A fun seat of your pants ride through a biologically genetically altered future. Original and creative in his the author showed a world so fundamentally changed by technology. Cyberpunk body horror almost.

I think the setting of <i>The Body Scout</i> could be an adaptation for an HBO TV show or a Villanueva film. This was so, so rich in its world-building and imagery - you can tell Lincoln has thought deeply about the quirks and qualities of this futuristic New York City ravaged by climate, plague and rampant body editing. As I read, I kept thinking of the movie <i>Blade Runner 2049</i> and its visual effects. I also really like the characterization of the main lead. He's gritty and darkly complex, but still the traditional "good guy" of the story.

Where this book loses points is in the mystery that defines the entire plotline (as set out in the book blurb). It is kind of predictable, and not super engaging. There's no twist, and honestly not a lot of suspense. A better mystery could have hit this out of the park.

3.5 stars

This was one of those books where I was left wanting just a little bit more. The world building was exceptional, but I found this novel could have been stronger in it's characterization and it's plot development.

I found this near future world completely believable and enthralling. There was a slight turn away from the usual elements you might normally find in stories like this that made this one unique. This is where The Body Scout shines in it's writing.

A lot of the characters tended to blend together and didn't necessarily have specific defining traits to set them apart to the point that I found myself often getting some of the characters confused with others. I also found the story to be a little predictable and formulaic. This one has the potential to set itself apart from similar stories in the genre but never fully realizes that potential. I was hoping for something that would break the regular tropes and try something new, but this book never quite did that for me.

Set in a time when corporate pharmaceuticals run Future League Baseball, The Body Scout follows Kobo, whose job as a scout is to recruit scientists and occasionally a promising baseball player. America's favorite pastime is still prevalent in the future but with one minor change: the players are walking advertisements for the latest body enhancements. After watching his adopted brother, JJ, drop-dead mysteriously on home plate, Kobo is hired by the owner of Monsanto Mets to find out the culprit before the end of the World Series. Motivated to unravel the truth and possibly get a new upgrade out of it, Kobo soon finds that the death of his brother isn't the only strange thing happening within the FLB.

I'll admit that I had my concerns when I first started this book. I don't care for baseball. Like not even a little bit. The synopsis tells the reader that the MC is a scout for a baseball team. I thought that's where it would end, and I was very, very wrong. Baseball is woven into the plot thickly. And you know what? I fucking loved it. Not enough to get me to watch a baseball game but enough to buy Michel's future work in a heartbeat.

The worldbuilding is top-notch. A few reviews have mentioned it distracts from the plot. Don't listen to these people. If anything, the extensive worldbuilding sets this who-dun-it plot apart from others within the genre. There were several twists and turns that I didn't see coming. Not to mention, the pacing is dynamic. There wasn’t a single moment of boring information dumps, lulled conversation, or pointless flashbacks. Everything was purposeful and blended with the main plot effortlessly.

Outside of the storyline, I loved the small touches that brought this world to life. Anesthesia cigarettes, enhanced goggles for the deaf to read lips, interchangeable crotch upgrades, neanderthal clones, out-of-body experiences, the Edenists: a faction that shuns enhancements, and engineered animals called Zootech. I could easily read another story set in this world.

I highly recommend this book for fans of: noirs, mystery/thrillers, science fiction, body modifications, cli-fi, futuristic NYC, cyberpunk, baseball, society vs. corporations, and flawed characters.

The book synopsis really intrigued me. However, I had a hard time getting into the book. It was about baseball, body modificaiton, loan sharks, etc.
It was a bit difficult to really immerse myself in.
Then, Kobo finds Lila. That hooked me.
As soon as Kobo links up with Lila, I could NOT put the book down.
I was memorized by what would come next, what would happen, and the author did not disappoint.

I loved the dogged determination of Kobo and his easy going, yet bird dog ways. His fierce devotion to his brother and his relationship with Lila.

This is a great sci-fi thriller book.

