Rating: 
Summary: Moral homilies hiding as Sci-Fi
Review: The only thing impressive about this book are the awards it has somehow accumulated. The writing style was OK, but the science and psychology was definately lacking - overly simplistic and convenient. But what bothered me the most was the thinly veiled and clumsy anti-humanism allegory. I like stories that explore and question various moral and ethical situations and dilemmas - I don't like being hit over the head with them. For interesting allegories, read Nancy Kress or Valerie Freireich. This book felt to me like one of the more saccherine "Outer Limits" episodes, where a questionable but nevertheless interesting premise is shallowly explored and sweetly resolved
Rating: 
Summary: lame, amateurish, sloppy.
Review: Not well written. Amateurish. Characters one dimensional and clearly severed from the author's own personality. A scientist perhaps, but no philosopher, and no observer of human nature. Big question, how did this sloppy effort win such a prize? Was the competition so lame that year
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book!!
Review: "The Terminal Experiment" was definately one of the best books I have ever read. Definately in the top 5.. I highly recommend this to any sci-fi fan, also to anyone who is interested in life after death issues. Very compelling book! I seriously could not put this book down. I read it in one night, and I'm probably going to read it again before I take it back to the library. Again, an excellent book
Rating: 
Summary: A ho-hum novel unworthy of any SF awards
Review: This novel offers a lackluster plot and shallow characters. This is yet another classic "good scientist whose quest for God-like powers creates evil" theme. At least Dr. Frankenstein's monster was more sympathetic than these boring computer programs. And Mary Shelley led the way almost two centuries ago!
It amazes me how some novels become so elevated by Nebula/Hugo awards. It is an embarrassment to the SF genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Some publishing history ...
Review: In addition to having won the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award (the "Academy Award of SF"), I'll mention in passing that THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT also won the HOMer Award for Best Novel of the Year, voted on by the 30,000 members worldwide of the SF Literature Forum on CompuServe, AND the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award ("the Aurora") for Best English-Language Novel of the Year.
THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT was also one of five finalists for the Hugo Award (SF's international people's choice award), was a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, was serialized in ANALOG, and has been translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.
Rating:
Summary: Does this kind of thing really happen -- in CANADA?
Review: Parochial feel. Takes place placidly in large Canadian city. World-shaking events, etc. United States just some country to the South, Europe to the East, Japan -- where's that? A minor contribution to the AI sci-fi literature. Instad of this, read THE TURING OPTION, by Marvin Minsky and Harry Harrison
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and plausible
Review: A good, easy read. Set in 2011, Terminal Experiment is "technology based sci-fi" that doesn't seem so far from reality. It's Canadian milieu and evocation of life in the not to distant future are quite good. It's exploration into the mind of its hero--Peter Hobson--is fairly shallow. Likewise its theme: whether morality is changed by mortality (or immortality) is not particularly deep--though it is intriguing. Take this book if you have an airplane ride ahead. It's a "7" in the grand scheme of things, but that's pretty good in my book for entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: Not as tightly woven as usual...
