I absolutely loved this book.

I am unsure how I had not heard about John Scalzi before, but I am very glad that I have now discovered his books.

HEAD ON is the second book of his I have read and it is a fantastic read.

John Scalzi has created a believable future that readers will be drawn into. Not only is the world building perfectly executed, but the details of that world including the evolution of sport is fascinating.

This is a must read book

5 out of 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I don’t know why it took me so long to read this sequel to Lock In; I really liked the first book, and Scalzi’s work is always breezy in the best way. Unsurprisingly, when I got to this I steamed through it in two days (and I’d gladly have finished it in just one day, but bedtime is a thing that has to happen now I’m getting to the ripe old age of 31). Head On is set a year later than Lock In, and to some extent, I think you can read it without the previous book; it catches you up pretty well on the most pertinent information.

The investigation centres around the death of an athlete during a game in which people piloting robot bodies try to tear each other’s heads off. Something about what happens during play when one of them gets his head torn off causes him to die… and the league pull his details from the live feed, arousing the suspicions of Chris Shane. It gets worse: right before Vann and Shane go to interview him, one of the bigwigs apparently kills himself.

Curiouser and curiouser, as they say. Everything spirals from there, with Scalzi’s usual pace and wit. Some aspects of the mystery were obvious to me pretty early on, but it’s fun to watch Scalzi spin it out and complicate it before bringing it home.

It feels maybe a little less urgent than the first book, somehow, and I probably still prefer Lock In… but it’s a worthy sequel, and I’d love to spend more time following Shane and Vann around as Vann bulldozes her way through all opposition to solve the case.

In a follow on to Lock In, Scalzi uses his set up (a small but significant percentage of population became infected with a disease that left them locked into their bodies, but with active minds--leading to the accelerated development of "threep" robots controlled by mental linkages, extensive virtual spaces, new legal wrinkles and ethical dilemmas) to explore compelling issues of disability and popular culture. People with Hansen's Syndrome have started using their robots to play a new sport (a sort of demolition rugby), which looks to become a financial boom, and one of the star players dies in his creche mid game--leading to an investigation which digs into the ways accessibility aids quickly become co-opted or mocked by mainstream users (straws, snuggies, sex surrogates), the inequalities of healthcare and professional sports, and how to get a warrant for a virtual space.

Head On is an awesome stand alone sequel to Lock In and it's a fantastic return to the world created by John Scalzi. I had the opportunity to read the first book in this series during Sci-Fi Month 2017 and I was pleased to have the opportunity to see Chris Shane and Leslie Vann again for Sci-Fi Month 2018. This return was just as good if not better than it's companion as I'm already familiar with the characters and the world they inhabit - plus, he expands on it in all the right ways. In all honesty, though, you wouldn't need to have read Lock In before tackling this story. This gives you just the right amount of world-building and look into the characters that it function as a standalone sci-fi mystery. Sports really aren't my thing, but with John Scalzi at the helm the epic sci-fi elements and the tech-y mystery involved turned it into my thing. Finally, I have my fingers crossed that we'll get to see more of Chris and Leslie in the future. If you haven't read John Scalzi, I can't recommend his style enough - and this series would make a great place to dive in whether you start here or with book one.

This is such an interesting version of the world and I think that I enjoyed this second instalment more than the first. It tells the story of a Haden who tragically dies while playing a professional sport in his threep. FBI agents Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are called in to investigate and the plot goes from there. As with Lock In, this is a police procedural, with a science fictional twist and Scalzi has created such a believable setting that for the most part, this does just read like a mystery. The world feels more settled which allows for the narrative to focus more firmly on the detective aspects and as a result, the book just feels tighter. I love Scalzi's prose - his characters are snarky and witty and there is a ton of dialogue, which lends an almost cinematic feel to the proceedings. I also felt like there was a better mystery at work here. All in all, I really enjoyed this novel and will look forward to reading more stories with Shane and Vann.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Despite the title, the sport of hilketa—in which robots piloted by humans try to remove each other’s heads—is not the most interesting part of John Scalzi’s Head On (Tor, April 2018).

