Rating: 
Summary: Random Walk
Review: What a let-down. After reading Flashforward (also by Sawyer) and enjoying it sufficiently to look for more by the author, I happened upon Terminal Experiment. I have now had my fill of Sawyer for the forseeable future. Sawyer can't seem to decide what this book is about: mushy theistic philosopy, an affair between the protagonist's wife and her co-worker, a murder mystery, or an AI experiment (of the possibilities, the last at least had potential for an interesting plot). Unfortunately, Sawyer meanders aimlessly through all of the above story lines without addressing any one of them in an interesting way. Combine this with stilted plot, a whiny protagonist, and an uninteresting supporting cast, and you don't have much. Hard to believe this won a Nebula. It might be worth reading if you find it in the pocket of the seat in front of you on the airplane, but this book is certainly not worth buying.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Too Bad
Review: I like the idea of this book a lot: not only copying your brain into a computer, but editing it in various ways just to see what happens. But there are moral issues here which don't get explored. Is it cruel to do this? Is it moral to erase the copies when you're done?Instead, the book goes off on a tangent about the human soul as a separate thing from the body. Pseudo-religion, yum. And then there's this murder mystery nailed on, to no good end, while the more interesting possibilities are left hanging. It also wasn't clear to me whether the copies had souls or not, which seems like a crucial point given all that happens with them. Still, I read the book straight through, and found it reasonably enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Not so Cutting Edge
Review: As seems to quite often be the case these days, I am having trouble understanding why 'The Terminal Experiment' is a novel that has had so much praise lavished upon it. It has been described as 'cutting-edge' - an assertion I doubt was true even when it was first published in the mid-90s. Still, it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, so what do I know? I don't want to imply that this is a bad book - it isn't. The story, of a scientist who makes three electronic clones of himself only to have one of them go on a murdering spree, is fast paced and well plotted. The characters are believable if a tad stereotypical. The science in the novel isn't complicated or overwhelming (which makes me wonder what is so cutting edge about it) and Sawyer does manage to convey scientific detail in an unobtrusive way. What was disappointing was the lack of in depth consideration of the morality of electronically cloning your own brain and whether said clones are entitled to human rights. What are the moral limits when it comes to punishing clones? Sawyer approaches these topics, brushes by them lightly and quickly moves on in favor of maintaining pace and getting to the less than satisfactory end.
Rating: 
Summary: Great SF - and a possible SF intro for non-fans
Review: Other reviews have discussed the plot points of this book (which I enjoyed immensely, by the way) so I'll point out some different things. One of the things I found interesting about it is that although it won the 1995 Nebula Award, it's by no means hard-core science fiction, e.g. of the space-opera variety that your friends and relatives don't like. Instead it takes place in a very near, very plausible future, and concerns advances in medical and computer science, rather than space- or time-travel, etc. Furthermore, much of the plot is more that of a mystery or action novel than a typical SF story. I think this would be an excellent entry into SF for someone who is not yet a fan, or who is skeptical of the genre. Of course, SF fans will enjoy it, too!
Rating: 
Summary: Will the real Peter please stand up?
Review: Sawyer has made a bold, and generally successful, attempt to raise the genre of speculative fiction above the 'space opera' level. Merging a wealth of science and technical publications with a philosophical drama, he's launched a fresh approach to sf prose. The story relates the life of Peter Hobson, who becomes a specialist in brain signal detection after witnessing a corpse reacting to an organ transplant operation. His research discloses that the brain indeed possesses something that seems to transcend death. Pursuing that issue, he records his own brain signals, creating three identities. Meanwhile, Hobson's a lovely, devoted, wife betrays him with a creep, devastating him. The result is mysterious deaths, a world reaction to his discovery and some heavy discussion on human values. The debate over human consciousness, whether it exists, whether it's unique in the animal kingdom and whether it has a long term essence, remains ongoing and intense. Works on evolution and sociobiology are permeated with the question of whether our ability to communicate ideas reflects the existence of a spiritual element in humanity. Ever since early humans could perceive the idea of death the question of 'what happens after' has dominated our thinking. Sawyer makes a good effort to deal with the first part of the question: yes, there's something there, and it's not limited to humans. As to the afterlife, Sawyer raises the question, then leaves it for a later book or someone else to decide. The many comments below about Sawyer's characters reflect the maturity of his prose style. Readers looking for simplistic people and predictable action are not pandered to in this book. He introduces a devout Muslim AI engineer, surely a novel idea in speculative fiction, and a graduate chemist unable to shed her childhood disappointments. Current concepts of family stress, with separations, sex, and parental tensions all become major features in this story. While the characters here are mildly wooden [especially in comparison with Sawyer's later books], their models are real enough. Sawyer simply had too much philosophy and technology to present in too few pages. The lady copper, in particular, is a pretty fast thinker, given the novelty of the circumstances. The philosophy redeems any faults in this book. We need to recognize where evolution has brought us. Sawyer touches that issue lightly, bringing the story to a level rarely encountered. We are left uncertain as to whether the concept of the soul is meaningful. That will leave some readers unsatisfied, but that's a major part of Sawyer's appeal. He will raise the questions, you must come up with some of the answer.
Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, but poor characterization
Review: There were two main ideas in the book: the philosophical implications of the discovery of a 'soulwave' that exits the body after death and an AI experiment that makes three differing copies of a human's brain to determine what makes up a soul. The author should have stuck to these concepts. The subplot regarding an affair between the protagonist's wife and a coworker took up far too much of the book. This subplot did feed into the main plot, but the point was belabored. Another subplot involved the investigation, rather simplistic, of the murders of the coworker and the wife's father. The dialog in this novel was very stilted. For example, when they weren't talking about technical concepts, the protagonist and his AI friend interacted like teenagers, complete with obscure Star Trek references. I found the monologs spouted by the AI versions of the protagonist to be the best dialog in the novel.
Rating:
Summary: A classic example of philosophical science fiction
Review: I've spent most of my life reading science fiction; I've read almost everything written before 1980, and a huge chunk of what's come since then. What I've loved most about the genre -- after the guilty pleasures of space opera -- is its capacity to take the unanswerable questions and try to answer them. Too often, the questions we want to know the answers to -- what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What happens to us after we die? -- are either unanswerable or fully realized in religion. So, for a science fiction writer to contemplate the nature of the soul and the afterlife, he runs two risks: one, that he will come up with ridiculous, unproveable answers, or two, that he will utterly infuriate one or more of the established religions. To Robert Sawyer's immense credit, he does neither. He constructs a fascinating premise: what if the soul could be proved to exist, and be proved to be heading somewhere after death? He then constructs another premise: he takes the protagonist's personality, and he makes three AI copies: one with no modifications, one that has all the bodily references deleted, and one with all the knowledge of aging and death deleted. That is his main story. The murder mystery that runs along side this plot is interesting, but it isn't the main point. Sawyer is asking the most important questions a human being can ask, and he's coming up with plausible answers. One of the paradoxes of science fiction is that its greatest books are religious in nature: "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Dune" are two excellent examples. And while "The Terminal Experiment" isn't quite up to that level (what is?), it is a worthy younger brother to those older giants. The clear, lucid prose reminds me of Isaac Asimov's belief that nothing should get in the way of the story; the characters are not eccentrics, but everyday people, which serves Sawyer's purpose much better than coming up with oddballs that we might remember better. I enjoyed this book far more than any other sf novel in years, precisely because it brought me back to why I stayed in love with the genre after I grew up: it's the only literary form that still provides intellectual provocation.
Rating:
Summary: All around sloppy effort.
Review: An excellent premise. A man discovers hard scientific evidence that some part of the human mind continues to exist after death and then sets up an experiment creatinge three computer simulations of himself: one has all remembrance of physical existance edit out--simulating life after death, another has all knowledge of death removed--simulating imortality, and the third is unaltered--a control. Then all escape and one commits a murder--but which one! But don't get excited; it's all a bore. The murder is committed in the absurb method of having a man's low-fat gravy replaced with the real thing. He's on medication that requires a very strict diet so he dies. But the reader doesn't have a chance to ponder how ridiculous this is because he or she is still trying to figure out how the author failed to realize how stupid the experiment is: the one with the three copies of our hero. All three know that they are simulations so the control is hardly a real simulation of the main charcter, Hobson. The one with no knowledge of death, knows what death is and doesn't want to be deleted. These inconsistancies are lost on Sawyer who plows ahead with his ridiculous murder plot. Perhaps and even bigger problem is Sawyer's failure to create realistic people. All the minor characters--especially the ones that are refered to in the "news briefs" scattered throughout the book behave in unbelievable manners. Like the Republican Senator who becomes a supporter of Euthanasia becuase the existance of a human soul has supposedly been proved! The Major character don't fair much better. Each seems to be a mouthpiece for Sawyer to express his own philosphical views. Certainly the main two character's frequent asides on subjects like abortion, child development, and evolution are interchangable. Simply reading them by themselves would give you know hint of wether they are being uttered by Hobson or his friend. The characters are that one-dimensional. All things considered it is an easy read and had a lot of potential. But don't bother reading it. And what in the world is Phil Donahue doing in this book!
Rating:
Summary: Conventional style, but interesting plot
Review: Sawyer managed to write a very traditional crime story in a cyberspace setting. The plot has some interesting twists and kept me occupied for quite a while. The author suceeded in not making a certain philosophy of life appear superior to others, even though the most pervasive topic of the book (the "soul" and life after death) could have tempted him to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Not hardcore science fiction
Review: Surprisingly, this book concentrates more on the emotional and philosophical conflicts of the characters. The "sci-fi" part of it is merely background, with some of the technology very possible in the near future. The first part of the book tells of super-engineer Peter G. Hobson (you never find out what the G stands for) and how he deals with a personal crisis. He's not trying to save the world from aliens or technology run rampant. He's merely induring what many people also have to deal with today and in years past. The second half of the book then turns into a murder mystery. The ending was rather anti-climatic and too clean cut, but the story was well paced and kept me occupied, although I have to agree with another review saying the characters were a tad wooden.
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