Kobo is a baseball scout—and former baseball star—who’s obsessed with body upgrades, so much so that he goes into impossible debt to get the latest limbs and organs. But when his famous brother literally explodes while playing for the Monsanto Mets, Kobo is hired by the team’s owner to find out who killed him and get his medical debt paid off in the bargain.
I found this novel smart, funny, well-written, and vividly imagined. Mostly, though, it's just flat-out fun. A quick, compelling read for fans of William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, and Jonathan Lethem. Hell yeah!

Imagine if athletes could go so much farther in augmenting their weakest areas and could use the latest medical advances to better their performance. This type of world is the norm in the new speculative fiction novel The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel. I flew through this inventive work which is the story of an ex baseball player who is searching for the killer of his brother, who was a star baseball hotshot. The cybernetics and advanced biology drew me in, but the mystery and the characters kept me zooming through this book. Our main character, Kobo, sets up the main idea in his world by noting “We’re all born with one body, and there’s no possibility of a refund. No way to test-drive a different form. So how could anyone not be willing to pay an arm and a leg for a better arm and a better leg?” The characters are so very different that I enjoyed the scenes with each one. There is a bit of satire on corporate and individual greed here too, that I picked up. I absolutely love this author’s writing, as it is detailed on the science portions of the story but one doesn’t have to be a scientist to catch onto them and picture them. Michel also know how to write a believable, satisfying ending. I will be following this author from now on. Note that you do not have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this story! I am thankful to NetGalley for a free ebook copy of this work, given for an honest review.

What would happen if <I>Gattaca</i> and <I>Moneyball</i> had a bastard love-child? This book. From the off, I loved the choices Author Michel made. Baseball is my only organized sport love. Having the Mets (my team since the 1969 Miracle Mets defeated the BodyMore Inc....I mean Baltimore!...Orioles in the seventh game of the World Series) owned by Monsanto was, while revolting, not entirely unthinkable. Choosing baseball for the body-modding corporate shills to play made perfect sense because there's so much more to work with in the prowess-enhancement department. Baseball players are required to specialize in this day and age...don't get me started about the designated-hitter rule!...and yet by the very nature of the game there is a constellation of skills they still need to possess to some degree, like running and fielding the ball. The development of modifying tech, driven by the need/want of the Big Pharma owners, gets laid right at present-day capitalism's (and its political stooge class's) door, as the present-day pandemic accelerated the mad dash for corporate ownership of everything into sports. It's not at all unlikely, given that corporations own teams in Japan....

But the fact that the world Kobo Zunz lives in, the one that allows him to modify his body to an absurd degree despite having become a talent scout thus no longer playing baseball, is chock-a-block with delightfully pointed choices embodied in other characters: Dolores ("sorrows" or "pains") is Kobo's friend/kinda-ex, a Deaf person who elected not to restore her hearing but to enhance her sight (GoogleGlasses-esque modifications to one eye that present speech translated into ASL); Natasha the Neanderthal, the Big Pharma enforcing muscle and that's not a nickname but a descriptive label as she's of the genetically engineered re-introduced Neanderthals; Lila, the Angry Young Girl who, like Greta Thunberg, is outraged into incandescence at the gigantic mess her elders are leaving for her to clean up. I love that, when Kobo the expert at foreseeing trends in body modification (always ask an addict to get an accurate vision of the addiction's course) is summoned to solve the gruesome and very public murder of his adopted brother, Monsanto Mets batting (aka "slugging") star JJ Zunz, it's by a manager whose only name is "the Mouth." Ha! Kobo's debts incurred in body modding will be paid in full...if he pins the very public, obviously message-sending murder on a particular rival team. That will get the scary, violent loansharks who have been funding his biomechanical enhancement addiction, Brenda and Wanda, off his terrifying-nightmares list.

So what am I saying about this read? Much delighted me, mentioned above. There are things that didn't delight me near so much. The length of the story, for example, would support more exploration of side characters who got little (JJ's mother, who adopted Kobo). But in all honesty I'd've been much happier if some of the amazing ideas and snarky asides had been held in RAM for a sequel, leaving a fizzier and more propulsive through-line. It's not like it's a slow read, or wasn't for me; it's just densely packed with irresistible shiny baubles and it could've been told in less time and at a more spanking pace. I presume this is not the start of a series because the publishers would've trumpeted that fact if it had been. If Author Michel chooses to make it into a series, which I really hope he will, quite a lot of the underexplored material will be very expandable.

