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Terminator Universe
The Terminator
In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of this planet devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the Future by changing the Past. The plan required something that felt no pity. No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable. They created THE TERMINATOR.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
2 people are currently reading
429 people want to read
About the author
Shaun Hutson
112 books531 followersBritish horror novelist, including horror and urban thriller novels.
His novella Slugs was made into a movie, although Hutson didn't like the movie. He also appeared in two horror movies himself.
Hutson is a Liverpool F.C. fan.
His novella Slugs was made into a movie, although Hutson didn't like the movie. He also appeared in two horror movies himself.
Hutson is a Liverpool F.C. fan.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 27, 2025
I read and enjoyed this a bunch of times as a teenager (in fact I probably read it before I saw the movie) and revisiting it was a blast. Hutson maintains the great pacing of the movie and gives it his own flavour. It ends up feeling kind of like an Italian rip off version of The Terminator, with the sex and violence turned up a notch.
Hilariously "I'll be back" is "I'll come back" here. Presumably because it was based on an earlier version of the script.
Hilariously "I'll be back" is "I'll come back" here. Presumably because it was based on an earlier version of the script.
May 30, 2017
One novelization that has definitely been on my radar this year is for The Terminator. I mean, this movie remains iconic, even over thirty years after its initial release. So, the curiosity surrounding how the novel turned out is quite high. I knew that Randall Frakes had done the novel work, and also that this book runs very high in the secondary market (lowest prices rarely fall below $30). However, I didn't realize until perusing some blogs lately that The Terminator actually had two novelizations. Indeed, it turns out that the Frakes book is actually the second one released; the first being penned by British author Shaun Hutson, best known for spinner-rack horror novels (as well as WWII books and some Westerns). Better yet, it is the more affordable of the two (I snagged this copy for about $6), and most reviews of it were positive. So, I got a copy and tore right through it. How was it? Read on...
As with other novelizations, we have no idea what version of the script the author had to work with, or if anybody had already been cast. I will say this; Hutson's novel adheres very closely to the finished movie. Also, the characters are described well enough to assign the actors too (especially Traxler). There are some minor differences in background characters, and certain locations have different names as well (sadly, Tech Noir is known as Stoker's in the novel).
Now, knowing that the novel plays out very close to the movie, what then is the draw of reading the novel? It all falls on the writing style of the author. I was not familiar with Hutson prior to this novel, and I was interested to see how a horror specialist would handle this story, which actually does have some horror elements in it (I can remember being pretty scared of the Terminator skeleton as a 10 year old back in '84). Here's the thing: Hutson has a really sharp, detailed writing style that moves at a brisk pace. He is very descriptive, and shrewd enough to focus on the details that matter. Case in point; when describing a rainstorm that breaks a few days of continuous L.A. heat, he also describes how that torrential downpour - something that should be a welcome respite - actually releases all the saturated stench of the City. Growing up in a major city, in the same time period, this gave me PTSD-level flashbacks. He also employs a kind of colloquial, conversational tone as well. For example, when discussing some of the food at the restaurant Sarah works at, he outright calls it "junk". It might seem like poor or puerile writing, but believe me, when you are flipping the pages, it is all part of the flow. You don't always have to use lofty terms such as "gastrointestinal abomination"; sometimes junk is just junk. Writing is about picking the right word at the right time.
The real area in which Hutson's extremely descriptive style yields noticeable dividends is when he is talking about wounds and injuries. It may be his horror chops flexing, but the man can write some serious gore. The shooting scenes from the movie are rendered here in such a realistic manner that you can almost see, feel, and even smell it. Even the scene where the Terminator is removing his damaged organic eye; the way Hutson describes it, it makes you wince, even though you know the Terminator doesn't register pain.
Also, the few sex scenes in the book are nicely squishy, and slightly over-broiled. I'm sure this was a nice draw for young male readers back in the 80's.
