Robot Jox

by Robert Thurston

In a futuristic world, global wars have been replaced by single combats between colossal robotic war machines, creating a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few men and women

Genres: Science Fiction Fantasy

Paperback

First published April 1, 1989

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or Plan 9 from Outer Space (everyone can think of their own examples), sometimes some of us like some things because they're so bad they're good and because they try so hard. This is a novelization by Robert Thurston of a script by Joe Haldeman (!) that was supposed to be based on a story by Stuart Gordon. The cover of the book says the screenplay by Haldeman and Dennis Paoli, but the film itself and subsequent articles credit (or blame) Haldeman only. The book came out almost a year ahead of the film because the movie company went bankrupt, which fell in line with the rest of the production. Apparently, Gordon hired Haldeman to write a Saturday-morning cartoon rip-off of Transformers. Apparently, Haldeman decided to write an intelligent and mature science fiction film for adults instead. Apparently, they fought each other every step of the way through the process. Apparently, the film company had a very small budget which fell in half (and then, twenty years later, somebody made lots of money with Pacific Rim), but someone hired Robert Thurston to adapt Haldeman's script to prose. See, these people with Greek god names wear big robot suits and fight. And Thurston did the best he could with what he had to work with, and I'm sure everyone connected with it tried hard, and sometimes dreams just turn into dust.

[A.P. Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a kid, I loved the movie ...like, *LOVED* the movie. One of my guilty pleasures is reading movie novelizations. Seeing this book was out of print, I was tempted to buy it at $50.00, but found a much better deal on it.

The book compounded everything I loved about the movie and really added a lot of detail that made the story much better. Alexander was no longer a flat 80's antagonist but had a few layers of motivation added to make him more complex. Achilles became a much more dynamic protagonist and the motivations behind the Games became much more interesting.

Highly recommend!

[Beauregard Shagnasty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before Pacific Rim, there was this little beauty, adapted from a screenplay with Joe Haldeman's fingerprints on it. Not bad.

[The Final Song ❀ · Rating 2 out of 5]

not so bad, but neither good.