Terminal Games
In an exclusive, expensive, and often bizarre branch of cyberspace, anonymous people live out their anonymous fantasies. But when Insomnimania members begin dying, hi-tech fantasy morphs into real-life nightmare. Searching for a killer, Marianne Hedison explores dark recesses of technology and shadowy depths of her own imagination. But she soon becomes a suspect in a homicide investigation as a tenacious detective struggles to find the reality behind a murderous virtual clown called Auggie.

A fast-paced thriller, Terminal Games is also a meditation on the frailty of contemporary relationships. Murder becomes a metaphor for the loss of self in virtual reality — for the danger of allowing online relationships to substitute for real ones.

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Earlier editions —
The first edition of Terminal Games was published by Bantam under the pseudonym Cole Perriman. It was translated into German (3 editions), Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian.

Terminal Games has been taught in courses about literature and contemporary culture at several leading universities, including Princeton and the University of Virginia.

More comments about Terminal Games —
"Hold on to your virtual heads, Terminal Games is a new concept in the classic detective mystery. The hard-line boundary between virtual and ‘actual’ reality is dissolved when a serial murderer emerges from the computer net and merges into the real world. If you like William Gibson, the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and high-tech thrillers, you’ll love Terminal Games.”

“Virtual reality becomes terrifyingly real in this detective story set in cyberspace. With scalpel precision, Terminal Games explores the addictive force of cyberspace, the compelling urgency it has for those who live their real lives in the frictionless spaces of computer networks. A compelling novel that is a must read for anyone interested in the effects of the new technologies on postmodern consciousness.”

“What happens when virtual reality sneaks into real life? Or reality reaches into cyberspace? And cybernauts connect to psychopaths? Today’s interactive networks let you create a persona straight from your fantasy. And when these fantasies go wrong … Well, it takes one clever detective to unravel the web. Terminal Games is the first detective story set in the world of interactive networks, where you are whoever you wish to be.”