Customer Reviews

T2: The Future War

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

...The first two books in this series were great!, this one was not! I was very disapointed with it. I felt the author didnt have is heart into this book and it heavily lacked in imagination and it was apparent that the writer was rushed through writing this book to get it published within a deadline.

Many of the character building plots were weak, underdeveloped, and worst of all, completely irrelevant to the story. This book really should have been broken down into a couple of books because the first 3/4 of this book cover a 6 month span of events then all at once you are left hanging at a major event at the end of a chapter and then next chapter the author sling shots you 3 to 7 years from that point of the story. It leaves you desperately trying to figure out what the heck happened. This book is very difficult to follow and I found myself having to re-read several areas of the book to figure out the details of what happend and why. Also I found the events of Judgement Day to be totally ridiculous. It was obvious that the author knows little to nothing about computer technology and I found it laughable that computers are taking over cars, tractors, and lawnmowers are driving themselves wildly in attempts to mow people down. Come on, the time line for Judgement Day is our present time. I feel that a more plausable set of events could be developed. This was primarily where I felt imagination was misplaced and not well thought out.

Other problems that bugged me: The book never explained why the Terminators are cloned after Dieter. I felt Sarah was too super human and larger than life. I expected her character to die in battle. Also I expected Dieter to be captured and cloned and his clones used to infiltrait the resistance like they did in the previous books. Its almost like a completely different author wrote this book without reading the first two books in the series. There were so many holes in this story line that it left me completely irratated after finishing the book.

However if you have read the first two books, you must read it just to go along for the ride. I hope the last Movie will make up for it.

This final entry into Stirling's great T2 series is overall a good read, telling the tale of John Connor's rise to leadership over the remnants of mankind in the war against the machines and their human followers. My major complaint is that the book feels rushed, as it covers about twenty years of war in one volume. Characters vital to the other two books, namely Snog's college buddies, are dropped here, with no explanation of what happened to them. Other characters come in for the first part of the book, but are killed off or disappear before the second half.

This gets insane near the end, as Kyle Reese's entire 20+ year life is covered in about 80 pages of what are basically vignettes interspersed with the main story of John's fight. This main story is also rushed, with two years or more flying by at a time. This is seriously what's crammed in the last ten pages:

-Skynet's defense grid is smashed.
-The time machine facility is captured in a huge battle.
-The Terminators go back in time.
-Kyle Reese and the good T-800 go back.
-The book ends.

And no, there weren't spoilers there, if you've seen the movies, which you should have if you're reading this series.

In conclusion, while the book is well-written, it feels like Stirling tried to cram what should have been two, or even more, books into a single novel. By all means, buy this if you've read the other two books and want to see the end of the series, because it's a good book. But this novel won't make anyone a new fan of the series, and even veterans of the Terminator saga like myself might get confused at the insane pace of the last hundred or so pages.

Sarah Connor, her son John, and her lover Dieter felt destroying Clea before she activated Skynet had given them victory, but soon learn otherwise as the organic terminator managed to feed the discs to Skynet. Almost immediately Skynet concludes that humanity poses a threat to its survival and must be eradicated. Instead of complacency, Sarah and Dieter become concerned when the Pentagon announces Skynet will run all its weapon systems.

Skynet begins experimenting to prepare for Judgment Day, when the advanced computer system fires all the nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Skynet starts the nuclear end run as Sarah and her loved ones hide in a fallout shelter. With human collaborators and terminator robots with advanced weapons on its' side, Skynet seems on the verge of victory. Only Sarah as a rallying point and her two cohorts lead a weak resistance that over the years is becoming stronger against a god-like enemy.

T2 THE FUTURE WAR is a great action packed doomsday thriller starring three long time favorite heroes, but also provides well-rounded personality traits to Skynet so the audience knows this is an independent sentient essence. Sarah seems so much more than she was in past books and movies as she has turned into a profound leader, who recognizes she is an icon to the resistance. John has matured from his previous feelings of resentment and disbelief into the hope of the future. This finale (loosely put - need to read to understand why) is a winner as S. M. Stirling terminates the series with a triumphant doomsday thriller in which humanity fights to survive against a killing machine.

Harriet Klausner

While I liked the first two entries in this series, this one is weak. Stirling seems in a hurry to finish off the series and the great story line he began in "Infiltrator" and "Rising Storm" falls flat here.

I assume the pressure of deadlines and a restricted amount of page space are to blame?...or perhaps the author had other projects that were more important?

Its too bad that a strong series had to fininsh on this note.

The book is the complement of the first Terminator movie, T2 and T3 (due in a few weeks). Remember in T1 the glimpses of the future, showing Reese and others fighting in the rubble, amidst skeletons? It has been nineteen years since the T1 movie, but finally we can see extra details alluded to.

Stylistically, this differs from most of Stirling's works. In part because he must fit it into the boundary conditions set by the movies. The narrative is sparser. Details are considerably less, especially of the scenery, which is his trademark in many other stories. There is simply not the dense weave of descriptions and subplots seen in the Nantucket trilogy or the Peshawar Lancers. Plus, the combat scenes don't have the same intensity as those in Marching Through Georgia. (One scene in Future War alludes to another in the latter; see if you can find it.)