Like its predecessor, Lock In (Tor, August 2014), Head On is set in a world where millions of people have a condition called Haden’s syndrome, where they are awake and aware but locked into their bodies. Hadens log into robot avatars called “threeps” (because, yes, they resemble C-3PO) to interact with the non-Haden world. But rather than make the disease and the solution the central focus of this series, Scalzi treats them as background, tucking them away in a prequel novella, “Unlocked.” What he does instead is, to me, much more interesting: he focuses on the knock-on effects of the solution to the epidemic.

“Unlocked”—that novella—describes a multi-trillion-dollar moonshot to find a solution to the plague that left millions of people locked into their bodies. Lots of money inevitably leads to lots of waste, graft and corruption, and that in itself would be fertile ground for a couple of police thrillers—except Scalzi doesn’t make that the focus either. He goes further down the line, when the party is on the verge of being over: thanks to a new law, the money is going away, and whole sectors of the economy and society that have relied on government money aimed at supporting Haden’s patients (“Hadens”) are facing an uncertain future.

That’s the kind of enviroment, with lots of people under pressure, that can generate all sorts of interesting crime, and that’s the focus of these two novels. Transitioning to a post-funding environment opens up several cans of worms in terms of disability issues, as companies make a play to make assistive technologies available to non-Hadens—a much larger market—while Hadens face being priced out of them.

The sport of hilketa is the instigating element of Head On, but it’s rather more than just a macguffin. Hilketa is wildly popular but also reliant on government funds for Hadens’ benefits: the sport is played exclusively by Hadens remotely running specialized threeps. The whole thing is basically a tax dodge, and those funds are about to disappear. There’s a campaign arguing that the Haden-only status of hilketa is discriminatory, and a move to open it to non-Haden players (which means making the assistive tech available to the general public, see above).

So when a hilketa player dies on the field, there’s rather more going on than meets the eye. Chris Shane, the Haden FBI agent from Lock In, is at the game when it happens, is drawn into the investigation with partner Leslie Vann, and, as you might expect, gets to the bottom of all things.

Scalzi handles disability issues well, I think: Hadens’ assistive tech as a allegory for the “special” privileges of the disabled; the subtle dehumanizations of disabled people at nearly every stage; the subversive notion that the disabled are sexual beings; the class issues that mean some disabled people get better care than others. If I have one quibble it’s that the Agora—Hadens’ online space—is under-imagined and under-utilized: its implications could have been thought through a bit more.

In the end this book has a lot more depth than you might expect from something marketed as a (semicolon-less) thriller, especially one written by Scalzi, whose entertaining books are known more for their snarky dialogue and smartass characters than anything else. But, as in the case of Madeline Ashby’s Company Town (reviewed here), that expectation would be incorrect.

I received an electronic review copy of Head On via NetGalley. I bought the hardcover edition of Lock In when it came out.

Head On by John Scalzi

Some years have passed now since the supervirus that left a small percentage of the population in a waking coma, unable to move and communicate but still aware. These people are known as the Haden, named after the virus’s most famous victim, the First Lady of the United States. With so many people suffering from ‘Lock In’, ways were developed to give them expression. The Agora is a virtual reality society in which Hadens can create their own safe place. An alternative is to transfer their consciousness into a sophisticated robot, a threep (name after C3PO), which can take a place in the physical world.

One of the most famous threeps in the world belongs to FBI agent Chris Shane, who at one time had been a poster boy for Hadens, a source of hope, the son of very wealthy parents who nevertheless prefers to work for a living, investigating crimes against, and committed by, fellow Hadens. Partnering Shane is Leslie Vann, a formidable character with her own Lock In experience. And they have quite a case on their hands. Hilketa is a game taking North America by storm, so much so that the rest of the world is taking an interest. Teams of Hadens take each other on with hammers and swords, their goal is to cut off an opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. Violent, gory even, yet with no risk of death. The audience is transfixed. Until the day when a headless Haden falls, killing its Locked In operator in his bed. This is impossible. It certainly can’t be an accident. Big money is at risk. The stakes are high. More will die.

