I appreciated another story set in the Haden Universe. For those who have read "Locked In" be prepared for a lot of repeated information, given that this is billed as a stand-alone story. It works, but I would not suggest reading them back to back like I did - too much recapped information.

I appreciated that there was some additional world development with sporting events and environments. Vann's character stood out as more likable in this story, perhaps because we learn of her backstory in the first novel.

I liked the plot of this one more, given the depth and breadth of the mystery. And the kitten, Donut. He was the best.

I am VERY curious about the twins, and I hope there's another story to come. ( )

Fast paced novel surrounding the mysterious death of a professional athlete in a near-future where paralyzed humans roam the world (and play pro sports) using state of the art robot bodies.

Entertaining but less thought provoking than the first book in this series. ( )

Quite enjoyable, but too short. ( )

Mix Philip K. Dick's stories like (The Minority Report) , Isaac Assimov's detective Robot Series, and the pop thrillers of Michael Crichton, Lincoln Child and others and you'll get John Scalzi's Head On, the sequel to Scalzi's 2014’s Lock In.

It's a quirky, violent, often funny and complex sequel to 2014’s Lock In, centering around the character Chris Shane, who has Haden’s Syndrome, a disease where the infected is “locked in” their body. When the epidemic spread when Chris was a child, Hadens switched to living in a newly developed virtual space called the Agora. To interact with the physical world they use threeps ( nicknamed for C-3PO from Star Wars), basically robots they can wifi into. Over the years, the game Hilketa was developed, wherein Hadens try to rip the heads of each other’s threep’s off in a violent sport that’s sort of a cross between soccer, rugby, and Robot Wars. No joke. It's a brilliant concept and an interesting commentary on the often violent nature of sports.

In Lock In, Scalzi introduced readers to Chris, a Haden FBI agent who is partnered with senior Leslie Vann. The pair investigates the murder of an Integrator, which led to a larger conspiracy. In Head On, the pair is once again tasked with investigating the death of a Haden athlete named Duane Chapman. Chapman is a player of Hilketa. His death is a blow to the rising sport, which is attempting to become a worldwide entity. As Shane and Vann dig into the athlete’s death, they find a variety of suspects and are ultimately led to a full-blown conspiracy involving shady organizations and the future of the Hilketa league itself.

Without giving too much of the plot away, Scalzi has a lot to say in this book about how athletes often participate in a corrupt system where their sport is often rigged either intentionally or unintentionally. Being a big baseball fan, I couldn't help but think about how baseball players and organizations have abused steroids or have even rigged games to win bets (just look at the The events of theThe 1919 World Series where the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers, allegedly led by Arnold Rothstein, to throw the World Series games). Scalzi says a lot about sports culture in this book: It s violence, its greed, its elitism. And it is super fascinating.

The novel is a breezy, fast-paced, compelling mystery that was a bit more of traditional mystery thriller narrative than I was anticipating. However, I still loved it. I also think it is an intriguing addition to the world that Scalzi set up in Lock In, and it serves as a good parable for how the world deals with — and takes advantage of — marginalized communities (not all humans are fond of Hadens in Scalzi's future world). If you're a fan of Scalzi's work and the Lock In series., you'll dig this too.



( )

In the near-future world set up by Lock In, some of Earth's population are paralyzed and are only able to interact with the world through robot bodies or by stepping inside another human known as an "Integrator." In this world, a sport known as Hilketa becomes popular, which features these paralyzed people (known as Hadens) on the field in their robots ("threeps") basically using weapons to beat each other up with and score points by removing each others' heads and running it through goal posts. When one of the players dies during the game, the FBI are brought in, which gives us a chance to see Haden FBI Agent Chris Shane in action again.

This book had a lot of what made Lock In so amazing, with the same easy-to-read and smoothly flowing writing and dialog, the same intriguing world where the prejudice toward Hadens emulates both racial prejudices and bias against disabled people, and the same complex conspiracies behind the initial death. I didn't like it quite as much as I did the first book, but only subtracted half a star for this sequel.

In the first book, there was a major legislation on the horizon that would seriously financially hinder most Hadens, basically cutting off most government funding for them. The looming question of whether or not it will pass plays a role in the book. This book, set about a year later, shows some of the downfall after it did pass, and many Hadens--and by extension many companies that were involved with Hadens in some way--are worried about their financial future. It was interesting to see how the dust had started to settle after that decision.

We saw a lot more of the housemates that Chris first met in Lock In, and I really liked the way they added to the story. There were some fun scenes and conversations involving a cat that brought smiles to my face. And speaking of smiles, while I was reading this book, my husband made multiple "apply directly to the forehead" references, which made it all the more noticeable (and amusing) to me when I caught a reference in the book (I won't presume to say for sure that it was intentional by Scalzi...but the way it was worded does not seem like it could be coincidence).

The mystery as a whole, and some of the rabbit trails the agents followed to solve it, wasn't as enthralling to me as in the first book, which is the main reason for my slightly lower rating. However, overall, it was still a lot of fun to read. I would be quite happy if Scalzi decided to write a third book in this world. I would recommend this book for fans of near-future sci-fi and for mystery lovers, and while I will say that it's probably very possible to read this book without having yet read the previous book, Lock In was really good and explained the whole Haden syndrome more anyway, so I'd still suggest starting there. ( )