Head On

Holy cow, what an amazing follow up! I read this bad boy from start to finish in one day because I was so hooked! Head On is the follow up to Lock In which I adored a few years ago. I didn't give it a re-read before reading this and I thought I would be a little rusty on all the particulars but I was not. Win! John Scalzi continues to dazzle with his complex and brilliantly detailed worlds. This novel picks up not to long after Lock In, and follows FBI agents Chis Shane and Leslie Vann as they try to get to the bottom of an athlete's death. Hadens (or those with lock in syndrome) don't generally get to be star athletes due to their robot bodies (called threeps). However the sport of Hilketa involves violent matches with threeps so it's perfect for Hadens. Even though it's a violent sport, it's safe since those playing are really locked in, in their beds, but one day a player dies and it's up to Shane and Vann to get to the bottom of it and figure out if it was an accident or if there is something else sinister going on. Fascinating and fun, world building at its best! I can't wait for the next in the series!!!

Lock In

I was due for a good sci-fi read and this was perfect!! I fell in love with the story from the beginning. John Scalzi did an amazing job world building and bringing to life this novel of the near future. A disease has been ravaging the globe for years and it's side effects are horrific. Those who don't die from Hadens are either locked in their bodies unable to move (like in a coma but with a fully functioning brain) during the third stage or are able to become integrators in the second (able to let people locked in have control of their bodies). Millions of people worldwide have become locked in throughout the past two decades but thankfully research has helped those people by creating threeps, robots that can be controlled by the mind of threes (which allows them to be a part of the world) and by training integrators. All that is about to change though when the government decides to cut off funding. Rookie FBI Agent Chris Shane (a Haden's survivor using a threep) partners up with Agent Vann and together they must solve some fishy murders as it relates to Haden's research. Interesting, compelling, and impossible to put down, this is a must read!!