What isn't expandable is the ending. A very weird change of tone takes place as we're coming in for our landing. It becomes...sweet. Kind of sentimental. This felt so very wrong to me, like Philip Marlowe got a hit of some opiods and turned into Ted Lasso.

What I will say is that you're going to love <I>The Body Scout</i> if you loved George Alec Effinger's Marîd Audran books, or the early William Gibson. I did; I do; and all cavils aside, I'd encourage any baseball fans, bleak/noir fiction lovers, and anti-capitalists to hop on board. A few bumps on the journey shouldn't detract from the way-cool scenery.

It's the future and corporate states have won the battle for the consumer's wallet. Big pharma runs everything and people are obsessed with cybernetics, replacement limbs and organs, and designer synthetics. The smog is out of control and cities like New York have pushed the poor underground. Out of sight, out of mind. Kobo and JJ grew up in these subterranean tenements, and both ended up playing for the professional, "enhanced" baseball leagues. Except while Kobo's league failed, leaving him in debt up to his eyeballs for his enhancements, JJ has become a huge star, the top player for the league-leading Monsanto Mets. They've also grown apart, which is how it goes in families. Until Kobo sees his famous brother JJ Zunz die on national TV during a playoff game. What the heck? Along the way, we meet a group of Neanderthals (reconstituted from minimal DNA a la Jurassic Park) and other enhanced humans who might or might not still have hearts and consciences.

Michel has created a really interesting, albeit somewhat depressing, future where all the questionable issues of doping in modern baseball are taken to the logical extreme. Highly imaginative, it's a fun read!

Kobo is a baseball scout—and former baseball star—who’s obsessed with body upgrades, so much so that he goes into impossible debt to get the latest limbs and organs. But when his famous brother literally explodes while playing for the Monsanto Mets, Kobo is hired by the team’s owner to find out who killed him and get his medical debt paid off in the bargain.

It’s a wild journey across a grungy, ugly cyberpunk future that corporations and the wealthy present as a utopia (wait a minute, that sounds a bit close to home…). In a near-future United States, we see how climate change has wreaked havoc and widened class divides. Capitalism rots the core of every industry, especially with the corporatization of baseball teams by bio-upgrade companies striving to sell their next product to the eager public. Every new technology manages to further corrupt the wealthy and squash the poor.

The whole book is a gallery of the grotesque with vivid descriptions of living sculptures made of real flesh, strange lab-created animals, and sex that doesn’t involve one’s own body parts. Really, it’s sci-fi blended with body horror, which aligns with the novel’s exploration of how we live in our bodies and how our bodies could become the next “luxury product.”

Kobo is a standard noir protagonist with his pessimistic viewpoint and wry first-person voice, but what differentiates him is his obsession with body upgrades that lend an interesting depth to his character. He’s complicit in the system and addicted to its promises of fulfillment while still being frustrated with it, a feeling most of us know all too well. I loved Dolores as a secondary character who goes beyond just a supporting role/love interest and the Mouth as an over-the-top (but, uh, rather familiar) corporate idiot. All of the secondary characters have agency and want to accomplish their own goals beyond those of the protagonist.

On a plot level, The Body Scout is a well-written homage to pulpy noir detective novels. It plays with the usual plot beats, character archetypes, and twists that you’d see in a murder mystery, just in an even darker futuristic setting (sci-fi and noir are bedfellows, after all, as Blade Runner shows). Sometimes the author is a little too in love with the world-building details, but I still found those asides entertaining, and you can tell he had fun creating and anticipating how every aspect of society might change. I especially appreciated representation of different gender identities and able-bodiedness, since those aspects aren’t often addressed in science fiction when it comes to new technologies.

