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T2: Infiltrator Review

Endo Morgan
T2: Infiltrator - Terminator Novel by Author S.M. Stirling

Product details

*Also part of this series “T2: Rising Storm” and “T2: Future War”.

*This review contains spoilers

Sypnosis:

“He’s back! In the tradition of the bestselling Star Wars novels, the blockbuster Terminator adventure continues in the first officially authorized novel ever, now in mass-market.

Return to the blockbuster Terminator universe, with the untold adventures of Sarah and John Connor!

Following TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, Sarah and John Connor fled to Paraguay, until one day Sarah spots a Terminator unit in the town square. A great cat-and-mouse game ensues before she realizes he′s an actual man, an ex-counter-terrorist named Dieter, the man the T-800 will be modeled on. After she tells him her story, he tells her another. He′s discovered that Cyberdyne is still active, and about to create Skynet. So she, John, and Dieter set off to finish the job. But first they must face the most insidious Terminator unit yet, one that can easily pass as human and who has all the resources of Cyberdyne, as well as several Terminators, at its command.”

Summary:

T2: Infiltrator was a forerunner to T3: ROTM, as the previous owners of the franchise tried desperately to hype one of their biggest brands. This novel was the first in a series designed to rekindle that old familiar flame.

For six long years Sarah and John Connor have been in hiding (since the fateful events of T2: Judgment Day). Now living in Paraguay, Sarah owns a trucking / smuggling business and John is away at a military academy.
With new identities and new lives which are described by Sarah as “boring”, they live a fairly quiet and comfortable existence – until one day a brick wall of a man (Dieter Von Rossbach) who bears a striking resemblance to the Terminator, arrives at Sarah’s company to collect a delivery…

Meanwhile back in California… The evil beginnings of Cyberdyne (later to become SkyNet) has restarted its programme to create artificially intelligent technology for warfare.
Miles Dyson’s work, though destroyed by the Connor’s, Uncle Bob and Dyson himself,- was backed-up and stored on an external site without the late scientist’s knowledge, and under the watchful eyes of a government liason, the research is about to make progress with the aid of a Nazi elitist scientist with a penchant for propaganda.

In the future created by SkyNet, John Connor’s Resistance are finally gaining ground and victories against the army of Cyborg soldiers. Following the failures of previous Terminators to kill John Connor and his mother, SkyNet determines to activate the Infiltrator programme. After capturing and artificially inseminating a pretty blonde resistance fighter; they modify the baby from birth and terminate the mother. A complete indoctrination of hate, and a bit of wiring, plus some physical training and whammo! The result is a beautiful young woman named Serena with a killer competitive edge, who’s sent back in time to aid SkyNet in bringing about a rather terrifying future.

And then there’s Jordan Dyson, brother to Miles, and FBI trained, Jordan uses all of the tools at his disposal to capture and bring to justice the killers of his brother,- who the authorities claim are Sarah and John Connor. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presents Jordan with a chance to investigate things on the inside,- as he becomes part of the security for Cyberdyne Systems under Chief of Security Serena Burns…

Review:

T2: Infiltrator flits from scene to scene, giving the reader the different perspectives of John and Sarah Connor, Dieter von Rossbach, Serena Burns, Tarissa and Jordan Dyson, and the several Terminators whose names vary from Tom, Dick and Harris to simple numbers like those of products coming off a conveyor-belt before hitting quality control.

S.M. Stirling underplays Sarah Connor beautifully; not only were the brief glimpses of the woman we remembered from T2 rather fascinating, but the restrained and champing-at-the-bit Sarah added a newer, rather intriguing facet.
We get to see Sarah Connor at her most vulnerable, after years of silence and near complacency, still haunted by terrible nightmares and memories of Kyle, she is a woman suffering loss – one who has never truly been allowed time to grieve for anything.

Serena Burns the half-human half-terminator hybrid is brilliantly written and a much better idea for a female terminator (in my opinion) than the T-X in Terminator 3: ROTM; the sexuality of the young blonde killing machine in this story wasn’t too overstated or showy, it was subtle and calculated, as a machine should be. If SkyNet is purely logic based, utilizing efficiency, then the almost brash sexuality of the T-X in T3 really didn’t add up.

I rather oddly liked Serena, her amusement at the human idiosyncrasies surrounding her actually managed to send the very clear message: ALL humans must die, not just the majority. Nobody is to be spared, well, unless they can be terminated at a later date after helping SkyNet’s cause in some ingenious manner.

John Connor’s growing into a man, even in his teen years here, the author has captured the legend in transition. Again, subtly played, the reader is lulled into a false sense of security that John is just another teenager on a break from school. The reader is encouraged to forget who John really is. Then when the action kicks in and the two Connor’s re-emerge from incognito; the change of pace and the polish to the writing is smooth and seamless making the sudden upward punch an enjoyably easy read.

There’s also a love connection which is both intriguing and bewildering all at once, but since this is a Terminator novel, well, suffice to say you get used to the swift emotional and physical adjustments.

The action scenes are awesome (I don’t think I’m exaggerating), the sheer number of Terminators facing the Connor’s, von Rossbach and Jordan Dyson are full-force and tension-inducing. I was called upon to stop reading at times when I could almost have screamed “bloody leave me alone!”; this book needs time and a place of complete silence, because, if you’re anything like me you’ll want to cut out all but the most necessary bodily functions to focus on it.

The moment when all is revealed to Dieter von Rossbach is totally hell for leather, the sheer force of fire power in evidence was like some kind of fourth of July fireworks display on the front lawn. I did wonder how they could possibly get away with such percussion, not to mention all that sulphur but… TERMINATOR… as I was saying…

There’s so much that’s great about this book and so much that could have really blown fans away if this had been the script for T3: ROTM. As a book it’s bloody marvellous and, actually, a very satisfying as an installment of Terminator in general. The author captures the spirit of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day with such awe inspiring ease.
If you look for flaws then you’ll probably find them but I found myself just wanting to know how it ended, and the final showdown between SkyNet’s saboteurs and the hybrid Serena is… all you could dream of. Explosions. Walking corpses. Spine-chilling moments. Fear. Unstoppable madness and sadness at having to leave someone behind.

I’m just sorry it took me this long to read it.

Reviewed by Endo Morgan on 21/04/2010

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T2 Infiltrator Trivia:

This is what it took to decapitate one Terminator:

A Carl Gustav Launcher (Anti-Tank Recoilless Rifle).
weighs 8.5kg. Length 1.1 meters. 6 rounds a minute.

Barrett Rifle (Recoil Operated Semi Automatic Anti-Material Rifle).
weighs 30.9 lbs. 57 inches (with 29 inch barrel). * the Barrett Rifle uses a cartridge the size of a thumb.


-There are some rather interesting comparisions which can be made between T2: Infiltrator and Terminator Salvation.

One example is the hybrid Serena, Helena Bonham Carter’s character in Salvation was also called Serena, and anyone who is a stickler for details will know that originally Salvation’s Serena was meant to be blonde and a hybrid. Coincidence… ?


-Also: an idea for a taser which uses an electrical current to interrupt the power-core of the Terminators and incapacitate/destroy the killer cyborgs;

Remember the signal interrupter from Salvation? Maybe it’s just me, but the signal sounds like the electrical current on a larger scale…

Have you read the book?

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