John Scalzi is such a wonderful writer of science fiction. His books are guaranteed to lift the mood as he finds extraordinary, human stories in such fabulous circumstances and settings. Lock In was a top read from 2014 and I’m so pleased to have Head On as its follow up. You don’t need to have read Lock In first but I really recommend that you do. It’s a fine novel and it sets the Haden stage perfectly for what happens here.

The plot is such a good one. On one level this is a sophisticated, intricately plotted and pacey crime novel. It’s an enjoyable mystery in its own right but in almost every single way it stands out. Firstly, for its fantastic start on the Hilketa playing field with a sports report on the match which cost one of the players his life. This is edge of your seat stuff. But the main difference is because of Chris Shane, a unique individual whose body lies in a cradle in his parents’ home, lovingly cared for, while his mind spends its days in a threep working as an FBI agent. It’s all so brilliantly depicted and real. We get all of the fascinating details about how it all works, how Haden can move from threep to threep, how they live and interact with friends and family, how they are discriminated against by the state now that new laws have come in that have removed the state’s obligation to care for them. The fact that our narrator is Shane himself really adds to our understanding of his condition. It’s all deeply involved and compelling. As is the case that Shane and Vann must work to solve.

There are some big and serious themes but Head On is also a book full of lightness, humanity and fun. John Scalzi is such a witty writer and he’s filled Shane and Vann with personality, as he has Shane’s threep housemates. They’re such a funny bunch and that’s even before Donut the cat makes his presence felt. You need to read this book for Donut the cat. We don’t spend too much time in the virtual Agora world but the time that we do is so well spent. I loved these sections.

I loved Lock In so much and Head On is every bit as good. Shane and Bank are such an unusual yet brilliant pair of FBI agents, like none others you’ll meet, and the near future in which they operate is perfectly realised. And it’s all so much fun!

Other reviews
Lock In
The Collapsing Empire

The next in the Lock In series, this case has FBI agent Chris investigating the death of a Haden athlete. As the Hadens in this series are people who have contracted a disease that essentially leaves them 'locked in' their bodies, only able to experience the outside world via robotic automaton bodies called 'threeps', you may wonder--a Haden athlete? Hilketa is a sport in the world of Lock In that combines something like football with a sort of gladiatorial battle, where threeps battle it out in ways that can often involve with beheading the threeps of opponents, and the Haden piloting the threep can actually feel a measure of pain. Agent Chris goes down the rabbit hole of Haden sport to find out how sport, politics and money are complexly intertwined.

One thing interesting to note about this series is that the protagonist in the book, Agent Chris Shane, is never specified as male or female. In a world where locked in patients drive largely genderless android bodies while their meatspace bodies are being cared for like coma patients, part of the point in this might be the wonder of how the patients might feel. Or indeed, whether it's relevant at all? Either way, this was niftily incorporated into the Audible audiobook version, where you can choose for the book to be narrated by Wil Wheaton, or Amber Benson.

I really liked this book as well as its predecessor, Lock In. It's an interesting and inventive world, and Scalzi always does well with character building and dialogue.

John Scalzi has become one of those authors whose work I really enjoy because, in part, I never know quite what I will get prior to giving it a read. You can usually depend on a strong sense of story and well-crafted, definable characters but beyond that - what <em>type</em> of story - it's hard to say.

I remember being completely caught off guard by Lock In - the story of an FBI agent with Hayden's Syndrome. Hayden's Syndrome, caused by a virus, is a paralysis of the body that leaves the mind fully functional. (You can read Scalzi's short narrative of the Syndrome for free on Tor's account here: https://www.tor.com/2014/05/13/unlocked-an-oral-history-of-hadens-syndrome-john-scalzi/). Mechanical bodies (called Threeps) can be provided for a 'Hayden' (if you can afford it) providing the individual to lead a relatively full, normal life - except that they are living in a machine and often looked down upon by society.

In <em>Head On</em>, we follow the further exploits of FBI agent Chris Shane and partner Leslie Vann. Chris is a Hayden and has been for a very long time. In fact Chris is a bit of a celebrity, having been a poster child for Hayden's when very young.

