The Books of David Hagberg

The novellisation of the third Terminator movie. This book, like the film, has varying degrees of quality. The chase scenes, whilst dramatic, rapidly become repetetive and, eventually, irritating. The later scenes, in which the T-1s and H-Ks are unleashed by the T-X, however, are brilliant, really capturing the the robot-foot-crushing-human-skull feel of the movies. Swinging back the other way, the attempts at creating emotional interaction between the characters are feeble at best. Where the book outstrips the movie is in the occasional parts where it reveals more than we see on film. I particularly enjoyed the prologue, showing a bit more of mankind's war-torn future, but also little bits (like where the T-X enlarges her breasts to distract a police officer) add an extra bit of interest to the story. Something I found really annoying, however, (being picky about such things) was the massive story error in which, at the beginning, John Connor sends the Terminator back in time, but later on it's stated that his wife sent it back and by that time John was already dead (killed by the selfsame Terminator, no less). These things just bug me. I loved the concept that Judgement Day is, ultimately, inevitable but that just wasn't enough to counterbalance the fact that the story is pretty bland in general.