Like any noir novel worth its salt, the story provides social critique that’s relevant to our current lifestyles. The characters’ indifferent acceptance of the way the world works—where everyone is driven by profit—was painfully familiar. I fear that there is no happy future for humanity, and that as in the novel, we will leave environmental disasters to be a problem for the next generation, and the systemic culprits of crimes will always get off scot-free. In that sense, the story’s ending is depressing to think about but ultimately realistic, and there’s validation in finding that honesty in fiction. The nihilism of the final image worked perfectly.

I requested the ARC of this book from NetGalley because I’m a big fan of Lincoln Michel’s writing newsletter Counter Craft. I was happy to find that The Body Scout embodies (sorrynotsorry) the literary/genre blend he often writes about in his essays. This novel is carefully constructed on both a plot and line level, and I hope to read more from Michel in the future.

The Body Scout is a SciFi story that also kind of is a Thriller.
Kobo has a crappy life, full of debt because he couldn’t stop upgrading his body. His job is a dead end, he hasn’t talked to his friends in ages, and the one relationship from years ago went nowhere. In a world where everything is measured by money, it has become harder and harder to hold on to it. Addiction seems to be a real issue - not just to constant upgrades for one's body, but also drugs like cigarettes that not just numb your pain but your feelings too. It’s easy to be get lost in the chaos, sink down into the smog that is everywhere, and be forgotten.

In this not-so-distant future, Kobo watches his brother play baseball (he’s a famous player), but instead of running to the next base, his brother suddenly falls apart. Blue goo running down his face, dissolving. Between the numbness from his cigarettes, he is devastated and wants to find out what happened. This is where the story begins… He reaches out to old friends and with their help, uncovers his brother’s life and what happened to him. And with every answer comes a new question. What really happened that night on the field?

The story is paced really well. You want to know what happens next, so it’s hard to put down the book. It’s more plot-driven. While the characters are interesting, you don’t get to know them intimately (not much character development either). Overall, the writing is good. A bit repetitive at times.

What bugged me though is the sports lingo. There was a bit too much in the book for my taste (I don’t care much about sport). Also, the names of the teams - that are in typical future-looking scifi-manner full of sponsor names - get a bit annoying at one point. Also, at times the use of medical terms for the body parts can get confusing. Thankfully, I just watched several seasons of Bones, so I was somewhat familiar with the terms.

If you are a fan of baseball, I highly recommend this book. If not, ignore the sports analogies and focus on the story itself. Interesting setup of our world, fun and feisty characters, and a good plot twist at the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and Orbit for approving me for an early access copy! I really enjoyed this book.

Michel’s writing is beautiful, too, breathing sophisticated life into stock genre types, and illuminating vast tracts of story with casual wrist-flicks of world building. “The Body Scout” is a wild ride, sad and funny, surreal and intelligent.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for an ARC in exchange for an honest review (very late.... my bad.)
The Body Scout, a cyberpunk body horror baseball neo-noir (yes, all those words are intentional!) follows Kubo, a scout and amateur detective, as he investigates the death of his brother on the playing field. The book's strongest concept, and luckily its focus, is on the parasitic relationship between corporate-sponsored athletic organizations and the players working within them, who straddle the line between laborer and product, and whose bodies are a spectacle and commodity that extends beyond themselves. Kubo's background as a baseball hopeful adds some flavor to that dynamic, but Michel sticks too close to the chain-smoking, worn-out cynical detective archetype to have him really engage with the questions surrounding the sport (his brother, the star slugger and murder victim JJ Zunz, provides an often-more-interesting perspective, but he has unfortunately little screen time.) The setting is gaudy and neon, vivid but often overwrought, and Michel's most compelling ideas (an underground habitat for genetically modified pseudoanimals, for one) come and go fairly quickly. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, and Michel is a thrillingly imaginative writer, but it felt underserved by the noir format, and the abundance of surface-level cyberpunk flavor text meant that the key questions of the story -- of human nature, of the boundaries between man and machine, and of an ethical life under an unethical system -- often get lost. A great concept, buoyed by clever writing and a unique setting, but not quite enough to sink your teeth into.

The Body Scout is a sharp and witty sci-fi noir fiction set in the all-too-possible future. It is a mystery which follows Kobo, a former baseball player turned scout turned murder investigator who is hunting down who murdered his best friend in the middle of a baseball game.