At the start of the book, Chris is attending a sporting event - Hilketa, a violent sport for Hayden's/Threep in which Threep bodies are literally torn apart and heads lopped off (the Hayden can vacate the body at any time). Chris's parent invited Chris, even though Chris has no interest in the sport. Chris's father, a one-time NBA star, is being courted to invest money into a European league for the Hayden sport.

But something doesn't go too well. Chris gets a text from a roommate and is told to check the field. One of the players has died. Not the mechanical Threep body, but the actual, human controlling the body. The human body that is in actuality hundreds of miles away.

And so begins a wild mystery, with twists at every turn. And if Chris isn't extra careful, the Threep body (bodies), despite the heavy-duty nature, may not keep Chris alive.

Scalzi delivers a fast-paced mystery in a well-defined future world ... so well-defined that it feels a little too real sometimes. He's toyed with his reading audience a bit and made Chris gender neutral - a fact that came to light for me when I reviewed the audio book of <em>Lock In</em> - the book that was narrated by Amber Benson and I assumed the character was female, but other reviewers were referring to Chris as 'he.' Ah...we still don't have any more clues to Chris's gender, which is a mystery the author leaves for the reader.

I felt that this book was significantly different from <em>Lock In</em>. The previous book felt more like a social science fiction story whereas this is definitely more of a mystery. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. You probably will, too.

Looking for a good book? <em>Head On</em> by John Scalzi is the follow-up to <em>Lock In</em>. You'll want to read them both, so go ahead and take care of that now.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

K: And my next book, this is our favorite token straight white guy, John Scalzi. We've mentioned him on the podcast before, obviously. We're both big fans. He's occasionally stepped in it, cause nobody's perfect, but he's one of the least problematic straight white dudes out of SFF at this point.

C: Especially in SFF.

K: Obviously not a blanket approval of him, but we really enjoy his books and he's not the worst, so. [Laughs]

C: On a scale of white dude approval and appreciation he'll go.

K: He's right up there.

C: Towards the top.

K: But this is the sequel to his near-future thriller Lock In. It's called Head On. Theoretically this is a standalone. Theoretically you can read this on its own. I don't think you can. All of the marketing materials say this is a standalone novel.

C: Is this the one that's about VR sports but not?

K: Yes, yes, yes. Here's the thing. If you are not much of a sci-fi reader. If you are like my dad and just, well, my dad reads sci-fi.

C: But mass market big sci-fi.

K: Thrillers. My dad reads a lot of mass market thrillers and a lot of those, individual books in a series you can pick them up and it's fine. You just don't have a lot of character background. If that's the kind of reader you are, then sure. It's a standalone. If you're the average other genre reader, you're gonna be like I want a little more background.

C: I don't know who these people are.

K: And it's still fantastic. I think it's really good. I gave it four stars. It's really well-paced. I think it maybe wraps up a little bit fast, kind of the only reason I docked the rating a little bit. The concept basically of this universe is it's a near-future where there was a very widespread epidemic that resulted in a lot of people around the world having locked-in syndrome. Which is a real thing. Google it, it's super awful. But since it was a thing that happened to so many people they did a moonshot program to try and solve it in various ways. And they didn't find a way to unlock people, but they found a way to basically implant sensor things in people's brains so they can interact with the world through online mediums and also through the use of threeps, which is a cutesy nickname because of C-3PO.

C: They're basically robots.

K: Android mobility devices. So that's the basic worldbuilding concept for this. And then the main character is one of the first FBI agents who uses a threep. Who also happens to be a minor celebrity because her dad was very famous. And, not her. Their dad. We don't actually have a gender for the main character, pardon me. So their dad's very famous. So they were kind of literal poster child of the Hayden movement. Hayden's Syndrome is this locked-in disease. And that's the main character. So I think it's probably gonna be an ongoing series where you have a case of the week book type deal and there's overarching plot stuff with the main character's development, Chris. I don't think there's anything super original about any of the thriller-ish/mystery plots in these. But I still find them super charming. I always love his characters and his dialogue is so snappy and fun.

C: He writes stuff I love.

K: His stuff is very cinematic. I just wish --

C: I want the Lock In tv show as a procedural.

