Customer Reviews

Terminal Cafe

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Nano-scale machinery, tiny robots and computers built on a molecular level by the millions, will feasibly be able to "grow" intelligent metal, reshape bone structures, and reanimate the dead. Science Fiction writers are getting brain hemorrhages as they try to predict life with these little guys.

Ian McDonald has done an amazing thing-- with "Terminal Cafe" he's created a wholly plausible world of Dinosaur hunts, men who add wings to their bodies, gene-tweaked monkies that are as common as pigeons, collapsible automobiles, decay, dystopia, AI jurisprudence, monstrous corporations, re-animated dead and the coolest hookers you could ever imagine.

"Terminal Cafe" follows the adventures of a group of old friends as they make their way to their annual getogether at the Terminal Cafe. The POV rotates between them, offering a grand-scale view of life in the near future.

One friend goes on a Hunt, where he stalks and is stalked by people mounted on gigantic Tyranosaur knock-offs. Another friend rescues an undead prostitute, and finds he has a lot in common with her. Still another friend gets entangled in a chase complete with a lycanthropy club-- gene-tweaked guys who change into werewolfs. There's the friend who is a lawyer, who has a client that the biggest Megacorp in the world wants to silence. Finally, there's the friend who gets embroiled in a kind of Independence Day for the dead-- when all the ressurected return from forced labor in the asteroid belt and assault Earth in a bid for freedom.

Heavily grounded in the latest fiction about the Internet, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and with a strong understanding of human nature, "Terminal Cafe" assumes a strong understanding of technology and genre standards. It is a powerful novel, deftly written, with a new fantastic wonder on every page and a cast of characters that can hardly process it all.

Absolutely amazing book! The text is rich and complex. The author's prose is written to reflect the dialects and rhythms of the culture he has created. Once you learn this rhythm, there's no escaping it's dance. I found myself comepletly drawn into the concepts and characters as if they were intimate friends, and the high-tech ideas, were commonplace. One of my favorite Sci-fi novels.

Ian Mcdonald seems to have an uncanny understanding of the human condition, of the primal urges and fears that drive us. If you changed the rules which govern life and death, which govern the very evolution of the human race, what will come of those urges and fears? That to me is the central question of Terminal Cafe. Once you've been dead, of what are you afraid? Nothing. If you can manipulate flesh and machine with equal ease, what could you be? Anything. One of my Top 5 favorite SF novels. Ian McDonald stands head and shoulders above the crowd of SF authors.

Nano-scale machinery, tiny robots and computers built on a molecular level by the millions, will feasibly be able to "grow" intelligent metal, reshape bone structures, and reanimate the dead. Science Fiction writers are getting brain hemorrhages as they try to predict life with these little guys.

Ian McDonald has done an amazing thing-- with "Terminal Cafe" he's created a wholly plausible world of Dinosaur hunts, men who add wings to their bodies, gene-tweaked monkies that are as common as pigeons, collapsible automobiles, decay, dystopia, AI jurisprudence, monstrous corporations, re-animated dead and the coolest hookers you could ever imagine.

"Terminal Cafe" follows the adventures of a group of old friends as they make their way to their annual getogether at the Terminal Cafe. The POV rotates between them, offering a grand-scale view of life in the near future.

One friend goes on a Hunt, where he stalks and is stalked by people mounted on gigantic Tyranosaur knock-offs. Another friend rescues an undead prostitute, and finds he has a lot in common with her. Still another friend gets entangled in a chase complete with a lycanthropy club-- gene-tweaked guys who change into werewolfs. There's the friend who is a lawyer, who has a client that the biggest Megacorp in the world wants to silence. Finally, there's the friend who gets embroiled in a kind of Independence Day for the dead-- when all the ressurected return from forced labor in the asteroid belt and assault Earth in a bid for freedom.

Heavily grounded in the latest fiction about the Internet, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and with a strong understanding of human nature, "Terminal Cafe" assumes a strong understanding of technology and genre standards. It is a powerful novel, deftly written, with a new fantastic wonder on every page and a cast of characters that can hardly process it all.

A SF book with a great plot, I've read this book twice and I still got something out of it ! This book full of emotion and keeps you reading from beginning to end. (Has a great ending that is exciting that does not ruin the second or third reading.

Imagine waking up, and realizing that you are dead? In the world created here by McDonald, nanotechnolgy has led to a method for reanimating dead people. Unfortunately, those reincarnated get to spend eternity as a vast slave/labor class, supporting the world of the living.

Needless to say, this sets up a predictable scenario of rebellion. However, where that scenario goes is unpredictable and, in my opinion, quite interesting. Author McDonald has created a lush "dead" culture, and most of the story takes place in the Necroville of Tijuana on the night before and day of "Day of the Dead." The main characters are a group of artists who meet in the titular cafe annually on this holiday to catch up with each other.

The details and substory lines grow and expand for the first half of the book, making it a bit hard to keep everyone and all their actions sorted out. For the second half, it begins an ever-tightening spiral, pulling all the details and characters back together until their final reunion.

Cyberpunk flavor without being too self-referential of the genre. The language has a lot of Spanish influences due to the setting and it provides a nice mix of feelings and expressions.

McDonald takes this idea and runs with it. Very dense with ideas. Humans have gained the ability to resurrect the dead, but can't still can't abide the big D. The Dead are alienated by family and friends and are cast into a de jure system of indentured servitude. For other SF books heavy on nanotech read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, The Bohr Maker and Deception Well by Linda Nagata, and Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams. For easily accessible non-fiction read Great Mambo Chicken & the Transhuman Condition and Nano, both by Ed Regis

This was a very hard book to get into and I must have tried to read it on 4 or 5 separate occasions before getting beyond the third chapter. The only reason I kept trying is because I love Ian McDonald's other works so much. (Out on Blue Six is my favorite.) Every time I tried however, I got a little deeper in and then all of a sudden - WHAM!- I was hooked and lost in the this crazy story and I left VERY IMPRESSED. This book showed me things I had never seen and gave me a whole new pseudo scientific vocabulary. :-) I just want to say this book is worth any and all effort it takes to read it and once you catch its crazy rhythm it will take you on an unstoppable trip through unimaginably strange situations and you won't want the fun to end.

I have to say this is not a great book. The Sci-fCincinnatii book club read this book this month and most of us were unable to complete it. It didn't have any defenders in the group. He doesn't provide a clear description of the world. There are many different plots and characters that make it very hard to tell what is going on. A lot of the text just doesn't make any sense. The writing has a very poetic style. Lots of alliteration even some haikus. The downside of that is that it makes it very hard to read.

This book could not catch my interest, which I consider surprising as the subject should be compelling. I will try again in the future.