The Terminal Man
by Michael Crichton · first published 1972
13mentions
4recommended by
12HN commenters
2012–2025first – last mentioned
33% recommend58% neutral8% critical
The classic thriller and "New York Times" bestseller is reissued with a new look. Prone to violent seizures, Harry Benson undergoes an experimental procedure that implants electrodes in his brain, sending soothing pulses to the brain's pleasure canyon. However, Harry learns how to control the pulses and increase their frequency. Harry then escapes--a homicidal maniac loose in the city--and nothing will stop his murderous rampage. Reissue.
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…"wire-headed"... Can gaming be "wire-heading"? Does the severity or excess matter? Is "a little" OK? This also reminds me of one of Michael Crichton's earliest works (and a fantastic one IMHO), The Terminal Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man https://1lib.sk/book/1743198/d790fa/the-terminal-man.html
on “The surprise deprecation of GPT-4o for ChatGPT consumers” ↗- The Writer - James Patterson - Terminal Man - Michael Crichton - The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
on “Ask HN: End of Year Book Recommendations” ↗Book - The Terminal Man, Flatland Music - Squarepusher, Autechre Movie - Tetsuo The Ironman, Zatoichi series, Macgruber (def the first movie, not the show)
on “Ask HN: Underrated Music, Books, Movies?” ↗Terminal Man is a fun read. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man
on “Human use of high-bandwidth wireless brain-computer interface” ↗I was taken in by Crichton's chatterbot AIs in "The Terminal Man" for a while, until I got online and actually did research into what the current state of the art (i.e., decades after the novel was written) in that field actually looks like. As it turns out, no, it's…
on “The fake chemical compound Isaac Asimov invented to punk science writers” ↗The book The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton was an interesting story about an experiment in deep brain stimulation.
on “Darpa Initiative Will Focus on Advancing Deep Brain Stimulation” ↗Reminded me of Crichton's "The Terminal Man," though the details are clearly different. Neat to see this becoming a reality, without the bad stuff that the novel added in.
on “A brain implant offers relief to an epilepsy patient” ↗Reminds me of The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton. Just re read it the other day and although it’s fiction and overblown, it is crazy to see the future catch up to what was science fiction 30 years ago.
on “AI-controlled brain implants for mood disorders tested in people” ↗This concept forms the setting for the old Michael Chrichton novel The Terminal Man.
on “Could electrically stimulating criminals' brains prevent crime?” ↗Very vaguely similar to the novel Terminal Man by Michael Crichton.
on “Lasers activate killer instinct in mice” ↗This is disturbingly reminiscent of Michael Chricton's novel The Terminal Man.
on “Personalized brain stimulation alleviates severe depression symptoms” ↗The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
on “Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]” ↗…book, the villain tries to kill off the protagonists by electronically locking the data center doors and triggering the CO₂ fire suppression system. Does anyone else remember this book? Was this "The Terminal Man" or am I mixing up two books?
on “Shodan: The scariest search engine on the Internet” ↗