There's no question about it- John Scalzi is a brilliant author. In this sequel to Lock In, he deftly tackles disability rights and a tense mystery with android bodies a plenty and an entirely new sport to boot.

Chris is a newly minted FBI agent. He's also a Haden, one of thousands of Americans with 'lock-in' syndrome that uses a threep, or android, body to navigate the world. Together with his partner Vann, they set out to investigate the sudden death in the new Haden-centric sport of Hilketa, where android bodies score goals using each others' heads, and no body part is off limits.

Not only is this an incredible mystery, unraveling in ways unexpected but not unrealistic, but I have to commend Scalzi for his subtle political commentary throughout. Though not an unduly prominent part of the novel, the passing of the Abrams-Kettering law, effecting how other Haden patients can gain access to threep bodies and gain other governmental subsidiaries, is nonetheless an important aspect of the plot and a clever criticism of both contemporary ADA law loopholes and the lack of basic healthcare that plagues so many places today. Equally important are the anti-Haden protestors who pop up a few time, individuals who feel the sport is discriminatory because it features only Haden players. As a disabled individual, I felt the utter absurdness of the situation deep within my soul, laughing while shaking my head because it was all too true, and close to home.

The mystery itself is excellently propelled forward, just enough bodies piling up to make the stakes feel real and mounting without feeling overwhelming. My only critique is that the parade of names could, at times, get to be a bit much, and I sometimes forgot who was who. A list of major characters in the front or the back might be helpful, though I also freely confess that I'm not great with names.

There's a fantastic moment, without spoiling anything, where the entire plot hinges on a cat, so the novel certainly isn't without humor despite dark circumstances. It's this ability to blend together so many different elements to form a cohesive whole that truly makes Scalzi a force to be reckoned with. I can't recommend this book enough!

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set about a year after Lock In, Head On continues with FBI agent Chris Marcus working a case of a Haden victim that died during a sports match. The sport is composed of threeps trying to rip a player’s head off and get it to the goal. Currently the league employs only uses players with Haden’s but says the door is always open to non-Haden players. The previous book is mentioned but the that case really has no bearing on this one and this book can be read without reading the previous one. You will not get as much background on Haden’s but you get enough to understand how it works for the plot. This is a straightforward SF thriller / mystery set in the near future and is a fun read as they build their case brick by brick and the bad guys try to cover all their tracks. I can’t wait to see more books in this setting since it is interesting all the little society changes that happen along the way with working to cope with this disease.

I enjoyed this second Haden story more than the first. Maybe I'm getting more used to the world it's set in. The story is interesting and well-paced. Keeping Cris gender-neutral is an interesting idea. I confess, I read Cris as male, and wonder what that says about my own gender biases. I'm not sure how the pending use of Hadon tech by non-Hadens will work, as non-Haden humans lack the neural network needed to run the technology.I look forward to the next installment

FBI agent Chris Shane tries not to capitalize on his billionaire father's fame, but luxury skybox seats at a Hilketa match seem like an innocent perk. Hilketa is a spectacularly violent sport designed for those with Haden's syndrome, allowing the paralyzed athletes to attack each other's robots with swords and hammers. Although Shane has Haden's, he's not particularly invested in the game until one of the players drops dead: when the threep gets decapitated, the player's heart stops. Along with his brilliantly cantankerous partner Leslie Vann, Shane wades into a morass of financial and legal chicanery as the body count climbs ever higher. A tremendously fun and witty mystery.

Head On by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a super easy read that hits all the fun spots for all you folks who're into Sports, Mysteries, and great concept SF filled with robots designed for tele-reality and virtual reality.

I'm one of those readers who are very partial to the SF stuff and I like a good mystery, too, so I had a great time on that alone. But here's the funny part: the sports aspect is unique as hell and full of some great twists. :) Such as getting your head pulled off during the play to be used as a football. As part of the game. :)

Those people from the previous book, the folks who're stuck in their bodies and can only get out by using a waldo-robot or by those biological peeps who are wired for it are now pretty much the only game in town when it comes to full contact sports. It's all robots, of course, and transferred consciousnesses, and a wild story that's the equal of any modern mystery in that OTHER genre. :)

In a lot of ways, I think this sequel featuring our favorite FBI Lock-In is superior to the first. :)

I'm totally glad to have read it. It's just plain good and fun. :)

Received from NetGalley for my honest review.

Back to the world of Haden's with Chris Shane. I really liked this book and I think I liked it even better than the first one. For me there was some confusion over who was who in the first one, maybe that was just getting use to the whole Intergraters vs Hadens vs Threeps, or it just was a little more confusing. This one was easier to follow and though I figured out "whodunit" fairly early, it was still an enjoyable book.

In this one, there's a new Haden's sport called Hilketa (means "murder") and it's wonderfully awesome and gory and sounds like a ton of crazy fun. It's also complicated on how it's received, as Chris will tell you. An athlete dies and Shane and Vann are on the case.

It was a well done story with a flowing plot. A lot going on with a lot of different people involved and you never knew who was involved and who were pawns.

And it was a lot of destroyed Threeps, because Chris Shane has a habit of getting in situations where one is destroyed by many different means.

You can't read this one without reading the first one, you would be hopelessly lost, though they do cover what Haden's is again. But if you haven't read the first book, I don't know what you are waiting for. Go do it, then grab this book as soon as it hits the shelves.

Where's the next!?

I unfortunately missed "Lock in" and read this first. I am going to go back and read it. "Head On" was a good police procedural, that held my attention. I think that it could cross over from sci-fi to mystery.