Review: I'll admit my bias up front: I'm a solid Robert J. Sawyer fan. I got hooked with "Factoring Humanity," sailed right through "Flashforward," "Starplex," and "Calculating God," then stumbled a bit with "Illegal Alien." Then I read "The Terminal Experiment." I do like this book. It had some good strong characters, and had the usual Sawyer multiplot setup. When a man develops a machine capable of viewing the soul's release after death, the world changes overnight. The philosophical ramifications of this device have its creator wondering about what happens to the soul once it has left the body, and he produces an AI experiment: he creates three copies of his own mind to exist in cyberspace: one with no memory of physical existance (to simulate life after death), one with no knowledge of aging or mortality (to simulate immortality), and one unmodified, as a sort of scientific "control." Then, people with whom Hobson has 'personality conflicts' start showing up dead, and it seems that all three Hobson-AIs have escaped their cybernetic boxes. One of them is a killer. Weaving multiple plots together is usually a forte of Sawyer, but in "The Terminal Experiment," it's not so tightly woven. The plots of the family troubles of Hobson, against the "soul-wave" device, and the murder mystery, don't always link together as tightly as they could. Still, I quite enjoyed his book, as always, and if nothing else, the philosophical debates of the three AIs, and what they represent, was a real thought-provoker. If you're new to Sawyer, start with something else, such as "Flashforward" or "Factoring Humanity" or "Calculating God." If you've read him before, be prepared for a stylistically weaker plot, but a good read nonetheless. 'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and enjoyable; maybe too crowded, though
Review: Robert Sawyer is nothing if not an "intellectual" - his stories, novels, and even his interviews on the talk-show circuit are not standard and run-of-the-mill. He likes to explore the Big Questions of the universe and in The Terminal Experiment, he tackles one of his favourites - exploration of the devine by supplying evidence of a creator. In addition, he throws in a healthy dose of artificial intellegence, a murder mystery, and some neat medical equipment. The main character, Peter Hobson, has family problems at home - he's going through a rocky point in his marriage. At the same time, he discovers evidence (using a super-sensitive EEG) of a "coherent electromagnetic pulse" leaving the brain at the time of death. Naturally, theologians call this evidence for a human soul, which gets Hobson thinking: what is the afterlife like? With the help of a friend (and researcher into A.I.), he generates 3 virtual copies of himself. These copies live in cyberspace, two of which are modified to simulate immortal life and life after death. When two men turn up dead, both of whom Hobson had something against, Hobson quickly determines that one of his computerised simulacra must have done the killing. But which one? And can it be stopped? This book won a Nebula award, and it's easy to see why. It's an exciting adventure, and there are some neat ideas in it. It's also charmingly dated in places - for example, in the year 2011, Sawyer has the Commenwealth of Independent States still existing, and Carl Sagan shows up on a talk show. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have mentioned, there is the problem of too many things happening at once. Is this a story about the existence of the soul? Is it a story about computer-generated personalities committing murder? Sawyer never seems to sort out what the important storyline is, and the reader is left feeling that he had two good ideas for short stories, then combined them to make a novel. But it's great fun and a good read, so I can forgive such issues.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and enjoyable; maybe too crowded, though
Review: Robert Sawyer is nothing if not an "intellectual" - his stories, novels, and even his interviews on the talk-show circuit are not standard and run-of-the-mill. He likes to explore the Big Questions of the universe and in The Terminal Experiment, he tackles one of his favourites - exploration of the devine by supplying evidence of a creator. In addition, he throws in a healthy dose of artificial intellegence, a murder mystery, and some neat medical equipment. The main character, Peter Hobson, has family problems at home - he's going through a rocky point in his marriage. At the same time, he discovers evidence (using a super-sensitive EEG) of a "coherent electromagnetic pulse" leaving the brain at the time of death. Naturally, theologians call this evidence for a human soul, which gets Hobson thinking: what is the afterlife like? With the help of a friend (and researcher into A.I.), he generates 3 virtual copies of himself. These copies live in cyberspace, two of which are modified to simulate immortal life and life after death. When two men turn up dead, both of whom Hobson had something against, Hobson quickly determines that one of his computerised simulacra must have done the killing. But which one? And can it be stopped? This book won a Nebula award, and it's easy to see why. It's an exciting adventure, and there are some neat ideas in it. It's also charmingly dated in places - for example, in the year 2011, Sawyer has the Commenwealth of Independent States still existing, and Carl Sagan shows up on a talk show. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have mentioned, there is the problem of too many things happening at once. Is this a story about the existence of the soul? Is it a story about computer-generated personalities committing murder? Sawyer never seems to sort out what the important storyline is, and the reader is left feeling that he had two good ideas for short stories, then combined them to make a novel. But it's great fun and a good read, so I can forgive such issues.
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