Play Book Tag discussion

Lock In - John Scalzi
5 stars

This book surprised me. I didn’t expect to like it, but I did. In a way, it was just good, solid entertainment, a police procedural with great technology. That would have been enough. But, the story is set in a not too distant future with similar social and political conflicts. It gave me food for thought.

The setup for this story involves the flu-like Hayden virus that has devastated the planet. In addition to millions of deaths, a significant portion of the population survives in a state of ‘lock in’. These people are conscious, totally aware, but incapable of any voluntary motor activity. Another, smaller group of survivors is able to ‘integrate’ with locked in victims, allowing them to inhabit an integrator’s brain and body for limited periods of time. The crimes in this book take place twenty-five years after the first Hayden epidemic. An amazing technological culture has developed to assist the locked in. In addition to the human integrators, there are ‘threeps’, a kind of robotic personal transport allowing the locked in to participate in all forms of daily life; including holding down the job of an FBI agent.

Rookie FBI Agent, Chris Shane, has a challenging first week. He works out the the Washington,D.C. division. His first day on the job is also the first day of a massive walkout and protest march being staged by the Hayden community. New legislation will cut major funds that support much of the technology required by those who are locked in. Then there’s a murder involving an integrator. And, that is only the beginning.

What follows is in many ways just like any good cop show. Two cops battle the forces of evil. But one of them looks like C-P30 and he leaves his immobile human body at home with a caretaker. There are chase scenes and gun fights. Agent Shane destroys a shocking number of ‘threeps’ before he unravels the complications of who has committed the crimes and who was a helpless participant. There’s suspense, some witty commentary, bad guys to hate, and a complicated puzzle to solve. That’s the entertaining part.

There’s more to it than simple entertainment because Scalzi has created a very complex backstory filled with all the ethical and political human complications that are the common afflictions of the real world. (Some of this backstory comes in the form of a prequel called Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome) Agent Shane has a complicated relationship with his very famous father. It made me think, often, of Andrew Solomon’s discussions of vertical and horizontal identity in his book Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. There’s even a character in the book’s oral history prequel who compares the Hayden community to deaf culture. The story also deals with the medical manipulation of individual brains, including individual memories. It’s a very scary concept, and one that medical science is already addressing with drugs for memory loss and PTSD. That aspect of this mystery-thriller had me thinking of the creepy premise for the title story of Doerr’s Memory Wall. I like books that are fun while giving me much to think about. It’s pushing this one to 5 stars.

I started out listening to this one, but Wil Wheaton disappointed me. As much as I liked him reading Ready Player One, he failed to bring this one to life. There wasn’t enough distinction in the character voices. I couldn’t tell who was speaking. My library copy of the audio CD’s did include the oral history. It was read by multiple performers and helped a great deal with my book hangover when I was wanting more at the end of the book. There’s a good set-up here for sequels. I hope to read more about Agent Shane.

Fantastic review! Going to look up more information on this one now.

This sounds really interesting!

Jgrace wrote: "Lock In - John Scalzi
5 stars

This book surprised me. I didn’t expect to like it, but I did. In a way, it was just good, solid entertainment, a police procedural with great technology. That woul..."

I really liked this one too. Your audio book comments are interesting. I listened to this one and really liked it, but I listened to the version narrated by a female reader. In my head, Chris was a woman. When I heard there was a second audio version narrated by Wil Weaton I did a little googling and found out that Scalzi purposely wrote it to be gender neutral down to his/her name. It gave me a new appreciation to the story as I tried to think about how having Chris be male did or did not change the character in my imagination.

That's very interesting. It would never have occurred to me that Chris could be female.

The book sounds intriguing. Great review, Judith!

I am fascinated by the fact that the audio comes in a male and a female version for the lead character. Adding it to the TBR and hoping my library picks up the female audio version.

I think that someday I would like to listen to the Wil Weaton version to see how it compares. I bet that if I simply read the book and not listened, I would have assumed Chris was male.

I think some of my problem with the audio was that I couldn't tell if his partner was male or female at first. Now, I'm wondering if that was deliberate. Mostly, I just couldn't tell who was speaking because the voices were too much alike. After the first CD, I got a text copy and read the rest. It's still in my car so I have listened to the whole thing eventually. Once I knew the story it was easier to keep track.

Scalzi is clearly playing with gender/sexual roles. At one time he has a male Hayden character inhabit a female body. Not a new concept. Heinlein did it first.