Michael’s world building was on point. It read more like a sci-fi fantasy where I could picture the world vividly. The Body Scout is more plot driven but characters were strong and intriguing. Now... if you watch a fair amount of sci-fi then, the storyline was very “been there done that” (basically Altered Carbon) and the baseball elements were a bit overdone. There were a few interesting twist but overall it was pretty average. A quirky fun read but I felt like it need more of a gutsy punch!

Read if you like sci-fi, baseball and dystopia! The characters are widely entertaining and there are some smarty witty moments throughout.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC eBook in return for an honest review.

Full disclosure - I am NOT a baseball fan. Based on the description alone, I was skeptical this book would be for me. But just like Moneyball, you don't need to be a fan of a game to appreciate its influence of culture and character. I was pleasantly surprised, and the narrative sucked me in right away. Part cyberpunk, part mystery, part dark dystopian sci-fi, it kept me guessing. It was an odd (in the good way!) and fun read.

Would definitely recommend this to cyberpunk fans looking for something with a different bent.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book. Like quite a few people have said, this is a weird book with a world of diverse and strange characters. This book was the good kind of weird that makes you keep turning the page, just to see where it goes next. I love baseball and sci-fi, so seeing them smashed together like this was fun. And then having those elements even more combined with a kind of noir-esque, cyberpunk mystery, I can honestly say that I've never read anything like this before.
The Body Scout has a fast pace and a unique style and I think it's a book that should be read, just to see what'll happen next.

I picked up Lincoln Michel’s The Body Scout as a sort of olive branch. Perhaps this novel about cyborgian baseball leagues and corporate greed would kickstart the process of changing my mind about America’s pastime. It didn’t. And for that reason, I think it’s safe to say your mileage with the book may vary. The Body Scout packages a plethora of good ideas into an intriguing novel, but the pieces don’t all quite fit together.

Kobo Zunz is a body scout. He recruits prospects for the Future Baseball League, an organization that pumps its players with experimental drugs meant to enhance their in-game performance. Kobo used to play for a separate league that allowed cyborgs–he has various mechanical upgrades himself, most notably an eye and a metal arm. Kobo’s adopted brother, JJ, plays for the Mets in the FBL. But when JJ Zunz collapses and practically dissolves on home plate, Kobo has to sift through baseball’s dark, corporate underbelly to figure out how and why JJ died.

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the good. The Body Scout has some really cool ideas. Players upgrade themselves for max performance. Drones disguised as animals deliver packages. Skyscrapers rotate so the megarich can buy penthouses with 24-hour sunlight exposure. Neanderthals have been genetically resurrected and live among homo sapiens. Gender has become a non-issue (though some people transition for financial gain, which is irksome and didn’t quite sit right with me). Lincoln Michel’s world introduces new hyper-futuristic (and oftentimes scary) ideas at a rapid clip, and it’s fun to tour his imaginative vision of our destructive capitalist society.

That’s all great. Home run. Baseball metaphor. But the book is so short that it’s hard to dive deep into any of these issues. Michel raises them, introduces them, but doesn’t truly grapple with the issues of this imagined future. The political and fiscal ramifications of this society’s choices feel like afterthoughts–and that’s fair to a point. The characters live in this world. But because they don’t truly explore the implications of these ideas imprinted on their world, it’s hard as a reader to feel connected to it. The Body Scout struggles to balance Michel’s love for baseball and his desire to lampoon our descent into a world of corporate tyranny.

The Body Scout offers some fascinating characters, but they have similar issues. Kobo’s former flame, Dolores, quickly reignites their long-over romance and joins his hunt for the killer. Okafor, a cop, helps Kobo in whatever way they can. Lila, a prospective member of an Edenist faction (Edenists eschew technological upgrades, believing to be emblematic of a diseased society) and a child, provides the most interesting insight into the world. She is shaped by her experiences with the Edensist and her mysterious relationship to the Zunz’s murder. A few supporting cast members–particularly two loan-collecting brutes named Wanda and Brenda–fill out the roster nicely. But to me, the characters almost all read as archetypes, and even during moments that were clearly intended as big reveals or turning points, I couldn’t connect with any of them.

