Terminal Cafe

by Ian McDonald

Book Overview

It is a few decades after a revolutionary technology has given humans the ability to resurrect the dead. The ever-increasing population of the risen dead is segregated into areas called necrovilles.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553374168
• ISBN13: 9780553374162
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Spectra
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

One of the all-time most inventive!

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.

Live with the dead: impressive

When nanotechnology don't allow people to die... One of the first book adressing the wild possibilities of nanotechnology, set in a near future Earth. Unfortunately, the story is weak. A nice read anyway.

Great book

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.

Dinosaurs, Undead and Drugs: Doncha love SciFi?

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.

Dinosaurs, Undead and Drugs: Doncha love SciFi?

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.