Play Book Tag discussion

4.5 stars - and I'm wavering between rounding up or down, but I really have to hand it to the author, I lost count of the many times I smiled or crowed in delight at his inventive and fascinating future world and his little touches of sarcastic humor, so I will go up. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I only started reading it because I was waiting for new tires to be installed in my car and it was one of the very few unread books on my tablet and I could not remember why I had it there. I finally remembered that I had read and enjoyed Redshirts by this author, but this one was very different, and much better in my opinion - I could not stop reading till I had finished it.

The premise of this near future was a very complicated one, and the author had to get the explanation out of the way at the outset as it was necessary to understanding the characters. A flu-like plague, Haden's syndrome, has swept the world, causing meningitis that in most cases renders the victim's body paralyzed but leaving his mind intact, a phenomenon called "lock in". In some cases, the victim recovers, and in a miniscule percentage of cases it causes a person to be capable of temporarily carrying the mind of another, allowing them the use of their body, and these are called "Integrators".

The world has adapted, and technology has come up with a way for those locked in to move around in the world in a robot body, called "threeps", and our hero is one of these, rookie FBI agent Chris Shane. He's new to the job, and his partner, veteran Leslie Vann, was once an Integrator. The suspect in their latest murder case is also an Integrator, but it appears so is the victim. And it only gets more and more complicated from there.

It takes a bit of effort to understand the premise this world works in, but it's very much worth it. I love sci-fi stories that have fascinating and intricate world-building, but where the world takes a back seat to the story, and we have that here in spades. This is about the characters, and the murder mystery, which is a good one, and the ending does not disappoint. I will definitely be reading more of this author.

I really liked this one too.