I mentioned before that the novel and the movie follow pretty much the same track. However, as with most novelizations, there are scenes in the book which offer more detail than what we saw on the big screen, and there are some additional scenes as well. One plus is that in the book we get more of Traxler and Vulkovich, who were always a great team. We also get to see the scene of the second Sarah Connor's murder, and there is also a moment where we realize that destroying Cyberdine was something that Sarah was contemplating from the beginning.
There really isn't anything that I can say as a negative regarding this novelization. I mean, it tells the story we all know and love, and it gives us some fresh takes on it, all slathered in gory gobbets. I will say this; I got my copy from a UK seller. So, there are some "British" variations on words here: dumpsters are garbage skips, apartments are flats, and speedometers are just called speedos (which gets weird, since there are numerous car chases, and when Kyle Reese "looks down at his speedo", you suddenly have a vision of him sitting there in a bathing suit). Also, Hutson has a tendency to use the term "precious seconds" very often. Car hitting a bump while speeding? It'll fly for "precious seconds". Terminator aiming a gun at your head? He'll be zeroing in for "precious seconds".
Oh, and the character is referred to as "Terminator". Not "The Terminator". "Terminator". It takes a little bit to get used to.
And, lastly, Arnie's iconic line is slightly different here. Be forewarned.
All in all, this is an excellent novelization, and it won't cost you your retirement fund to own. Hopefully, I can get a copy of Frake's version sometime this year and do a comparison.
You can read my full review here:
http://hachisnaxreads.blogspot.com/20...
As with other novelizations, we have no idea what version of the script the author had to work with, or if anybody had already been cast. I will say this; Hutson's novel adheres very closely to the finished movie. Also, the characters are described well enough to assign the actors too (especially Traxler). There are some minor differences in background characters, and certain locations have different names as well (sadly, Tech Noir is known as Stoker's in the novel).
Now, knowing that the novel plays out very close to the movie, what then is the draw of reading the novel? It all falls on the writing style of the author. I was not familiar with Hutson prior to this novel, and I was interested to see how a horror specialist would handle this story, which actually does have some horror elements in it (I can remember being pretty scared of the Terminator skeleton as a 10 year old back in '84). Here's the thing: Hutson has a really sharp, detailed writing style that moves at a brisk pace. He is very descriptive, and shrewd enough to focus on the details that matter. Case in point; when describing a rainstorm that breaks a few days of continuous L.A. heat, he also describes how that torrential downpour - something that should be a welcome respite - actually releases all the saturated stench of the City. Growing up in a major city, in the same time period, this gave me PTSD-level flashbacks. He also employs a kind of colloquial, conversational tone as well. For example, when discussing some of the food at the restaurant Sarah works at, he outright calls it "junk". It might seem like poor or puerile writing, but believe me, when you are flipping the pages, it is all part of the flow. You don't always have to use lofty terms such as "gastrointestinal abomination"; sometimes junk is just junk. Writing is about picking the right word at the right time.
The real area in which Hutson's extremely descriptive style yields noticeable dividends is when he is talking about wounds and injuries. It may be his horror chops flexing, but the man can write some serious gore. The shooting scenes from the movie are rendered here in such a realistic manner that you can almost see, feel, and even smell it. Even the scene where the Terminator is removing his damaged organic eye; the way Hutson describes it, it makes you wince, even though you know the Terminator doesn't register pain.
Also, the few sex scenes in the book are nicely squishy, and slightly over-broiled. I'm sure this was a nice draw for young male readers back in the 80's.
I mentioned before that the novel and the movie follow pretty much the same track. However, as with most novelizations, there are scenes in the book which offer more detail than what we saw on the big screen, and there are some additional scenes as well. One plus is that in the book we get more of Traxler and Vulkovich, who were always a great team. We also get to see the scene of the second Sarah Connor's murder, and there is also a moment where we realize that destroying Cyberdine was something that Sarah was contemplating from the beginning.