K: Yes. Basically everything he writes gets optioned for television and movies and none of it's actually been made, yet.

C: We better get an Old Man's War movie.

K: That one's theoretically still optioned for tv and they're gonna do an ongoing series, but we'll see if that ever develops. I think it would be very expensive on tv. Anyway! So it was enjoyable. Nothing super groundbreaking, but fun. And if you like Scalzi it's worth picking up.

C: The Lock Ins are not my favorite of the Scalzi’s. That's the thing with the Scalzi’s. Even bad Scalzi is still fine.

K: Collapsing Empire was more my jam, but I still really loved this.

C: I love his space operas.

K: I don't read a ton of space opera any more, but I really enjoy his.

C: Mystery/thrillers, as much as I love them on tv, I don't like to read them.

K: I love mysteries. Which is why I do still enjoy these, but you know.

C: But yeah, since I'm more into, this just wasn't my favorite, but I don't hate it. I have this one on my TBR and I read the first one and like you said it's fine it quick it moves.

K: Really good on audio.

C: His dialogue is just so perfect on audio. They're quick. Plus you know I'll listen to anything Wil Wheaton does.

K: There's two different version of the audio and it's either Wil Wheaton or Amber Benson, and I love her.

C: I love both of them. So much. I love both of them.

K: I still need to read some of Amber Benson's, she's also a writer. She writes urban fantasy.

C: I don't think I knew that either.

K: She writes the Echo Park Coven novels.

C: I do love a coven novel.

K: I don't know how many there are in this series, but fuck yeah.

C: Maybe we'll one of those.

K: We'll need to pick those up eventually.

C: That sounds good, cause I love her audio work.

K: Yeah, she's fantastic. So again, that was um. My brain just died.

[Laughter]

C: The sequel to Lock In.

K: The sequel to Lock In, Head On by John Scalzi.

Marion: John Scalzi’s 2018 novel Head On brings back FBI team Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, this time investigating a murder that should be impossible. Hilketa is a violent game where the objective is to tear off the head of a specific opposing player and throw it through the goal posts, while defensive players whale on each other with swords and chainsaws. While it sounds bloodthirsty, no one is hurt; the players are high-tech androids called “threeps” (after the beloved C-3PO) controlled by those individuals who have “lock-in syndrome” and function via robot or entirely within the internet. These people are called Hadens after Haden Syndrome, the state of paralysis that followed exposure to a virulent influenza virus. In theory, no one can die from a Hilketa-related injury, but in an exhibition game, a player whose head is torn off immediately dies. Chris and Vann will find themselves investigating sports endorsements, league expansion, bigotry, high-end sex-robots, infidelity and jealousy to find out how this supposedly impossible crime happened.

As with the first Haden book, Lock In, the “how” of the murder is as important as the who and the why, and Scalzi delivers a clever mystery. While Chris has not changed much, we see Vann opening up a bit, and important secondary characters like Chris’s parents are expanded. As potential investors in the Hilketa league, Chris’s parents are affected by the murder, and they also have useful information that helps the investigation. A Haden housemate of Chris also assists the investigation, and a cat plays a crucial role.

Head On is fast-paced, funny in some moments and gently heart-breaking in others. Chris and Vann stay focused, mostly, on their case, but through their eyes (mainly Chris, who is a first-person narrator) we see changes happening to the Hadens as the effects of a law limiting government support for them come into play. Vann and Chris make mistakes occasionally, but they are never stupid cops. In fact, once or twice they were a little too obviously the smartest people in the room. Still, the story carried me right along and my interest never flagged.

I not only loved the mechanics of the murder, but near the end of the book, Chris delivers an arrest warrant in a totally original fashion, and I loved it.

Terry, you had mentioned the prologue to me before I read it. What did you think of that technique?

Terry: Scalzi almost lost me entirely in the first ten pages of the book! The prologue is written as if it were an extended sports story in a good newspaper (not surprising, given that Scalzi began his career writing for a newspaper). I wasn’t really up for learning the rules of a game that resembles football, only more violent. But then, I’m not a sports fan at all; those who are might find this section fascinating. For me, well, Scalzi has earned my attention with his past books, so I kept reading. I think you’re more of a sports fan than I am, Marion, so I’m wondering how all the sports talk in the book worked for you.

