Cole Perriman’s Terminal Games by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin

A killer is stalking the Internet …

An animated clown haunts an online maze called Insomnimania, where he stages scenes from real-life murders from far-flung places. No one knows how many Insomnimania subscribers Auggie has killed, or where he might attack next. But after her best friend is murdered, Santa Barbara interior designer Marianne Hedison means to stop him. So does the streetwise LAPD detective Nolan Grobowski. Nolan and Marianne must trust each other and join forces. But who can anyone trust in a virtual world where people live out their weirdest fantasies anonymously?

Times have finally caught up with Terminal Games. We wrote the book under the pseudonym Cole Perriman, and it was first published in 1994. Terminal Games sold well, got translated into German, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian, and Romanian, was taught in courses about literature and contemporary culture at several leading universities, and was optioned by a major studio for a movie that didn’t get off the ground. At that time, New York publishers were just discovering fax machines. Most people didn’t use email, and “Internet” wasn’t yet a household word. There was no Google, Facebook, The Sims, Twitter, Amazon, WiFi, texting, or … well, you get the picture.

Here’s the original book again, with its 90s-era technology intact. See for yourself how well Cole Perriman’s Terminal Games prophesied today’s infoworld.

COLE PERRIMAN’S TERMINAL GAMES is available from Amazon.

 *****

For the 1994 Bantam edition:
“Wonderful … Reads like Alice in Wonderland in virtual-reality hell.”— Kirkus Reviews
“A cyberspace thriller with all the chilling intensity of Silence of the Lambs …” — Over My Dead Body!
“A cross between William Gibson and Tom Clancy. A page-turner.”— The Sunday Oregonian“
An ingenious premise.” — Publishers Weekly
“The first detective story set in the world of interactive networks where you are whoever you wish to be.”— Clifford Stoll, author of The Cuckoo’s Egg
“A new concept in the classic detective mystery.”— Fred Alan Wolf, author of Taking the Quantum Leap
“A compelling novel that is a must read for anyone interested in the effects of the new technologies on postmodern consciousness.”— Katherine Hayles, author of Chaos Bound

 *****

Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin have collaborated on their writing for about 25 years and stayed happily married all that time. They are co-authors of the popular metaphysical thriller Mayan Interface, the underground classic The Jamais Vu Papers, and many other stories, plays, essays, and books.