There really isn't anything that I can say as a negative regarding this novelization. I mean, it tells the story we all know and love, and it gives us some fresh takes on it, all slathered in gory gobbets. I will say this; I got my copy from a UK seller. So, there are some "British" variations on words here: dumpsters are garbage skips, apartments are flats, and speedometers are just called speedos (which gets weird, since there are numerous car chases, and when Kyle Reese "looks down at his speedo", you suddenly have a vision of him sitting there in a bathing suit). Also, Hutson has a tendency to use the term "precious seconds" very often. Car hitting a bump while speeding? It'll fly for "precious seconds". Terminator aiming a gun at your head? He'll be zeroing in for "precious seconds".
Oh, and the character is referred to as "Terminator". Not "The Terminator". "Terminator". It takes a little bit to get used to.
And, lastly, Arnie's iconic line is slightly different here. Be forewarned.
All in all, this is an excellent novelization, and it won't cost you your retirement fund to own. Hopefully, I can get a copy of Frake's version sometime this year and do a comparison.
You can read my full review here:
http://hachisnaxreads.blogspot.com/20...
February 27, 2023
Honestly, more in the 1.5 range.
The original Terminator novel suffers from a couple problems, one of which there is a much better version of this book in existence. If I didn't read the other book, I don't know if I would have kicked Hutson's book to a three or not? Possibly not, which you'll understand why when I get into the overall criticism of this novelization. This book is a very strange one indeed, because there are two movie novelizations of the terminator by two different authors. The Terminator by Randall Frakes is usually viewed as the better of the novels and I happen to agree with that. However, it may be unfair, because apparently Frakes was a good friend to Cameron and likely had access to the film and other changes made during filming. So, in that regard Frakes' book is much better, but he clearly had an unfair advantage in his writing. Shaun Hutson, obviously, did not have this luxury (just based on reading this book alone).
It is a very strange thing to do though, have an author from the U.S. write a novelization for the audience here and then have a U.K. author write one for the audience there? I can't imagine why on earth any studio would decide to do this, but apparently it happened more than once back in the 80's, but probably doesn't happen anymore, I'd imagine. Was it really that important that 18-wheelers be called "lorry" in England to warrant such a difference? Or have the elevators called "lifts"? Would the English audience have been baffled by Frakes' book at the time? I mean it would make more sense to me to have asked this of a non-native English speaking audience. Say a German author, or something along those lines? But it's not like they even speak a different language in the U.K. Whatever, there are now two totally different novelizations of the movie The Terminator and I just had to read both because it's just too tempting to never find out what's different. So here we go.
Frakes' book is much better in my opinion, and it's not entirely due to the fact that he had access to Cameron. Hutson's book is much shorter than Frakes and I'm rather glad for that. Hutson does write in a more plupy sci-fi way, but the real problem was that I felt like this was more of a dry report of what Cameron and Hurd's script said. Like it was just a list of events that had happened rather than a fleshed out actual story. There really wasn't much character depth on display at all. I think one of the reasons I steered away from movie novelizations in the past is because, well, I had already seen the movie, and who really cares about a blow by blow retelling of something you've seen? For some reason, no one told me these were based on original scripts and could wind up being quite different or offer more depth to the story. Frakes adds a lot more depth to the characters and actually fleshes out their personalities a lot more. He even takes the time to flesh out the details of the random people in the film, like the guy Terminator throws out of the phone booth. Hutson doesn't make any attempt at this, so you don't really feel anything for the guy thrown out of the phone booth. You don't care why he was on the phone at all or generally anything about him.
At some point I got tired of reading about Huston's portrayal of Terminator as being "emotionless" in his tasks. I mean, I get bringing it up the first time, but he brings it up a lot throughout the book and it just wore thing after a while. Terminator is a robot, so it's pretty obvious it's going to go about doing things robotically and at some point it felt like he was just filling space. See, the dry police report style of writing when talking about Terminator kind of makes sense, it would have created a really good atmosphere about his character... but Hutson just has that everywhere. So, it just gets to be a boring read in the end and you really could have watched the movie instead.
