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Lock In by John ScalziMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The world was hit by a bad flu. You either recovered with some alterations to your brain's wiring/chemistry, died, or ended up locked-in ... where you body was non-operational but your brain/consciousness was fully functional. This disease became known as Hayden's Syndrome, named after the First Lady of the United States, who was the first well known victim. Eventually they develop technology to allow those locked-in to use an computer neural network implanted in the brain to transfer their consciousness into robot bodies. It was also found that those who survived and recovered from the syndrome's brain had been altered enough that if they got the implants as well, they could host lock-ins and become hosts for temporary bits of time. These hosts are called integrator.
Chris Shane is the son of a very wealthy family, who contracted Haydens when he was 2 and became another very famous lock-in patient. Now grown, he, through the use of a three-p (the nickname for the robotic transport systems) has graduated college and become an FBI agent.
His first week on the job he gets pulled in with his partner into the investigation of the deaths several integrator that appear to maybe at the hands of a client. Meanwhile, new legislation in regards to Hayden's victims is causing a large protest to be organized in the nation's capital that is only complicating things. Who or what is killing the integrators and why? That's what Chris and his partner need to figure out.
*
I felt very flat at the end of the book. I think part of it is that the three other books I have done by Scalzi had very strong points of humor, even in heavy situations. This did not. When the book was done all I could think was that I probably would have enjoyed it more had it been written by anyone else so that I didn't have the preconceived feeling that there should be SOME humor.
another thing that I noticed with this book (which I did as an audio) was that I noticed a lot of "He said/I said/Character said" after sentences of dialog. This is not something I noticed when I physically read the books, but was very strong in the audios.
That being said, I also expected more sci-fi from this book, given that it was written by John Scalzi. Instead it was really a murder/crime story that happens to have robots/androids. And while the technology involving the androids is critical to the story, it is still a more a murder mystery than a science fiction book.
I honestly do not think I will look to get the next book, but if I do, I will actually read it instead of listening.
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