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Dark Futures is one of Russell Blackford's Terminator continuation novels, written as part of the long media-tie-in tradition the Terminator franchise has supported across decades. Blackford, an Australian SF writer and academic philosopher, brings more seriousness to the form than a continuation novel usually receives. The book explores time-travel paradox material that the films have always implied but rarely fully developed.
The action sequences are competent. The Skynet material gets careful attention. The book is most interesting when Blackford lets his philosophical training surface in the dialogue, with characters who are aware that they are inside a paradoxical causal structure and who are working out the implications.
Three stars. Recommended only to Terminator-universe completists. Blackford's solo SF work (the Kong Yu trilogy) is the stronger introduction to his sensibility.
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