Cybernetics, baseball, and murder all collide in this fast paced sci-fi thriller that is a genre bending must read!

Kobe, the main character, is flawed but you'll find yourself cheering him on through each new obstacle he faces. Lincoln Michel delivers a rich cast of characters that are unforgettable.

Highly recommend!

This has a fairly unusual sci-fi combo of corporate espionage and baseball (also unusual, in general). The description invokes Gibson's name, which makes me think of Cyberpunk. I'm sure I'd put it there, but it's good sci-fi. There's some interesting tech and characters, and I stayed engaged. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

This was a pretty fun read. I was looking for something a bit different to what I had developed a trend of reading and this was pretty perfect. A murder mystery mixed in with Scifi of buying boy parts. Don't we all look at ourselves and pick out certain aspects we would change if given the chance? This main character can actually do that. With just knowing that knowledge alone, I was intrigued. Beginning this story had me laughing and the more I read, the more intrigued I became. It isn't all humorous, but it is all pretty fun and wonderful.

This was... weird? Almost a little too weird? I hate DNFing ARCs but I just couldn't make it through this one.

Set in a future full of corporate and biological espionage, THE BODY SCOUT, by Lincoln Michel, follows Kobo, a struggling baseball scout and former baseball player himself who is obsessed with upgrading his own body with cybernetics whenever he can. Then he watches his baseball superstar brother, JJ Zunz, horrifically die at home plate in front of millions of viewers. Still reeling from the loss of his brother, he is recruited to investigate Zunz's death and finds himself deep in the underworld of questionable medical practices and big business corruption.
Michel has created a remarkably complex and fascinating world that is not just believable but a likely future for humanity. The amount of detail that Michel provides paints such a clear vision while keeping it as concise as possible so as not to slow the story down. The science of this world is interesting, sometimes a little icky, but always helpful in telling the story. Kobo, along with all of the the major supporting characters, are compelling to read about mostly because they all have unique imperfections that make them real, not just cardboard cutouts of people. And most all the them are selfish and opportunistic, which also make them more colorful and fun to read about. Some nice twists and unexpected revelations throughout the book,
THE BODY SCOUT is several things: a sci-fi thriller, a corporate espionage mystery, and satire of where our world could end up. All of those things together makes for a great read!

This was such a unique story and I did not expect to like it, but I ended up loving it.

In the future, you can buy body replacements to be the best, most optimal version of yourself. Corporations are taking advantage and playing dirty to line their own pockets. Zobo sets out to find the truth about his friend, his employers, and everyone in New York.

There was a decent plot twist towards the end. This was a great work of science fiction and if you feel skeptical, give it a chance.

Weird, I have no other word to describe this book but weird., Weird in a good way.... I think.

IN the future you can replace your body parts with robotic/cyber parts. Kind of like upgraded plastic surgery. I kept reading thinking "why would anyone do that?" But why do people have the strange plastic surgery that they do.

I read the whole book (I am notorious for not finishing books I don't like). So that is an automatic 3 stars.
I could picture the people and the world they lived in. So we go up another star
I could not relate to the characters and could not involve myself in the story - oops, down a star
This was sci-fi and I am more of a fantasy not pure sci-fi gal, so I need to give this book the benefit of the doubt.

Ok, you can see where this review is going. I have no idea how to review this. The writing was good, the story was really interesting, but it was not my cup of tea.

The Body Scout is the first book/story by Lincoln Michel that I've read. The plot description made this book sound interesting and one that I might enjoy, and I'm happy to report that my assumption was correct. I really enjoyed this story and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys science fiction. It is worth pointing out that the note in the description that this book is "perfect for readers of William Gibson" is correct; if you like Gibson books, you would be crazy to not read this book. Will recommend that my library buy a copy.


Thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing an early copy for me to review.

I was craving a science fiction novel to balance my reading diet. This one seemed intriguing, but there was…baseball. Crap. Even for someone like me who doesn’t care for competitive sports, baseball is still at the bottom of every list. Just a weird, weird, inexplicably popular game. So much so that it has been dragged all the way into the future, albeit somewhat tweaked.
Actually the game itself hasn’t changed much, the players have. Much like the rest of the world in this disturbingly imaginative future, (almost) everyone has gone mad for body modifications and alterations. The tech has finally gotten to the place where the original body plan is a mere suggestion and people are suping themselves up and tweaking themselves out as much as they can, imagination and money being the only limits. And, of course, for athletes who have been enhancing themselves up for ages anyway, this is positively de rigueur. So that Kobo, our protagonist and self improvement junkie, isn’t really surprised when his adopted brother, a professional baseball player, calls him up out of the blue seemingly all messed up. But he is surprised when this brother turns up dead. And upset. Which, along with the promise of much needed funds, is a sufficient motivation for Kobo to investigate this murder when he is hired to do so by the league’s owner.
So this is a murder investigation thriller. Done by an ambitious amateur. In a world where the truth much like people is almost infinitely malleable. And for all the technological and scientific advantages that have been made, some fundamental facts about people, greed, ambition, arrogance, etc. remain same as they ever were.
What Kobo stumbles into is essentially the next step in the evolution or devolution of the species, a journey as dangerous and terrifying for him as it is exciting for the readers.
This futuristic (potentially cyberpunk?) adventure was a pretty fun read and a most impressive debut for the author. Dynamic pacing and all around good writing, especially when it comes to characters, who came out as complex psychologically as they are biotechnologically. Granted, for me it was all about genetics gone wild and not at all about baseball, but overall surprisingly readable for a sportscentric story. So, if like me, you don’t care about grown men in silly outfits chasing a ball in accordance to seemingly arbitrary rules for insane amounts of money, you can still enjoy this book. I’d imagine most science fiction fans would. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

Book Review for The Body Scout

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Zobo is a hunter of body parts, an extremely gifted, sneaky, and humorous character to follow. Imagine The Corpse Bride meets The Island starting Ewan McGregor. That’s the best combo I could think of when I finished this novel.

This to me was a more fun, more accessible version of Necromancer by William Gibson, plus Cyberpunk, take away outward cynicism and replace it with lols. Basically Snow Crash by Stephenson less (but still very) weird. . I'm curious to see what the masses make of this book. It takes place in the not so near future. A immature man starts off on a journey of revenge and meets many strange characters along the way. The strangest being himself! Dun dun dun... More to come closer to release date. I enjoyed it though immensely! 4 out of 5!