In other words, The Body Scout loses its characters in a mixture of plot and setting. The story has to move forward by virtue of being a murder mystery. The setting has to be vivid, or the reader won’t get it. But without a well-rounded cast, it all jumbles together into a vaguely good mishmash of ideas that don’t blend as they should.

Perhaps the best example I can provide is the inclusion of baseball. The entire book exists within the orbit of futuristic baseball. For long stretches, however, baseball is just in the background. A game being played, a score mentioned. But it never breaks through to become the focus. It’s bogged down by a bevy of otherwise-good ideas that should’ve been doled out with better pacing.

While The Body Scout’s ideas resonated with me, it couldn’t quite keep me engaged. If you’re a sci-fi buff with a soft spot for baseball, though, you may find a lot to love here. I’ll leave you to make that decision for yourself. Let’s hope that, for you, Michel’s debut knocks everything out of the park.

There's something delightfully quirky about a noirish cyberpunk thriller about the shady side of major-league baseball. Quirkiness and cheekiness seem to be Lincoln Michel's stock in trade, and he pull them off tidily in his debut novel.

While I would have liked more character development--I never felt like I really got much insight into any of the characters, even and almost especially the narrator--I quite enjoyed this title. It's as much of a romp as something featuring a fair bit of dystopian-future gross body horror and sewer content can be, and, because it doesn't read like it's taking itself particularly seriously, I found it easy to hang on for the ride and have fun. I'm not at all into baseball, but I found the baseball content to be some of the most engaging parts of the book, perhaps because the narrator sometimes reveals a little more of himself to readers when thinking about the game.

This is a quick, fun read well suited to an autumn release. Michel wears his mashup of influences on his sleeve; while this doesn't make for the most original worldbuilding in history, it does result in a world that will feel familiar, immersive, and easily entertaining to fans of works like Transmetropolitan, George Saunders, and many assorted grim and gritty cyberpunk/biopunk/neo-noir mysteries and thrillers.

I received a free e-ARC of this title from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my review.

A debt, a death and later...a quest. Kobo has spent years changing his cybernetics, switching from one implant to the next. Stacking up medical debts here and there. While Zunz, his brother not by blood more by heart, rises up to become a renowned baseball player. Amidst Kobo's struggle to get through his insatiable desire for a better body, persistently mounting up credits and more persistent loan sharks a greater tragedy occurs: Zunz dies, murdered. Now he sets off to find the killer and what he uncovers is a completely different life he didn't know his brother lived.

Michel's synopsis intrigued me from the very beginning. It's been a while since I read anything sci-fi and this novel sounded like a very good bit of the genre. It is!

The first few pages immediately sucked me in. Kobo's sentiments are for the future but they resonate with us even today. The MC is flawed but has deep-set principles that make him interesting and amiable. I loved hearing his thoughts regarding the human body, thirst for betterment, people and our society. We see these insights all throughout the story and it gives the novel greater weight.

Futuristic tropes have always been at the top of my favourite genres list. Lincoln Michel's rendition of what he thinks tomorrow might bring is enthralling and very compelling. Like the usual dystopia, it is full of ‘what-ifs’ that make readers THINK.

Expert use of imagery also adds to the novel's charm. Family played a huge role in the story, mainly driving the characters' emotions. Its combining speculative fiction and detective work made me love the story more! These are two favourite genres of mine, and Michel served them exquisitely.

Thirsty for a cyborg-filled story? Bots? Superhuman body modifications? Revolution? Lincoln Michel has got if covered!

The Body Scout is one hell of a novel: fast-paced, immaculate and witty.

While it helps to know and enjoy baseball, know that baseball is only one theme in this interesting sci-fi novel. Kobo and his friend JJ Zunz grew up as besties and playing ball together. While Kobo flamed out, Zunz has been a star - and then he suddenly dies on the field during a playoff game. Kobo believes Zunz was murdered and this leads him into a morass of Big Pharma and other things. There's interesting world building and body modification but like all the best sci-fi there's also social commentary. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Not my usual genre but it's a good read.