Terminator 3: Terminator Dreams (Hardcover)

by Aaron Allston (Author) "It wasn't exactly a jungle, but in the decades since Judgment Day, trees had forced their way up through street pavement and sidewalk concrete; grasses..." (more)
Key Phrases: stink box, skeet range, muster points, Hornet Compound, Air Force, Present Day (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Adolescents of all ages will have fun with Allston's rock-'em sock-'em riff on the characters and settings of last summer's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It's shortly before "Judgment Day" (supercomputer Skynet's attempted annihilation of humanity), and cyberwizard Danny Avila is refining the arch-robot Terminator into America's ultimate fighting machine. He dreams ominously of robots gone rogue, destroying their creators. Jump to 2029, and Daniel, now a middle-aged amnesiac fighting alongside human resistance leaders John Connor and his wife, Kate, dreams strange dreams of the past he can't consciously remember, dreams that spill over into the sleep of his fellow guerrillas and draw Skynet's wrath down on them. Caught in a horrible dilemma where he must help produce the very weapon that may wipe out the human race or risk being fired and thus become impotent to help future humanity, present-day Danny tears through one wild and lethal chase scene after another, while in 2029 Connor, supported by his daughter Kyla's Hell-Hounds, takes on wave after wave of advance-model Terminators. Breathless action and unstoppable pace propel both parallel plots to so relentless a denouement that the cardboard human characters, their equally two-dimensional robotic nemeses and their all-too-predictable motivations scarcely matter. Arnold's adventure fans, rejoice; this is the stuff that role-playing dreams are made of.
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Review
"Arnold''s adventure fans, rejoice; this is the stuff that role-playing dreams are made of." (Publishers Weekly ) --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (December 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765308525
• ISBN-13: 978-0765308528
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #981,950 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Allston does it again!, February 12, 2004

By	Nathan Blumenfeld "mastadge" (Wilmington, DE United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ingenious, December 14, 2003

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book That Salvages the T3 Movie Disaster, November 6, 2005

By	H. Mccorvey "SuperFistoJunkie" (Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Aaron Allston superbly patches up the gaping holes created by the movie T3: Rise of The Machines. This book gives an exciting and technically competent look at the world as it is in 2029 while providing the reader with a new story that is very much more convincing than the crap created by the introduction of TX in T3. If you are like me and were very dissapointed with T3 the movie, and found it very difficult to believe that a defeated Skynet could produce and send back in time not only the prototype T-1000, but also a fully functional T-X, then this book is for you. Allston deliberately stays away from using TX in this book. The only real link to T-3 is the involvement of one of the Skynet programmers working under General Brewster just before judgment day; otherwise, this could very well be a standalone work that is a brilliant addition to the Terminator series. Another great feature of this book is that the reader "finally" gets a real close-up look at the day-to-day operations of John Connor's resistance. The 2029 battles are superbly described and technically believeable! The action is riveting. Best of all, Allston doesn't fill up the story with a lot of "fluff." The whole story is to the point and keeps your attention throughout. What a story. If I were king for a day, I would erase the movie that "was" T-3 and find some way to adapt this book for the T-3 sequel - It's just that good. Enjoy.