The Terminus Experiment
by Jak Koke

Novel

Pros: A book with vastly high-power characters and plot, that still focuses on character development.
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Cons: A book with vastly high-power characters and plot, stretches the willing suspension of disbelief.


When my local distributor finally got me my copy of The Terminus Experiment, I wasn't sure if I would love it or hate it. On the one hand, there was Jak Koke, who has always done a good job of having characters that learn and mature without becoming maudlin. On the other was Jak Koke's tendency to have the really high end characters. And of course, we have the co-author, Jonathan Bond, an unknown variable.

I read it, and I'm afraid to say my final conclusion was more towards the hate side. If you found Ryan Mercury of the Dragon Heart Saga or Argent of Run Hard, Die Fast too weak, take heart, because Martin De Vries is here to save your interest. For the rest of us, however, (or at least for me), De Vries, as a vampiric mage vampire hunter, is a little too powerful to allow us to identify with him. Add to this a weak plot line that sounds very threatening, but that is very weak if you start asking yourselves why the villains have the desires they do, and the book is simply not satisfying. Conclude it with some material about the speed and manner of vampiric infection that is contradictory to standard FASA fare, and it leaves me searching to reread 2XS to remind myself of how an SR novel should be written.

In defense of the book, De Vries is not truly the main character, just a central one. The main character is pretty much an average Jane, and the saving grace of the story. Her dilemmas and personal evolution were the driftwood my interest held on to while the ridiculously overwhelming story raged on around me.

It is impossible for me to say whether Jonathan Bond brought the story down or gave it what virtue it had, so I will not insult either author (further) by speculating. I would say, however, that if they could find a villain with a logically defendable goal, and main characters who don't cause redefinitions in the scale of a power chart, then the seeds of character development contained within this novel could blossom into a truly great story. The book ends with a clear opening for a possible sequel. I can only hope that if such a sequel is written that it is not just another power-bash fest between armies of powerful entities.