Marion: I was prepared for the prologue because you had told me about it! He did a similar thing with Lock In, so I wasn’t shocked. We watch a lot of sports talk shows at home, so the language seemed right to me.

As always, Scalzi’s gift for banter shone through in this book, but I also felt that some of his descriptions were more, well, descriptive than they’ve been in other books. Particularly, I loved the virtual home one Haden has in the Agora (and I notice you mentioned that below).

Terry: Scalzi, as always, has a nearly transparent style that keeps the pages flipping. And he never loses control of a complicated mystery plot, despite piling on complication after complication. I occasionally felt he was getting a bit too politically correct, even for me (and I’m an SJW from way back), but I quickly came to the realization that it’s all part of his provocation — he wants his readers to find their limits, to think about what they’ve previously simply accepted, all while telling a compelling story.

Marion: What did you think about the cat? I thought the cat played for wonderful comic relief, with a discussion with a group of Hadens that sounded like any college housemate issue; but the cat plays a significant role in the story.

Terry: I am very partial to cats, so this one made me smile. As a lawyer, though, I found it disconcerting that they simply grabbed the cat and proceeded to investigate the clues it presented without a warrant. There was no chain of evidence preserved! And they didn’t return it to its owner when its return was requested, which not only struck me as legally wrong but also morally — well, let’s say “questionable.” I don’t see any mention in Scalzi’s acknowledgements about consulting with a lawyer, which strikes me as odd for him, as he’s usually quite careful about details. But only a limited audience will get thrown out of the story for this particular complaint, so perhaps I’m just demonstrating my particular obsession with legal process.

Marion: Yeah, I saw a chain of evidence issue there, too. What I liked about the cat was the reason its Haden owner kept it where she did: because her physical body is allergic, and she can only interact with the cat in her threep. I thought that was another example of how Scalzi makes us think about things differently.

Chris is already developing a reputation as being someone who breaks loaner-threeps. What do you think about that as a trope in the series?

Terry: I think it’s hilarious. As further books come in the series (and yes, I’m really hoping there will be further books in this series), I’ll be looking for threeps biting the dust from the very opening, and keeping count of how many Chris manages to get destroyed. Any favorite moments in the book?

Marion: A scene I loved was when the Shane family is talking, and Chris’s mother cuts Chris’s hair. It’s such a tiny moment but I found it, to use an overused word, poignant. It not only reminded us that Chris is a human, biological being, but it gave us some insight into the mother character, too. A light touch extremely well done.

Terry: That same moment stuck with me as well. It’s also tricky because Scalzi still doesn’t want to give his character a gender, so describing Chris’s body at all is a fraught act. Nicely done. I also liked the description of a character’s home in the Agora, a virtual site where the Hadens have personal spaces designed to their desire, together with the discussion of the technology of building a personal space. It’s also a great example of how nothing goes unused in Head On. There are a great many clues inconspicuously dropped almost everywhere. And I confess I got a kick out of Chris pulling a Catherynne Valente book off a shelf — a nice tip of the hat by a writer to another writer. Marion, what did you think of the whole question of the able-bodied wanting to use threep technology? I found it a fascinating example of how claims of reverse discrimination pop up in the weirdest places. I wonder whether Scalzi will explore this issue further in other entries in the series.

Marion: I think that is going to be an ongoing issue, since it grows out of the change in the law that previously offered Hadens government support. Here, with the desire for able-bodied people to get the benefit of Haden tech for luxury purposes, not necessity, is a form of appropriation and I think we’ll see more, not less of those issues in upcoming books.

All in all, I think we both really enjoyed this. I love the way Scalzi is peeling back the layers of the onion and deepening the reality of the Haden world for us.

Terry: Yes, I did love it, as you can tell from my five star rating and yours of four and a half stars. I’d be pretty surprised if this book did not show up on award nominations lists next year. Scalzi has really done a wonderful job with the science fiction mystery, which is awfully hard to pull off at all, much less twice. One note, though: it would be difficult to appreciate everything in this book without first reading Lock In. Understanding threeps, for instance, including where the name came from, would be tough. But hey, if you haven’t read Lock In yet, that just means that there are two great books to add to your “To Be Read” lists.

Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/head-on/. Co-authored with Marion Deeds.

Quick, in this sequel to Lock In, is Chris Male or Female (or neither)?

Honestly, this is my favorite part of this series by Scalzi. Not the question itself, but, everything that underlies that question, the fact that I need to wonder about the answer at all. The question of does it matter or not matter. Not to mention what it means for each person who reads the story.

Add to that an awesome Science Fiction Mystery with a ton of possible suspects and a twisty turney plot, and I really liked this novel. It made me think on many levels.

I will say that it was slow to get into, probably because of the introduction of this new sport, Hilketa. I most likely spent too much time trying to fully figure out the sport when I should have just gone with it. But, once a player of the sport dies and the mystery starts the novel started flowing better for me.

Agent Vann and Shane are back, and are on the case of that player, and then another person dies as well.

There were lots of politics going on in the story which were interesting, lots of questions posed through the narrative too, and I also found myself really liking Vann in this book too (which surprised me a little).

And then there was some cool stuff about Haden Sexuality, although I do wish there had been more.

It has an awesome mystery really good sci fi story, and is just in general another awesome Scalzi book.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge.

John Scalzi is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. Granted, his oeuvre is one of my favorite genres. Still, my enjoyment of his novels goes beyond genre. Based on his blog and Twitter feed, Mr. Scalzi is a person who does not take life for granted but has no problems making fun of life experiences. This ability to poke fun at the most mundane things serves him well in his writing. Of the novels of his I have read, there is a general mocking tone that I adore. His novels are very tongue-in-cheek, or at least that is how I interpret them, and I love when someone can appreciate the humor in any situation.

Take Haden's Syndrome and the "threep" suits Hadens use to interact with the real world. Mr. Scalzi takes what should be a tragic situation with millions of people locked into their own minds, able to hear and feel and smell and think but completely unable to move and makes them almost enviable. They get to walk around in their very own robot suit, named after one of the most beloved, recognizable Star Wars figures there is. He turns the idea of crime procedural on its head with his gender-neutral characters and one-half of the detective partnership that busts every cop stereotypes.

There there is the game Hilketa. I cannot shake the mental image of robotic heads popping off and being tossed back and forth across and football-slash-rugby field. Even worse, I cannot help but find this mental image highly amusing. If anything captures the insanity that is professional athletics, hilketa is it. A little bit football, a little bit rugby, add in some roller derby and even some Quidditch, and you have a crazy game of robot-on-robot violence. With heads flying off. It is hilarious even as the story highlights just a few of the ways owners or other interested parties can corrupt the game in the name of greed.

As with all of Mr. Scalzi's novels, the story is well-written with the right combination of action, mystery, and exposition. The characters are easy to enjoy, and the dialogue is witty without being unrealistic. I love the careful way in which Mr. Scalzi plays with gender stereotypes and keeps the year as ambiguous as possible. It gives the entire setting a refreshing air of possibility and not in the typically dystopian manner. The whole novel is a fun play on the science fiction novel and detective story.

This novel “of the near future” is a sequel to Lock In - but you don’t need to read it first to follow and thoroughly enjoy this newer one. Both follow Chris Shane, an FBI agent who was stricken as a child with an illness called Haden’s Syndrome that “locks” its victims into inert bodies, even as their minds are perfectly sound. Technology has developed that allows Chris and others to live and to inhabit robot bodies called “threeps” for mobility during day to day activities. In this novel Chris works to uncover the reasons for the mysterious death of another Haden, who died during a game played by Hadens. A fun, slightly sci-fi mystery, full of snappy dialogue, follows.

John Scalzi is in fine form in this second book of the Lock In series. Chris remain a little ambiguous and the story is a good FBI procedural, albeit in a fascinating near future. Exciting!

