The Terminal Man | Michael Crichton

The Terminal Man | Michael Crichton | Excellent!

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The Terminal Man

	The Terminal Man Michael Crichton Avon, 2002 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 130 reviews view larger image
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captivating

I loved this book one of my favorites. if you like any of crichtons other books you will love this one to.

Excellent!

I don't know why everyone overlooks this book. Michael Crichton is a gifted novelist and film writer, and "The Terminal Man" is probably his most cinematically-minded novel.

This is the gripping story of a man named Harry Benson, suffering from a mental disorder that causes him to have violent seizures, resulting in injuring or even killing people around him. An experimental cure is designed, involving implanting a machine into his brain to control his impulses. Of course, the whole experiment goes awry, and Benson escapes into the city.

This might not be Crichton at his absolute best (Andromeda Strain and Disclosure are slightly better), but "The Terminal Man" is essential reading for any Crichton fan. A few of the technical details are outdated, but we all still like watching Star Wars, right? Pick this up; you won't regret it!

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Taut thriller

Harry Benson is delivered to University Hospital by the police, who will be watching him throughout his stay there. He's charged with assault and battery, and the only reason he's being allowed to keep his surgical date is that the experimental procedure should - if all goes well - correct the cause of his violent seizures. Or so the surgical team and the hospital's administrator believe. But Benson's psychiatrist, Dr. Janet Ross, isn't so sure.

Although this taut thriller seems meant to caution us about the dehumanizing perils of the computer age, which was just dawning when Crichton wrote it, I found it most interesting for its depiction of physicians by one of their own. By making Janet Ross female, the author casts her as the "outsider" through whose eyes we readers can see the other doctors' specialty-related foibles. Had the book been written later, this wouldn't have worked as well; but in a 1972 world it's an excellent device. By the time you reach the last page, you'll know more than you may want to know about the minds of those who take care of you when you're most vulnerable. A terrific read!

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Good read

Michael Crichton's The Terminal Man is the first book I've read in its entirety in quite some time. Though it was written in '72, it's a timely story. The subject--doctors trying to "fix" a problem through medicine and surgery--is still relevant.

Harry Benson, the protagonist, is a computer scientist who, after an accident, starts having blackouts and violent seizures which cause him to strike out at people. After being charged with assault, Harry is brought to Los Angeles' University Hospital under police guard. In an experimental operation, Dr. Roger McPherson of the hospital's Neuropsychiatric Research Unit wants to put electrodes in Harry's brain which will send out electrical impulses to control Harry's seizures. However, Dr. Janet Ross, Harry's psychiatrist, objects because she thinks that Harry is psychotic and that the surgery won't help him. The surgeons, John Ellis and Robert Morris, go ahead and do the operation anyway.

Harry comes out of the surgery in good shape, but he soon learns how to control the electric shocks which are stimulating his brain. Dr. Ross realizes that Harry is actually causing his seizures in order to experience the shocks. Harry escapes from the hospital in an orderly's uniform and goes on a murderous rampage, with the hospital staff and the Los Angeles police pursuing him. As his seizures increase, Harry becomes more violent. He fatally beats and stabs a friend of his, a topless dancer, in her apartment, and he attacks Ross, his psychiatrist, in her kitchen. Later, Morris, one of Harry's surgeons, sees Harry at the Los Angeles airport, where Harry has assaulted an airplane mechanic. When Morris tries to get Harry to come back to the hospital, Harry smacks him in the mouth with a lead pipe. At the end, Harry comes back to the hospital and demolishes the main computer. There is a tense standoff between Harry and Ross. It ends only when Ross, who had found Harry's gun on the computer room floor, fires it at him. Harry dodges the shot, but he slams into the computer's printer and winds up on the floor with a fatal chest wound.

All in all, The Terminal Man is a good read. It's an action-packed story that will keep you guessing about what will happen until the end. It's not without its flaws. Since he has a medical background, Crichton gets technical in his stories, and I think some people who aren't doctors might be intimidated by the medical jargon in the novel. Also, the main characters--especially Janet Ross--curse a lot more than I'd like. I don't think a doctor, in real life, would be very professional if he used some of the words I read in the novel. Still, in The Terminal Man, Crichton has fashioned a solid story with great characters. I'm glad I picked this one up.

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Okay medical Crichton

A man suffers from seizures that make him go psycho. I found this an ok book. I liked some of his other books better.

On the positive side action packed ending.

On the negative side it takes too long to get to the good part.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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