As someone who is always very biased towards sequels of long-finished, good stories, I consider these books to be the best thing that has ever been released in the Terminator media as a sequel – I love this books.
Watching the first two films in this universe and the excitement I experienced made me move away from the disappointment of watching everything that 'happened' after them for a very long time. The third, fifth, and sixth films were so bad that for a while I couldn't properly evaluate "Terminator: Salvation", which is not so bad compared to them. Simply put, I was very wary of the idea that there were some books besides movies, it was an unfamiliar format for me and I was afraid that I would step on the same rake as in the past, but...that was nice.
I can't call these books a literary masterpiece, but in my humble opinion, this is the best thing that has happened to me since "Terminator 2: Judgment day". I really got a kick out of this story. It may not be the most logical or super detailed, but it's still good. The characters of the old characters are preserved, the new ones are interesting: Miles's brother, who wants to avenge him, a former secret agent who turned out to be the Connor family's new neighbor and who is trying to find out who they really are, eco activist who accidentally created a cult and his followers, Cyberdyne scientists who are trying to bring their corporation back to life, human who have been raised and brainwashed by Skynet are using less crude methods (compared to the Terminators) to achieve their goals. All these characters work well.
And most importantly – the book format saves the situation, a story that is not constrained by a certain budget (as is usual in films) can afford many of the things that cinema cannot afford.
As Ridley Scott said – "The best cinema in the world is the brain, and you know it when you read a good book." and these books really more like movies tbh. I don't know if it was just me who had this effect, but the writing style of the them (especially the first two) is somewhat different from the books I usually read, they are like movies written in text, especially action scenes and descriptions of the train of thought of NON-human characters. It feels like I've watched a movie instead of reading a book, to be honest, this is the first time I've felt this way.
I am sad that these books have not gained much popularity among the fandom and few people seem to know about them, which is very unfortunate, because the characters and plot in them are very good. I love Michael Stirling's terminator trilogy. This is really something that I would like to discuss with other fans and recommend to them.
So...I recommend this books, they're really cool and deserve more attention. If you like Terminator and want to watch read a good non–canonical sequel, these books are for you.














