Most helpful customer reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Allston does it again!, Feb 13 2004
I was torn when this book came out. On one hand, I thought Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a very mediocre film. The fact that not only did it fudge the continuity of the previous films but was also inconsistent within itself did not help matters. So when I heard there was going to be a tie-in novel, and a hardcover to boot, I had no interest in reading it. Then I heard it would be by Aaron Allston. Allston, whose X-Wing novels rank among the best of the Star Wars expanded universe, and whose "Doc Sidhe" novels are also surprisingly good, is one of my favorite escapist writers and he has, I think, the potential to write some Really Good Books down the line. So, as I said, I was torn: I wanted the new Allston book, but I certainly did *not* want to buy a hardcover Terminator novel. Well, I found it cheap, so I bought it. And once more, Allston failed to disappoint.Allston's writing is not as strong here as in some of his previous novels, but it's still well above the standard for movie tie-in novels. He writes action (and in this novel there's certainly plenty of it) well; this is definitely a page-turner. The characters aren't terribly interesting, but they're consistent and amusing -- one of the things I love about Allston is his ability to make me laugh -- and not *too* clichéd. And if you can forgive the never-quite-explained time-traveling-dreaming thing, the plot is certainly lots of fun to watch unfold. This novel is much better written and much more entertaining than S.M. Stirling's (now obsolete) T2 trilogy, if not as dense. It also goes a long way toward filling in many of the plotholes and inconsistencies in the Terminator 3 film. It's interesting to see more of Cyber Research Systems' and Skynet's history, as well as a better look than we've seen before (outside of the comics) at the post-Judgment Day future. Although I will say that the future here certainly seems a lot less bleak and grim and horrible than it did in the flashback scenes of the original Terminator film. But I digress. If you're a Terminator fan, if you've liked any of Allston's other books, or if you're just looking for a fun, action-packed and reasonably well-written leisure read, this is for you. Lots of fun; recommended. I do wish, though, that Allston had a slightly higher original novel to tie-in novel ratio. I think right now he's got three original novels and eleven books set in various film or RPG universes. I hope he has the chance to even up that score a bit.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Ingenious, Dec 14 2003
Quite ingeniously done, in an increasingly awkward framework. This book is a sequel to the movie "Terminator 3" and the book by S M Stirling based on that movie. Remember in Terminator 1 how it depicted the Final War as happening sometime in the late 90s? That was because it was released in 1984, and the turn of the century seemed so distant...Well, gosh by the time T3 came out it was 2003! Opps. Luckily, the conceptual framework in T1 came in handy. It described the future as mutable. So there was still something to fight for. So within these parameters, Allston has maneuvered cleverly. He introduces a hero in the world of 2029 that can communicate via time-travelling dreams [don't ask!] with his earlier self just prior to the War. More pertinantly, that earlier self was one of the key programmers of the early Terminators. The plot revolves around this character, with the human leader, John Connor, taking a peripheral role. The action scenes are well done, and would be quite visually appealing if this even became a movie, though without quite the nonstop bangups of T3. The story does not end the series, as you might guess. Rather, like the much more successful Star Wars or Star Trek series, the core characters and framework remained unchanged at the end of the story, ready for the next.
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