What is not to love in a game where you can take the head off of a player and do no damage. If you have Haden’s Syndrome and pilot a threep it can be done. Everything is OK until someone finds a way to kill a player. This is a fun mystery with so many suspects you need a chart to keep score. I love Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, the two FBI agents investigating the crime. Chris has Haden's and leaves a trail of damaged or destroyed tweeps where every he goes. Vann is a gritty in your face detective who get results. She and Chris are great working together. You do need to read Lock In before starting Head On to keep from being confused about who and what people with Haden's can do.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Published by Tor Books on April 17, 2018

Head On is the second novel set in the “locked in” universe that John Scalzi created in Lock In. A virus called Haden’s Syndrome has caused a small percentage of the population to be “locked” inside their bodies. They can think but they can’t move or communicate in normal ways. Those people are called Hadens. Technology, in the form of a neural network, has made it possible for them to inhabit robots called threeps. The government has funded threeps as a health care benefit for Hadens but the funding is going dry.

Head On is a science fiction mystery featuring FBI agent Chris Shane, who happens to be a Haden. Shane has as much personality as soggy tofu; his edgier partner Vann is a better character. Thanks to his wealthy parents who are considering an investment in a Hilketa team, Shane (inhabiting a threep) is in a luxury box when a Hilketa player named Duane Chapman dies.

Hilketa is played on the field by threeps that are controlled by players who are off the field. The object of the game is to cut off the head of a designated opposing player and to score a goal by carrying, throwing, or punting the head over the goalposts. Threeps are usually operated by Hadens because their neural networks give them a reaction time advantage.

The players controlling the threeps aren’t supposed to be injured by their threep’s decapitation, but Chapman dies after his threep’s head is ripped off for the third time in the game. Shane is therefore front and center in a death investigation which arguably falls within the FBI’s jurisdiction because of the interstate nature of Hilketa, whose players are generally in a different state than the venue in which the game is played.

Hadens shouldn’t die from contact with their threeps, so establishing the cause of death is the first problem. Did Chapman’s use of a nutritional supplement that he didn’t endorse have anything to do with his death? Is the league covering something up?

As a science fiction murder mystery, Head On is about average. I enjoyed the science fiction setting more than the actual mystery, which has Shane watching a number of deaths pile up as he tries to piece together clues about how and why Chapman died and how the other deaths are related. The plot is reasonably complex but not wholly engaging, in part because Shane is just a dull guy. Still, Scalzi incorporates enough amusing background details (including vague suggestions about Hadens use threeps to have sex with other Hadens) to make the overall story more interesting than the mystery at its center.

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I really enjoy the mix of mystery and sci-fi in this series. This maybe wasn't as great as the first book, but still, I really enjoyed it.

Head On is a thrilling follow-up to Lock In that also stands solidly on its own. In Scalzi's deft hands, a near future society is extrapolated perfectly from our own cultural context and formed into something new, but still familiar and incredibly fun.

In 2006 John Scalzi won the John W Campbell Award for best new writer for Old Man’s War, the start of probably his most well known series. In 2014 he won the Hugo and Locus for Redshirts. That year also saw the release of his science fiction crime mash up Lock-In. Lock-In posited a world in which survivors of a worldwide flu epidemic were struck with what is called Haden’s syndrome, in which they have fully functioning brains in bodies that do not move. To counter this disability, neural interfaces have been developed that allow Hadens to interact in a virtual space called the Agora and get around either using android bodies known colloquially as ‘threeps’ (think C3-PO) or through wired humans known as intefacers.
In Head On, the protagonist of Lock-In, famous Haden and FBI agent Chris Shane and his partner Vann are back. This time they are investigating a death that occurred during the Haden-centric sport of Hilketa in which specially designed threeps fight on field to rip the head off a particular member of the opposing team. Their investigation blows out from the original crime to take in corruption, money laundering and murky corporate shenanigans.
You don’t have to have read Lock-In to enjoy Head On but it helps. Scalzi manages to bring his usual verve and humour to the plot, the characters and their interactions. But he also manages to use this to explore the world of the marginalised and disabled. As with the previous book, much of the action is driven by a decision of the US Government to stop providing monetary support to Hadens, who are generally seen as second class citizens but also a dawning understanding of the corruption that was endemic in the pre-existing support scheme.