The Terminator

The novelization is a tricky genre, and it's almost never done well. The author must give the reader more than what's on the screen (otherwise there's no point) without being inconsistent. This is definitely one of the better novelizations out there, and worth reading for fans of the film. The writing is evocative and interesting, and the insight into the characters' psyches is thought-provoking. This should be a model for how to write novelizations of screenplays.

A really great book. While the majority of it is found in the movie, there are several scenes that aren't. These scenes give you more understanding of the storyline. The rest expand upon what's already in the movie. Alot of the unnamed minor characters have names in the book. It was very interesting reading about the psychology of Reese. With Reese you become highly reminded of our troops in Iraq. When people come back from Iraq, they often have serious problems re-adjusting to our tranquil civilian life. Reese is basically the same way, adjusting to the radically calmer life of 1984. You get an immersing detailed look at what it's like to survive in a deadly battlefield and how that impacts his senses and processing of the world around him. I wish this book weren't out of print.