Terminal games

the long version

From back cover Bantam paperback August 1995: INSOMNIMANIA It's the hottest place to be for sleepless denizens of the computer nets. Here in cyberspace they can live out their wildest fantasies: flirt or argue with the regulars in Ernie's Bar, play high-stakes poker in the Casino del Camino, engage in safe, anonymous sex in the Pleasure Dome, watch of commit murders in the Snuff Room. But suddenly high-tech fantasy explodes into a real-life nightmare as Insomnimania subscribers begin dying -- and their murders start showing up in lurid detail on Snuff Room animations. Insomnimania subscriber Marianne Hedison stumbles onto a crime scene she recognizes from the Snuff Room, and after a second chilling murder, she lets the cops in on her suspicion that a serial killer is loose within the net. But Detective Nolan Grobowski has his own prime suspect: Marianne. Now Marianne must prove her innocence before the actual killer strikes again -- and to do so she must haunt the bizarre corridors of Insomnimania, where fantasies emerge after dark... and death becomes all too real.