally, here is the book's first description of the adult alien runner:
"There was something up there. Something on the ceiling. It was big and black and fast and its face was a vision of pure hell. "
