Filled with hilariously incentive recipes to turn usually innocuous meals into creations resembling different stages of the Xenomorph life cycle, Alien: The Official Cookbook is a great gift for the non-squeamish Alien fan in your life.

Kicking off with a great intro about the important events that occur in situations involving food in the movies (which are, admittedly, not the focal point unless you’re thinking of the shocking emergence of the first chestburster from poor Kane at the dinner table in 1979’s Alien), before going into detail on the life cycle of the deadly creatures – with background information on Eggs, Facehuggers, Chestbursters and Queens – the book is divided into sections featuring recipes that make one of the aforementioned stages of the lifecycle.

Though some of the end results are a little tenuous in terms of their resemblance to Alien Eggs or Queens, for example, many of them are extremely impressive in the detail that makes them look exactly like their cinematic counterparts. There’s helpful dietary restriction information included for each recipe – vegetarian, vegan and gluten free recipes are all catered for – and even a handy table with substitutions where certain diets aren’t covered by the main recipe.

A few nitpicks stop it being short of being an unequivocal recommendation though. Not a deal-breaker, but – as an Alien fanatic myself – it was a little frustrating to see the Adult/Warrior Xenomorph form repeatedly referred to as a Queen throughout the book. Also, the measurements being in US-style (Imperial and ‘cup’ sizes being prevalent) is a minor annoyance too.

Other than those admittedly minor complaints, it’s a lavishly produced book and the production values are really impressive; photos from the movies throughout are a great touch too.

It’s a fun idea and one that has a surprisingly numerous volume of recipes contained within; it’s something that’ll keep keen cooks busy for quite some time. Though the facehugger shaped pies – amongst many other things – may look a little too worryingly arachnid-esque to be appetising for some tastes, it’s genuinely impressive how much mileage author Chris-Rachael Osellane gets out of the simple concept.