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Lock In A Novel of the Near Future John Scalzi Books

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Lock In A Novel of the Near Future John Scalzi Books

Combining science fiction with with mystery fiction is traditionally tricky. That's because (if it's not already obvious) that the author can insert a nearly infinite number of techo-gimicks to solve or complicate the mystery. To make it work the author has to define pretty early on the limitations and boundaries of the science fictional environment the story is told in -- then stick to them rigidly. The classic examples are Bester and Asimov. Scalzi joins this crew. There are only two significant science fiction devices introduced and then right at the start, i.e, a particularly cruel disease, a sort sort of hyper-polio, and the means to wire up a human brain to control a robotic body that substitutes quite effectively for a real on. To me the former is perfectly plausible while the later is a bit of a stretch but I wouldn't rule it out. Other tings like driverless cars are already reasonably expected. Thus there is no real problem with suspension of disbelief. I found no whole in the mystery plot.

The world created for the background to the mystery explores the possible implication for a disease that doesn't kill but rater with technological aid created a new category of human (maybe). It brings to mind the deaf parents who do not want their children or themselves "cured" of their disabilities. Scalzi leaves this discussion ambiguous rather promote his own view -- the reader is lead to consider it but is not offered a resolution.

The lead character is a little unusual in that he is a nice, bright young fellow. Somewhat innocent and seltered even for a victim of a devastating disease and not to mention heir to a fortune. Much more a fresh minted Peter Wimsey than a Mike Hammer or Phillip Marlowe type.

The work that went into this world and these characters begs foe a sequel or even a series.


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Lock In A Novel of the Near Future John Scalzi Books Reviews

Will you like this book?

Honestly I think it will depend on what you care about in the book. If what you are looking for is a great who-done-it murder mystery well then this maybe won’t be for you since that part of the book was a little easy to figure out and was just okay as murder mysteries go. But if what you want is something that makes you wonder what society would be like if one part of the general population is essentially stuck inside their bodies with no way to move around and they are given their own personal C3POesk unit to use to be able to walk around the world in, then the answer is YES.

I like books that take a premise like what would happen if…and then expand on that to maybe 20-200 years into the future and then make a story around how would our world change because of that one thing. I think that Neal Shusterman so far has been my favorite author to do that in a Urban setting with his Unwind Series. But Scalzi did a pretty good job at that as well and had a lot of very interesting concepts and social commentary throughout the story.

***“Interesting that you don’t always stay fully sense-forward on your threep,” Jerry said, as he prepped the lidocaine.
“I don’t like how it feels,” I said. “If I can’t feel my body it feels … off. Adrift. Weird.”
Jerry nodded. “I can see that, I guess,” he said. “Not everyone does it that way. My last client was full sense-forward on her threep all the time. Didn’t like feeling what was going on with her body. Hell, didn’t like acknowledging she had a body. She found it inconvenient, I think is the best way of putting it. Which was ultimately ironic.”
“How so?” “She had a heart attack and didn’t even feel it,” Jerry said. “She found out about it from an automated alert to her threep. I think it came as a surprise to her that she could die. She spent so much time in her threep I think she believed it really was her.”***

So the thing that I didn’t notice until someone pointed it out to me was that our MC could be any gender or race. I think I didn’t realize that Chris was biracial until about 70% into the book. I still have no idea if Chris is male or female. Since Wil Wheaton is the narrator for the book I just assumed that Chris was male for most of the book until I realized that maybe wasn’t the case at all.

I did get pretty caught up on how society changed because of all the people who were locked in and how they became like their own class/race of people. So many concepts in this book made me ponder and wonder about the lives of people in this world and the current political crisis it was going through and how that would change everything.

Overall I think the Societal SciFi part of the book is much stronger than anything else. If that is you cup of tea and you don’t get all caught up on the how did they get peoples brains to control a robot you’ll totally be fine.
The premise is intriguing, and Scalzi clearly spent time considering the social and political ramifications of a world where a small but sizable percentage of the population are simultaneously handicapped and privileged. I enjoyed that aspect of the book quite a bit.

The dialog, on the other hand, was hard for me to swallow. Having read a fair number of crime novels, I felt like the dialog was missing the gravity to suit the situations, and most of the characters spoke in minor variations of the same voice – one that reminded me of a sarcastic teenager. That was the case with Redshirts, too, but it felt appropriate for a satirical Star Trek spin-off. For a crime novel... I could have done with more depth of character and more realistic, adult dialog.

I also didn't find the sequence of their investigation believable. I felt that it took much too long for the investigators to ask the most obvious question – who is the victim? What can we find out about him? While they do eventually pursue that thread, it just took an unusually long time for them to ask the first question that's usually asked at the scene of a crime.

The choice to make the main character a rich kid was also curious. I can appreciate Scalzi's choice to create unlikely heroes, but he didn't give his main character any inner turmoil. This could have been explored while also explaining why this rich and famous young man chose to pursue a career in law enforcement. He could have also explored the hardships that went into achieving that goal. But instead we got a main character with a perfectly healthy psychology who lives an extremely comfortable and convenient life. Which is... a touch too boring for my taste.

In sum Worth reading if you enjoy sci-fi concepts and can forgive (or perhaps can enjoy) superficial characters and dialog.
Combining science fiction with with mystery fiction is traditionally tricky. That's because (if it's not already obvious) that the author can insert a nearly infinite number of techo-gimicks to solve or complicate the mystery. To make it work the author has to define pretty early on the limitations and boundaries of the science fictional environment the story is told in -- then stick to them rigidly. The classic examples are Bester and Asimov. Scalzi joins this crew. There are only two significant science fiction devices introduced and then right at the start, i.e, a particularly cruel disease, a sort sort of hyper-polio, and the means to wire up a human brain to control a robotic body that substitutes quite effectively for a real on. To me the former is perfectly plausible while the later is a bit of a stretch but I wouldn't rule it out. Other tings like driverless cars are already reasonably expected. Thus there is no real problem with suspension of disbelief. I found no whole in the mystery plot.

The world created for the background to the mystery explores the possible implication for a disease that doesn't kill but rater with technological aid created a new category of human (maybe). It brings to mind the deaf parents who do not want their children or themselves "cured" of their disabilities. Scalzi leaves this discussion ambiguous rather promote his own view -- the reader is lead to consider it but is not offered a resolution.

The lead character is a little unusual in that he is a nice, bright young fellow. Somewhat innocent and seltered even for a victim of a devastating disease and not to mention heir to a fortune. Much more a fresh minted Peter Wimsey than a Mike Hammer or Phillip Marlowe type.

The work that went into this world and these characters begs foe a sequel or even a series.