One really curious incident does show up in this book though. When we come to the moment where Terminator drives the car into the police station and we all heard that iconic line... it's not in here. Instead Hutson writes "I'll come back," which just doesn't have the same level of gravitas as the line from the film. However, it made me really wonder, was "I'll be back," an ad lib during filming? It's in Frakes' book, which makes me think he really had access to the film, but did Hutson change the line or was it just not in the original script. Another curious difference, if I remember correctly, is Reese telling Sarah about the computer system Titan. Later in the novel he talks about Skynet, but Titan is like a pre-curser, I guess. I don't remember that being mentioned in the film or other novel?
In the end Hutson's book falls far too short for me as a solid rendition of this iconic film. It's just too dryly written for my tastes. I don't know how Hutson's other books are, I've never read anything else by him, so don't judge his other works based on this. I think it's hard to write these kinds of books, because, as an author, you probably don't want to mess with someone else's creation too much or change too many things so that it is no longer theirs. I'm still pretty glad I read this book though, it satisfied my curiosity and made me wonder about a few nit-picky details, which I find enjoyable to think about. However, unless you're a die-hard collector like me, this really isn't worth tracking down.
The original Terminator novel suffers from a couple problems, one of which there is a much better version of this book in existence. If I didn't read the other book, I don't know if I would have kicked Hutson's book to a three or not? Possibly not, which you'll understand why when I get into the overall criticism of this novelization. This book is a very strange one indeed, because there are two movie novelizations of the terminator by two different authors. The Terminator by Randall Frakes is usually viewed as the better of the novels and I happen to agree with that. However, it may be unfair, because apparently Frakes was a good friend to Cameron and likely had access to the film and other changes made during filming. So, in that regard Frakes' book is much better, but he clearly had an unfair advantage in his writing. Shaun Hutson, obviously, did not have this luxury (just based on reading this book alone).
It is a very strange thing to do though, have an author from the U.S. write a novelization for the audience here and then have a U.K. author write one for the audience there? I can't imagine why on earth any studio would decide to do this, but apparently it happened more than once back in the 80's, but probably doesn't happen anymore, I'd imagine. Was it really that important that 18-wheelers be called "lorry" in England to warrant such a difference? Or have the elevators called "lifts"? Would the English audience have been baffled by Frakes' book at the time? I mean it would make more sense to me to have asked this of a non-native English speaking audience. Say a German author, or something along those lines? But it's not like they even speak a different language in the U.K. Whatever, there are now two totally different novelizations of the movie The Terminator and I just had to read both because it's just too tempting to never find out what's different. So here we go.
Frakes' book is much better in my opinion, and it's not entirely due to the fact that he had access to Cameron. Hutson's book is much shorter than Frakes and I'm rather glad for that. Hutson does write in a more plupy sci-fi way, but the real problem was that I felt like this was more of a dry report of what Cameron and Hurd's script said. Like it was just a list of events that had happened rather than a fleshed out actual story. There really wasn't much character depth on display at all. I think one of the reasons I steered away from movie novelizations in the past is because, well, I had already seen the movie, and who really cares about a blow by blow retelling of something you've seen? For some reason, no one told me these were based on original scripts and could wind up being quite different or offer more depth to the story. Frakes adds a lot more depth to the characters and actually fleshes out their personalities a lot more. He even takes the time to flesh out the details of the random people in the film, like the guy Terminator throws out of the phone booth. Hutson doesn't make any attempt at this, so you don't really feel anything for the guy thrown out of the phone booth. You don't care why he was on the phone at all or generally anything about him.
