Despite having written more than 20 standalone novels, Alan Dean Foster is very well known for his movie novelizations.
Thirty years after the Galactic Civil War, the First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire and seeks to eliminate the New Republic. The Resistance, backed by the Republic and led by General Leia Organa, opposes the First Order. Leia searches for her brother, Luke Skywalker, who has gone missing.
The commercial space tug Nostromo is on a return trip back to Earth with a seven-member crew in stasis: Captain Dallas, Executive Officer Kane, Warrant Officer Ripley, Navigator Lambert, Science Officer Ash, and two engineers, Parker and Brett. They discover the signal comes from a derelict alien ship and enter it, losing communication with the Nostromo.
For 57 years, Ellen Ripley has been in stasis in an escape shuttle after destroying her ship, the Nostromo, to escape a lethal alien creature that slaughtered her crew. She is rescued and debriefed by her employers at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, but they are skeptical of her claims that her crew found alien eggs in a derelict ship on the exomoon LV-426, as it is now the site of the terraforming colony Hadleys Hope.
Several thousand years ago, the planet Cybertron was consumed by a civil war between the two Transformer factions, the Autobots led by Optimus Prime and the Decepticons led by Megatron. They fight Scorponok off, aided by aerial reinforcements, and travel home with Scorponok’s stinger, discovering sabot rounds damaged its armor.
In the 23rd century, the Federation starship USS Kelvin is investigating a lightning storm in space. George Kirk, Kelvin’s first officer, orders the ship’s personnel, including his pregnant wife Winona, to abandon ship while he pilots the Kelvin on a collision course with Narada. Kirk sacrifices his life to ensure Winona’s survival as she gives birth to James T. Kirk.
In 2259, Captain James T. Kirk is removed from command of the starship USS Enterprise for violating the Prime Directive after exposing the ship to the primitive inhabitants of the planet Nibiru in order to save them, and Spock, from a cataclysmic volcanic eruption. During an emergency meeting on the situation, Harrison uses a ship to ambush and kill Pike and other senior officers, before transporting to Kronos, homeworld of the hostile Klingons.
In the year 17,000 B.C., the original Transformers leaders, the Seven Primes, travel across the universe to create Energon with star-absorbing machines called Sun Harvesters, which destroy stars in order to collect their raw material. The Fallen is confronted by the other Primes, who imprison him before he can harvest the Sun using the Matrix of Leadership.
In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station. The Norwegian pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry. Blair grows paranoid that the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years.
In 2003, Dr. Serena Kogan of Cyberdyne Systems convinces death row inmate Marcus Wright to sign over his body for medical research following his execution. In 2018, John Connor leads an attack on a Skynet base, where he discovers human prisoners and schematics for incorporating living tissue to a new type of Terminator, the T-800.
Following the events of Aliens, a fire starts aboard the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco. The computer launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, the young girl Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop; Scans of the crew’s cryotubes show a Queen Facehugger attached to one member.
Business magnate Peter Weyland speaks with his newly activated android, who chooses the name David after observing Michelangelo’s statue. David comments on his own unlimited lifespan as compared to Weyland’s, which unsettles Weyland. While repairing the ship, the crew picks up a transmission of a human voice from a nearby planet, which appears eminently more habitable than Origae-6.
Five years after escaping the dark planet, Riddick has been in hiding, evading bounty hunters and mercenaries sent to capture him. Riddick is reunited with Imam, the man he rescued in the first movie. Imam believes Riddick is a Furyan, a member of a race of warriors long thought extinct, and wants to know about his homeworld and if anyone other than himself is left. The Necromongers attack and take control of the capital in a single night. In the battle, Imam is killed and Riddick escapes.