Jason X (Nancy Kilpatrick) Books in Order

Nancy Kilpatrick's two Jason X novels sit in the far-future branch of the Friday the 13th world, where Jason Voorhees is no longer stalking a lake but tearing through stations, ships, and moons. If that sounds a little wild, that is because it is. These books lean into the franchise's science fiction turn and treat Jason as an almost unstoppable force dropped into sealed, high-tech environments.

Planet of the Beast throws readers onto G7, a research station orbiting Planet #666. A derelict ship arrives, people make the fatal choice to investigate, and Jason comes with it. The book mixes rescue mission tension, crash survival, rogue science, and the ugly idea that someone might try to use Jason's body as raw material. The setup is pure closed-system horror: not enough room, not enough trust, and one thing on board that should never have been brought in.

To the Third Power widens the canvas while keeping the pressure high. A group of specialists heads to a moon near Earth II to build a cybernetic lifeform, only to find themselves trapped between escaped convicts, old cover-ups, and Jason again. Kilpatrick uses labs, A.I., abandoned facilities, and prison-world machinery to keep the action moving. The result feels less like campfire horror and more like a violent collision between slasher rules and military science fiction.

These books move fast.

The main thing to expect is ensemble storytelling. Jason is the fixed point, but the human focus shifts to crews, scientists, technicians, and survivors trying to outthink something that cannot really be reasoned with. Kilpatrick was interested in how horror and science fiction could work together, so the appeal here is not just body count. It is also the machinery around the danger: experiments, transport ships, orbital stations, cybernetics, and the bad decisions institutions make when they think they can weaponize a monster.

That makes this mini-series a different experience from Kilpatrick's vampire fiction. It has less gothic atmosphere and more momentum. Less seduction, more pursuit. Less old-world dread, more alarms, airlocks, and metal corridors.

If you like Jason best as a blunt instrument of chaos and want to see that chaos turned loose in space, these novels are a fun fit. They are franchise tie-ins, yes, but they also show Kilpatrick taking a famous slasher and testing how far she could push him into science fiction without losing the simple terror of Jason coming your way.