My impression is that Stirling wrote this book simply to tie up the loose ends in the movies and close out his two other Terminator novels. Just work-for-hire. Fans of the movies should check this book out for more flesh on the movies. Fans of Stirling should probably look to his other wholly-owned works.

This book is horrendus, stay away, at all costs. It seriously made me wonder if it was written in a day by the author in lockup and desparate for bail money.

First its the end of a series and does nothing to follow up on the stories in the first two books which is a failing all on its own. Second, its a failure as a stand alone story - the characters are shallow come and go in pages and are forgetten about by the author, it jumps around, it has no real plot going other then the most basic fighting, its so terribly disjointed and full of the authors political and social views (please I have my own I dont need anyone elses).

The first two book were ok, nothing great, but if you just watched a terminator movie and wanted something more then they were fine. But if you've read the first two books in the series and loved them or even thought you'd grab this one just to finish the story please, please, dont buy this book. Anything you can imagine will be a better ending then this.

T2: The Future War is the third book in a series that follows the characters of
The Terminator movies from where the movies leave off to future world that was
described so chillingly in the first movie. Stirling is faithful to the movies, and keep
his characters consistent with those on the big screen. He expands on the story
told in the movies and provides a good deal of background information and detail
on how the Terminator future can to happen. The problem with T2: The Future War
is that most of the plot and themes in the book are so simplistic that I found myself
skimming chapters to get to the paragraphs where SkyNet unleashes a new round of nasty machines upon humanity. The characters were so shallow that I simply did not care what happened to them. To make things worse, the ending is pre-ordained so there was no real suspense in the story.

A more serious problem, however, was that the book was full of cliches. For example, environmentalists and ecologists are portrayed as cold-blooded, fascist who are incapable of thinking for themselves. Stirling seems to be using this book
to editorialize on groups that he does not like, and he assums that his readers share his views. I lost interest after a few chapters.

Stirling has written some very good stories, but this is not one of them. Read The Children's Hour to see Stirling at his best.

I picked this up on Monday morning and finished it later that evening. This is a must for a terminator collector and fills in a lot of the gaps of the movie series. This goes over the major engagements and events of the future war and it is quite impressive to read.

There are parts in this novelization that are a little slow, but it gets made up for toward the end. I enjoyed reading about judgment day itself and it was an interesting thing to read about. I like how, in parts, this section seemed both humerous yet still frightening. I also enjoyed reading the final battle in the time displacement lab, it was quite enjoyable.

I also like the way this ties up a lot of the mysteries of the movies and the other novels in this series. The novel itself is a wonderful addition to the terminator mythos and I hope that the new movie is just as good as this novel series has been.

What I liked the most had to be seeing humanity come together to rise against the machines. This was, perhaps, the moral of the story: That we need to come together as people and the continuing narration on the triumpth of the human spirit. I enjoyed how well this was captured.

I gave it 4 stars out of 5 because there are a few parts to it that are unnecessary. It does repeat itself at some points but it is still a great read. I recommend this book and the others of the series. This is a great prequel, in my opinion, to Rise of the Machines, and a sequel to Terminator 2 as it was intended to be. Be warned though, some of it is only understood if you read the previous two novels but they're just as good as this one.

I have read every Terminator book written and all of them are pretty but this book connects all the movies and all the other books together.

I don't want to give away anything in this review, but if you were ever wondering what happened just before Judgement day, during, and after, this is the book for you.

It does NOT just jump around and leave alot for you to guess at. It goes into all the things you wondered about.

How did Skynet build and progress after J-Day without human help....or did it?

How did Kyle Reese grow up to be the man that he is?

What were his parents like?

What happen to many of the military personal that were NOT near major cities during the first wave of the attack?

How did the resistance start? Who was for and against it?

It ties into the movies RIGHT till the very start of T-1.

The only bad thing about the book is that it is only 375 pages!! I wish it was longer.

Now that they filled in ALL the gaps, I am wondering where it will go next.....

I just hope where ever it goes that S.M. Stirling will write the book!

I picked this up on Monday morning and finished it later that evening. This is a must for a terminator collector and fills in a lot of the gaps of the movie series. This goes over the major engagements and events of the future war and it is quite impressive to read.

There are parts in this novelization that are a little slow, but it gets made up for toward the end. I enjoyed reading about judgment day itself and it was an interesting thing to read about. I like how, in parts, this section seemed both humerous yet still frightening. I also enjoyed reading the final battle in the time displacement lab, it was quite enjoyable.

I also like the way this ties up a lot of the mysteries of the movies and the other novels in this series. The novel itself is a wonderful addition to the terminator mythos and I hope that the new movie is just as good as this novel series has been.

What I liked the most had to be seeing humanity come together to rise against the machines. This was, perhaps, the moral of the story: That we need to come together as people and the continuing narration on the triumpth of the human spirit. I enjoyed how well this was captured.

I gave it 4 stars out of 5 because there are a few parts to it that are unnecessary. It does repeat itself at some points but it is still a great read. I recommend this book and the others of the series. This is a great prequel, in my opinion, to Rise of the Machines, and a sequel to Terminator 2 as it was intended to be. Be warned though, some of it is only understood if you read the previous two novels but they're just as good as this one.