Subject: Review of Robert Sawyer's The Terminal Experiment

From: [email-masked] (Steven H Silver)
Date: 24 May 1996 02:58:21 GMT

REVIEW
         THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT
         by Robert J. Sawyer
             HarperPrism
            0-06-105310-4
        333pp/$5.50/May 1995

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When I first became aware of Robert Sawyer, his books had
cute little dinosaurs on the covers and I avoided them.
Eventually, I heard some good things about them and I picked
up the first book of the series (Far-Seer) and discovered
that, although the book still had a cute dinosaur cover, the
material inside the cover was well worth reading.  The
Terminal Experiment is Sawyer's sixth book, and only his
second book without a dinosaur on the cover.  Instead, the
cover looks like a medical mystery along the lines of
something Robin Cook would write.

At the start of the book, Peter Hobson (the book was titled
"Hobson's Choice" when it appeared in Analog is a medical
student attending an organ-harvesting on a motorcycle
victim.  When the patient shows a pulse and reacts to the
procedure, Hobson begins to wonder where the line between
life and death actually is.  After graduation, Hobson
pursues research into the development of a super-sensitive
EEG to determine the actual instant of death.  During his
research, Hobson and his good friend Sarkar Muhammed develop
a technique for creating a perfect neural scan of a person's
brain.

Hobson and Muhammed create three duplicates of Peter Hobson
inside computers at Muhammed's lab.  One "Hobson" is
immortal, one "Hobson" is dead and one "Hobson" is the
control.

While this is going on, Hobson's personal life is falling
apart.  His wife has begun to have an affair with a co-
worker (as soon as Sawyer describes how perfect their
relationship is, you know she's going to have an affair) and
Hobson's father-in-law dies because of a medicinal reaction.
To make matters worse, a police investigation focuses on
Hobson's life and work.

Sawyer is writing a mystery with this book, and, to a
certain extent, succeeds.  The pace is good, keeping you
turning the pages, and the characters are likeable, even the
libidinous Hans and the un-enlightened Rod.  However,
because of the way Sawyer creates his mystery, there is no
real chance of figuring out who is responsible.  In some
ways its reminiscent of the way Conan Doyle would always
have Holmes solve the crime by pointing out a piece of
evidence that was known only to Holmes and not to Watson.
Nevertheless, just as the Holmes stories are well-worth
reading, I would also have no hesitation to recommend The
Terminal Experiment to a friend.

Oh, yeah.  Go out and get Sawyer's other books, too.  At the
very least, you'll be entertained.  More likely, you'll
begin to think about our society.

%A   Robert J. Sawyer
%T   The Terminal Experiment
%I   HarperPrism
%C   New York
%D   May 1995
%G   0-06-105310-4
%P   333
%O   PB, $5.50
-- 
Steven H Silver
Bibliographies on Jews in SF, Harry Turtledove, SF set in Chicago
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