At some point I got tired of reading about Huston's portrayal of Terminator as being "emotionless" in his tasks. I mean, I get bringing it up the first time, but he brings it up a lot throughout the book and it just wore thing after a while. Terminator is a robot, so it's pretty obvious it's going to go about doing things robotically and at some point it felt like he was just filling space. See, the dry police report style of writing when talking about Terminator kind of makes sense, it would have created a really good atmosphere about his character... but Hutson just has that everywhere. So, it just gets to be a boring read in the end and you really could have watched the movie instead.
One really curious incident does show up in this book though. When we come to the moment where Terminator drives the car into the police station and we all heard that iconic line... it's not in here. Instead Hutson writes "I'll come back," which just doesn't have the same level of gravitas as the line from the film. However, it made me really wonder, was "I'll be back," an ad lib during filming? It's in Frakes' book, which makes me think he really had access to the film, but did Hutson change the line or was it just not in the original script. Another curious difference, if I remember correctly, is Reese telling Sarah about the computer system Titan. Later in the novel he talks about Skynet, but Titan is like a pre-curser, I guess. I don't remember that being mentioned in the film or other novel?
In the end Hutson's book falls far too short for me as a solid rendition of this iconic film. It's just too dryly written for my tastes. I don't know how Hutson's other books are, I've never read anything else by him, so don't judge his other works based on this. I think it's hard to write these kinds of books, because, as an author, you probably don't want to mess with someone else's creation too much or change too many things so that it is no longer theirs. I'm still pretty glad I read this book though, it satisfied my curiosity and made me wonder about a few nit-picky details, which I find enjoyable to think about. However, unless you're a die-hard collector like me, this really isn't worth tracking down.
April 6, 2019
Perfect combination of an excellent script and the pure pulp thrills of Shaun Hutson.
February 3, 2025
3.25/5
This was a pretty straightforward novelization of the movie with only a few minor tweaks such as extra gore and some British phrases.
This was a pretty straightforward novelization of the movie with only a few minor tweaks such as extra gore and some British phrases.
October 8, 2024
This is the UK only version of the Terminator novelization written by a completely different author than the US version.
It’s written by a horror writer so the violence and gore is amped up rather spectacularly. It has less pages than the US one so a lot of the backstory for some of the ancillary characters is absent. But it’s written well and works on its own.
However, if I had to choose, I’d say I like the US version better.
It’s written by a horror writer so the violence and gore is amped up rather spectacularly. It has less pages than the US one so a lot of the backstory for some of the ancillary characters is absent. But it’s written well and works on its own.
However, if I had to choose, I’d say I like the US version better.
March 10, 2014
Bulbous!
September 15, 2023
Me encantaría que hubiera un poco más de lo que exprimir de las películas de Terminator en el caso de las novelizaciones.
Sea como fuere, me encanta Terminator y ojalá hubiera tan buen nivel.
PD: Se nota mucho, por algunas concesiones que se toma el autor, que Shaun Hudson no tubo acceso al borrador final del guion porque hay cada concesión en la novela que me ha roto completamente.
Sea como fuere, me encanta Terminator y ojalá hubiera tan buen nivel.
PD: Se nota mucho, por algunas concesiones que se toma el autor, que Shaun Hudson no tubo acceso al borrador final del guion porque hay cada concesión en la novela que me ha roto completamente.
November 11, 2023
This was a fair novelization of the first terminator. The Bill wisher and Randall Frakes edition is far superior and entertaining, but this one was still fine. I did absolutely love the change at the end, where Kyle finally realizes that he is John's father. All in all this was a pretty good read and a decent novelization for fans of Terminator.
June 27, 2021
An interesting book with an interesting history. I really like Hutson’s take on Cameron’s script. Worth seeking out if you are an Terminator or Hutson fan.
September 8, 2021
4 out of 5
July 16, 2015
Tough, terse, pulpy. Perfect.
August 1, 2021
Only Hutson with his gritty, visceral and fast paced style could pull this novelisation off. The novel is dark and fully encapsulates the mood of being hunted by an unstoppable force.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews