Head On by John Scalzi (Lock In #2)

Head On by John Scalzi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jacket blurb:  John Scalzi returns with Head On, the standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.

Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth―and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
 
Read as an audio book. Read for December book group.

I will note first and foremost, please read Lock In before Head On. Lock In does provide the necessary background information and world building that continues in Head On.

This is going to be a short review - I greatly enjoyed this scifi-mystery selection. Scalzi's writing just pulls you along and with Wheaton narrating, it's an engaging and fun "read".

I thought the mystery set against the sport of Hilketa provided a good backdrop and further look into the world of the Hadens (explained in book 1), I loved getting to know Chris's parents and his flatmates better, Chris's FBI partner Vann is a hoot, the addition of the cat as a witness was great, and add in Hadens who think they can do things without ramifications made for one heck of a read.

Recommended. Highly recommend the audio book.



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