T2: The Future War (T2)

Rating:
Summary: Good series, but weak ending
Review: "T2 The Future" is the third book by S.M. Stirling. This books starts right before Judgement Day though years of battling the Skynet. While this might have be good idea for the third teminator movie, it just didn't work well for this series. The writer left many details that would have explain the action of his characters. I believe that Mr. Stirling could have given the characters more emotions, like he did in the first two books. Also since the book had alot on jumping in the future, its clear that the reader lost alot that could have made the book better. As I said before, this have been better if it was a movie and not a book.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: For those working in the field of artificial intelligence, it is perhaps disconcerting that this field has been represented in stories and movies in the fashion that it has. It might be difficult to sell a book or a movie ticket though if one were to guide its plot with what is currently being accomplished in artificial intelligence. There is no doubt that robotics still remains a focus of research, and many identify the field of artificial intelligence with the development of robots. However, there have been major advances in artificial intelligence in the last decade in areas such as financial engineering, Ecommerce, bioinformatics, music composition, and network engineering. Artificial intelligence has thus found practical application, but these applications don't make for nice plots in movies and books of fiction.

That being said, it is still fun to read the stories and attend the movies that engage in the pure fantasy of robot armies and humanity's attempt to engage themselves in a "war against the machines." Viewing these stories or movies as entertainment though results in high expectations in their ability to thrill readers or fill them with dread. At least for me, this book did not do that. I personally cannot think of anything more terrifying than to be engaged in a confrontation with entities that do not sleep, have no conscience, and whose sole function is to see me and other humans dead. This story though did not fill me with any apprehension or any type of disquieting feeling when reading it. The machines did not occupy enough space in the story, but instead were merely lurking in the background. There were conflicts of course between them and the human resistance led by John Connor, but the battles, as described in the story, were not very exciting. The numerous scene changes in the story exacerbated this I think. The author wanted evidently to emphasize that the war against the machines was a global conflict, and so the story kept switching between various geographic locales. A few concentrated, intense battles in a few locations would better do the job of capturing the reader's attention and motivate empathy with the characters.

The enormous psychological pressure on humans that would be engaging in a machine war is not brought out in the story. Interestingly though, the author portrays the anti-technological Luddites as being tricked by the machines in supporting their war against humanity. The Luddite voices are being heard all over the globe now, not only against machine intelligence but practically every technological advance, and it is perhaps a carthasis to see them protrayed as they are in the story. Whatever their motivation to be engaged in an anti-technological crusade, it is doubtful that their efforts will reach a level of fruition that is satisfying to them. With faster processing, more sophisticated software, and with increasing applications that are driven by the needs of industry, business, and the military, the field of artificial intelligence continues to advance. One can easily imagine scenarios, based on these applications, where thinking machines play a dominant role in human affairs, and perhaps may get to the point where their autonomy becomes a threat to humankind. It is doubtful though that artificial intelligence will be discontinued as a technology. Stories like the one in this book will continue to entertain with various degrees of success. The real story of machine intelligence is much more interesting though...indeed much more.

Rating:
Summary: Finally the book that ties it all together!!
Review: 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!



Rating:
Summary: Not up to expectations
Review: I just finished reading this book and was very disappointed with it over all. The quality was not equal to the first two books in the Triliogy. I feel like there was an entire book missing. At the end of Rising Storm we were in Paraguay and "little Sister" Alissa had found the Conners. Suddenly in this book we are in Alaska and absolutely no mention of her as if she never existed. Feel it was written in a hurry to get it released at the same time as the movie.

Rating:
Summary: The Future War is now
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Too stupid to imagine
Review: In reading science fiction, the reader automatically assume a healthy dose of literary license - futuristic technology, space flight, incredible inventions, amazing biotechnology, etc. Here the trouble is the plot.

First there is the idea that with sentient Skynet all these various groups operate under the radar. The social analysis is on par with a high school freshman. For starters, we meet a new heroine in Alaska, named after Lenin. For at least twenty years Marxism has been taken seriously only on university campuses and maybe North Korea but for some reason we must read twaddle about this "social movement." More ridiculous is the group setting up Nazi-like concentrations camps (they even talk like the Gestapo) for the rest of poor humanity which makes zero sense.

Why in the world would intelligent, killer machines go to the trouble of recruiting human allies to round up stragglers, build concentration camps, release deadly viruses and, when they get sick, send those unfortunates to ANOTHER camp to be killed. None of this action is in any way related to logic or rational thinking. All the machines had to do was build a few copies and start killing folks or let them starve to death. It is just so absurd.

Then there's Sarah, heading off to South America like we'd take a ride to the mall (and this is after a global nuclear holocaust). How John rises from Alaskan back-woodsman to Grand Martial of Humankind is never fully explained (how can it be?) We also learn that the reason all this is happening is that John misinterpreted / misunderstood the final words of his former love as "enter" instead of "erase". Now THAT makes a whole lot of sense, right?

I had real hopes for this but when we read about Nazis and Commies and Luddites and people killing survivors it's just too much. Skip this one if at all possible.

Rating:
Summary: fabululously awful, and then just plain awful
Review: So bad it's a blast to read. Jam packed with the author's political views, especially hilarious when they have nothing to do with the plot! There's nothing like giving book contracts to the mentally disturbed. Look out Vegans and environmentalists! You'll be target number one when Skynet rules, aparently. Also hilarous are the dropped characters and storylines, like the group of college students who have their own chapter to almost never be mentioned again. Also: There's a gas shortage! Don't waste gas! We have to get somewhere quickly for this plot twist, let's drive! And remember, if you disagree with Sterling's political views you are an "idiot activist in an idiot cause," so there!

Rating:
Summary: A Book Written on Spec, and it Shows
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but very rushed.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: T2: The Future War
Review: 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.