Customer Reviews

Jason X #2: The Experiment

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Okay, I know the title Jason X, just means Friday the 13th Ten, but when you pick up this book take it to mean "a fairly long sci-fi/action novel with mild slasher overtones". This book takes very little from the actualy Friday the 13th series, and instead goes off in to a more action oriented, sci fi based story that uses everyones favorite insane killing machine, Jason. Now, Jason is almost unrecognizable in this book, but in the context of the book it works fine.

The story is as follows. Jason falls from space in to Veronica Lake, right next to the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant. Some of the nanos from Jason X that helped rebuild him are stuck in his remains, namely his mask, and using the nuclear material being dripped off from the power plant, they rebuild him. He then goes on to slaughter a good portion of the Three Mile Island staff, and a few protesters leaving Lynn and Rena Sofira, are two most interesting characters, alive. Then Jason is frozen and shipped off to an underground lab, and the real story starts... kind of.

Let's start with this books strengths. It is very well written, with some very witty and fun humor. There are scenes where characters end up naked, when they shouldn't be, but it works in the context of the story, and brings in a bit of the camp from the movie series that normally would have been lost otherwise. One such scene is early on in the book where Rena, to get Jason's attention, removes her shirt, and ends up being chased down by the enraged monster. Stuff like that helps the book from sinking away to far from the series. Also, some of the characters are interesting, most notably Lynn and Rena. There are also some decent gory killings early on, but sadly those are abandoned for the second half (the main part) of the novel.

Now for the weaker parts. I won't say bad, because they work, but not in a series that is connected with Friday the 13th. For starters, there are WAY to many characters. This would be okay if they were equally focused on, but the sheer number of them make it impossible, and instead we are left with a lot of loose ends that never get tied up, and if the ending tells me anything, they never will be. Also, the slasher element is absent after the first hundred or so pages, and doesn't show up again until, maybe, page 390. When it does show up, it has almost no effect on the actual story, and really just works to help tie up the ending. Also, the interesting characters, such as the two mentioned before, as well as a few other characters that come in later, are ignored for the most part, with the attention given to characters who really hold no real significance to the story. This book is not short, clocking in at 410 pages, and could easily have been chopped down a good deal. Hopefully Black Flame gets a better editor for the next book.

The writing itself is very well done. The characters are interesting for the most part, and the book is never really slow, but it never really has a point. It also feels like the first half (the first hundred pages) is horribly short changed. The massacre at Three Mile Island should have been a book itself, with more attention payed to suspense, but instead the interesting part, the actual massacre, is rushed through. The author does this again with the lab segment once the action starts. It's disappointing to a degree because the set ups are actually interesting, and could have worked very well in a slasher medium. Instead she opted for big action, lots of guns, and mass death. It really ends up hurting the book in the long run, because the tension, and the action never build up to much. Hopefully she gets a better hang on this in the third book (Jason X being the first). But only time will tell. Still, I will continue to read the series, mainly because it is just that, readable, but still a bit raw.

A Jason X book series. That sounded a little edgy at first, but I guess New Line Cinema will do just about anything they can to make money. Despite myself and the fact that I thought turning the concept into a book series was completely stupid, I bought the book at it took me about five days to read all the way through. I was mildly surprised, but I came to find that the whole thing was just like reading a long, weird science fiction soap opera, with a little military action, some gunfire, and guest starring our own anti-life anti-hero, Jason Voorhees. I won't ruin anything about the book for you, but I will tell you that way too much time is spent describing some characters that are completely ignored throughout throughout the rest of the novel, which was an example of either bad story construction or just bad editing. All in all, "Jason X: The Experiment" was a good read, but nothing to get excited about, and it made the author look a little bit like a Stephen King wannabe. Thanks for reading.

Well, to start off, I thought this was a good sequel to Jason X, with the rebuilt Uberjason being captured by scientists in the future and experimented on by a government wanting a supersoldier, until Jason gets loose and all hell starts breaking loose again. The potential for a good old-fashioned slasher was quite present, though the sci-fi angle was interesting too, as the scientists tried to understand the merging of machine and flesh now present in Jason, which is apparently supposed to be impossible. But then, Jason's always had a knack for pulling off the impossible, hasn't he?

Unfortunately, the part that made it hard for me to make it through this book was the rather excessive amount of detail of each and every character and object in the background, which is why I'm only giving it four stars, because the sheer amount of detail sometimes made it hard to continue.

This is something I've come to expect with certain authors, but when the action finally begins, and the blood-bath begins, I found myself making the same surprised noises as when I watch Jason's movies, so while slow at times, I did enjoy the book. If you're a Jason fan, and you enjoyed Jason X, as I did, then by all means, read this sequel.

When I first found this novel in a local bookstore, I was pretty excited. I'm a fan of horror movies, and I took a particular shine to the movie Jason X (being a sci-fi fan as well). I knew that Jason X was a critical failure, however, and had little hope of the story going any farther than the one movie. Needless to say, the discovery of the book was a pleasant surprise; I bought it immediately and read it within two weeks.

I think it only fair to point out that "The Experiment" is almost nothing like the movie it continues off of. Whereas Jason X was filled with plenty of interesting science fiction bits, "The Experiment" features almost nothing until the end, and at times I felt that it could just as easily taken place in the present. Though this isn't a major gripe, it still took something away from the book.

My bigger complaint, however, is the sheer excess of the book. "The Experiment" is over 400 pages, and yet the majority of this is focussed on introducing characters that were either inconsequential or, at worst, extremely boring, and then forcing us to wade through their personal stories until, at the end, they are either killed (which I was immensely glad about, at times) or left dangling, their fates left up in the air. Sure, another book is forthcoming, but the ending still seems too sudden, and the epilogue makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.

All in all, I'd say that "The Experiment" is a decent book, but too little Jason and too many other people puts a damper on a good concept. 4 out of 5.

I loved this new adventure about Uber-jason (the new jason Voorhees from Jason X movie). It's very well written and the story is interesting. I liked the cooperation between Jason and the nano-ants. If u loved the movie u'll love this one too, if not it's a good opportunity to re-considering the Jason x Franchise ( at least on novel).

Being a bit of a fanboy when it comes to Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees, I pick up this book along with the novelization of "Jason X". I liked Jason X as it stuck to the movie and then added plausible backgrounds to the characters. "Jason X: The Experiment" falls far short of being a good addition to the franchise.

The author spends the majority of the book introducing characters with backgrounds and lagging on and on with nothing very interesting happening. Sure there's a nutjob that is trying to clone Jason for a super-soldier program in the future setting on Earth II, but the characters are more annoying than anything. Now I will admit that there stands to be no chance of a plot in a series about Jason Voorhees, I'll also admit that I picked these up because every once in a while I need to read a mindless brain jelly book. I did expect more than this though.

I feel the biggest problem in the book is that it's part of the new Jason X series but Jason is barely even in the book. His regeneration is dealt with in the beginning, he whacks a couple eco-terrorists, and then he's a statue for the majority of the book, barely getting any mention throughout the body of the book. He then finally gets some action in the last 75 pages, if that. Here we have a case of someone wanting to write a sci-fi story and is authorized to use an established copyrighted character and then the franchise player is barely used in the book.

Plain and simple, if you're going to write a book about Jason Voorhees, you need to use him throughout the book, not as an intro piece and a poor conclusion wrap up. It's not a bad story, mind you, just a bad use of the character. To be honest, people will buy this book because we want to see Jason in slaughter mode, high body count, and inventive ways he offs his victims. I appreciate the effort, but if writing about Jason, then write about Jason not a pile of characters that serve little purpose.