Nancy Kilpatrick’s JASON X: TO THE THIRD POWER is the silliest, most ridiculous book so far in the series of original horror novels featuring mass murderer Jason Voorhees in future space. But it’s also the best. To me, those words – silly, ridiculous – are not insults, but high praise. THE DA VINCI CODE is a silly, ridiculous book, and it’s one of the biggest books in history. TO THE THIRD POWER is the first JASON X tie-in to actually capture the spirit of the underrated film – the best in the entire franchise, which, if I can say these words again, was a silly, ridiculous film, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t fun the whole way.
And that’s what this is: fun. There’s no pretension here to create some sort of literary horror/sci-fi masterpiece, as most writers are wont to do in spin-off books. No, here, Kilpatrick delivers so many ludicrous scenarios – one right after another – that it’s hard not to absorb this book as quickly as you can.
In the far-flung future, a private investor buys one of Earth II’s moons from the government, only to have it converted to a “virtual” summer camp for rich kids – already you know what’s gonna happen, right? The camp, now abandoned and housing a prison, is where we meet our cadre of victims – the usual suspects, including smart girl, smarmy guy, slutty girl, handicapped girl, etc. – who are there to conduct scientific experiments in cybernetics. Turns out, though, that’s also the lab where years before, not only was a “virtual” clone of Jason made, but the group leader’s mom was artificially inseminated with Jason X’s sperm. How they got it from him is beyond me and actually raises a whole new set of questions (fanfic writers, are you listening?).
While all this is going on, there’s also the en masse moving of the prisoners to another moon, using the hackneyed concept of a “sling,” wherein, from what I could gather, a capsule is slung through space via a giant pendulum. Of course this doesn’t work and the prisoners escape; you know they’re prisoners because they have names like Viper, Blister and … um, J.J. These cons take the scientists captive, but not before they can create a third Jason – to the third power, one might say – who’s the most powerful Jason of them all. Much silliness ensues.
I honestly loved this book. The JASON X mythos are still fresh, so there’s really no continuity to work with; so, in this series, you can do anything you damn well please and – if you have a truly imaginative writer like Kilpatrick who practically says “Fuck it!” to said past mythos – it’s going to be incredibly entertaining. To be honest, not everyone will like it. A lot of people hated the JASON X film (oh, the Internet whining when it came out was damn near interminable) and thus, will instead stick to old-school Jason Voorhees. C’mon, people! Sorry to say, but there’s only so much you can do with present-day Jason, and it all involves lumbering around, slashing teens and not being a virtual cyborg. Where’s the total fun in that? So, as I wait for the next novel, I proudly say, “Make mine X!” –Louis Fowler
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