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Summary: A Towering Achievement
Review: (I always wanted to say that.) At once repulsive and enthralling, this book is a must-read for those who are not too easily offended. Reminded me of Varley's Steel Beach, though much darker.
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Summary: Dinosaurs, Undead and Drugs: Doncha love SciFi?
Review: 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.
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Summary: Dinosaurs, Undead and Drugs: Doncha love SciFi?
Review: Nano-scale machinery, tiny robots and computers built on a molecular level by the millions, will feasibly be able to "grow" intelligentmetal, reshape bone structures, and reanimate the dead. Science Fiction writers are getting brain hemorrhages as they try to predictlife 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.
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Summary: One of the all-time most inventive!
Review: 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.
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Summary: Terminal Cafe will stir some thoughts....
Review: 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.
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Summary: Terminal Cafe will stir some thoughts....
Review: 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.
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Summary: Deep and rich with concept and characters.
Review: Of all of Ian McDonald's novels -- which I love -- this is the only one I simply couldn't bear. Molasses from beginning to wherever it was I gave up.
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Summary: The NanoTech resurrection of 600 million wax dolls
Review: The First Resurrection of the Dead will start sooner than Terminal Cafe would suggest! My guess is that it will start in about 55 years.
Rating: 
Summary: Incomprehensible
Review: This was one of the very, very few books that I actually could not read. At all. The combination of bad writing, ridiculous premise and an excessive collection of side plots makes this book only marginally more entertaining than a core dump in hex. Now, I could be wrong - maybe the book gets better later on. However, I haven't been able to read enough of the book to actually find out. I'd suggest Cyteen (by C.J.Cherryh) or Diamond Age (by Neal Stephenson) as books that deal with some of the issues that Terminal Cafe supposedly covers; however, these two books are pretty well written, so that a human being can actually comprehend them.
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