The Terminator began life as a low-budget B movie seemingly destined for a short run at malls and drive-ins before blossoming into a billion-dollar franchise that launched the careers of director James Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger. The original 1984 film not only spawned three sequels, a weekly television series, and countless novels, comic books, and videogames, it also redefined the science fiction genre with its blend of high tech and film noir.

Here is the first book to explore the spectacular array of films, television shows, and other works that helped inspire The Terminator, as well as those that have drawn inspiration from it. If You Like The Terminator... delves into the history of science-fiction cinema, from its earliest days to the golden age of the 1950s and beyond, encountering killer robots, time travelers and postapocalyptic wastelands along the way. This turbo-charged journey through time also reviews the improbable career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, revisits the action heroes of the 1980s, and reevaluates the films of James Cameron, before touching down in the computer-dominated realm of today's science fiction cinema and projecting the future of the Terminator franchise.

From Metropolis to The Matrix, from Frankenstein to RoboCop, from H. G. Wells and Harlan Ellison to Roger Corman and Roland Emmerich, you'll find them all here – in If You Like The Terminator.