Reviews

• A well constructed story that is uncomfortably close to where our world is at present if we are not careful. Highly recommended.

• Although Sci Fi is not my genre of choice, Terminal Mind's exciting plot, very human characters and presentation of moral dilemmas drew me in and made Walton's book hard to put down. This dystopian novel's plausible picture of technological advances and their dangers sets the stage for action when two young men from opposite social strata deliberately release a computer virus as a prank, causing far-reaching, unforeseen consequences. Walton explores this idea of choice and consequences in the characters' personal relationships and their interaction with a society plagued by class-struggle and technological dangers. As any good author, Walton takes common story elements of an evil villain, romance, unexpected plot twists and imbues them with his own style, I did think there was a little too much violence at the end of the book (though quite mild by today's standards). I particularly liked the voice (in the literary sense of that term) of the child embedded in a computer and the author's strong contention that every life (even those that are part computer, were that possible) has great value. Even better than Terminal MInd, I would recommend David Walton's historical fantasy Quintessence and the recently published sequel Quintessence Sky with their greater depth of characterization and exciting plots in which the former royal physician to King Edward flees religious persecution with his daughter and an evil alchemistacross the waters of a flat earth to an island populated by wondrous creatures. Note, Terminal Mind is also now available in Spanish (Juego Mortal) and French. Chris W.

• I am enjoying this Book

• While still reading this book, I bought David Walton's other book, Quintessence, which is a powerful indicator that Walton is a good writer, a good storyteller and a sci-fi guy to watch. After finishing it and starting Quintessence, my feeling that this is the case is even stronger. If you are a science fiction fan or a fan of the literature of the fantastic, David Walton is a guy to watch and read. In a near future America, current social trends have been taken to their logical conclusion. Everybody is wired in, to a greater or lesser degree depending upon social class and even healthcare has a computer component. The book opens at a party for the great and the good, where the son of the house and his other side of the tracks friend are planning a small prank, but their prank gets out of hand and inadvertently looses a cyber intelligence controlled by a man after power. The symbiosis of biology and technology required to "upload" a working brain and personality is grisly and makes the reader question all of the very attractive technology available to the rich in this near future - and does so without too much ham-handedness. Of course the prank has consequences and the underclass has been ground down enough to start fighting back. Walton uses the tropes of the genre and the tropes of character in ways that are comfortingly familiar and fresh. Walton doesn't reinvent the wheel here and you have met some of these stock characters before: the fashionably rebellious rich boy who learns just how important compassion is, but that it has a cost, the hot-headed young rebel who defies the more cautious leadership of resistance to his sorrow, the innocent young woman from the hinterlands who turns out to have more grit than she initially appears to, the firm but fair general who brings the resistance together, the surprise rebel that no one sees coming, the mad scientist antagonist whose ultimate goal is more sadism than science. Walton gives these types pathos and heart and raises them above their standard genre parameters. Walton's world-building is good as well and the reader can picture themselves in the world, both as one of the privileged and as one of the downtrodden underclass. A great mid-list cyberpunk dystopia with a dash of military adventure. I would love to see how the characters and the world fares in a sequel, especially as based on my reading of Quintessence, Walton's writing has taken a huge leap forward. Recommended to fans of cyberpunk especially, but lovers of dystopias and adventure science fiction would do well to take a look too.

• In short, the book is a near-future society dealing with class warfare, allocation of technology based on class, and the introduction of brain scanning into cyberspace, (the ability to read the brain and imprint it into cyberspace as a personality). The book held my interest and it provided an interesting view into a future where cyberspace and biology merge, while the same old class problems are addressed. Since there are still class wars, some have fewer or worse technology implants, while the elite class gets the best. I thought the book would follow the view from the working class, and deal with the "evils" of the elite class, but the story line matures to deal with both class evils, which is important; without the balance in view, the book would have taken on a socialistic taint. Finally, the book takes care to close out the key plot threads, (which I appreciate). While the book does not hint at a sequel, it could be developed based on the ending revelations. The story line and characters are well developed. So I recommend this book if you enjoy SciFi in a near future setting.

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